ZEN AND ZEN MASTERS
Walking in Zen Sitting in Zen 05
Fifth Discourse from the series of 16 discourses - Walking in Zen Sitting in Zen by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
The first question:
Osho,
It feels that to be a witness is also a kind of thought. So what is the difference between the witness and a thought of the witness?
Witnessing is not a thought, but you can start thinking about witnessing, you can make it a thought. The moment you make it a thought, it is no longer witnessing. Either it is witnessing or it is a thought; it cannot be both together.
When you are witnessing, you are not thinking that you are witnessing. If you are thinking that you are witnessing, this is not witnessing at all; it is another kind of thought. If the witnessing is simple, there is no thought of witnessing at all. If the thoughts are just passing in front of your vision and you are witnessing them, and no idea arises in you that “I am witnessing,” then it is pure witnessing. It is not a thought at all, it is a state of no-thought, no-mind. You are simply reflecting whatever is passing by.
The moment you say, “Aha! This is witnessing. So I am witnessing. This is what meditation is; this is awareness,” you have missed the point. You have fallen back into the mud of the mind. You are no longer a witness. You have become identified. Witnessing cannot be reduced to a thought.
But your problem is significant. It is encountered by almost every meditator. We have become so habituated to witnessing in a wrong way. We think that we witness. We judge, we evaluate and think that we are witnessing. We think that we witness; it is not witnessing. We are associated with a wrong kind of witnessing and that idea lingers for a long time. We have become so conditioned to immediately reducing every experience into a thought. We never allow any experience to remain just a pure experience, even for a few moments.
You come across a beautiful roseflower in the garden. The moment you see it, almost instantly you say inside, “How beautiful!” You can’t let that beauty sink in. The thought of beauty becomes a barrier. The moment you say, “How beautiful!” you have already started comparing it with other roses that you have seen in the past. You have started comparing it with all that you have heard about roses. You are no longer seeing this rose. You are missing its suchness. You have gone into the past. You are searching in your memory to find how many roses you have seen before and to declare: “This is the best one.” But this rose is no longer there in your awareness. Your awareness has become very clouded. So much smoke has come from the past, so much dust has arisen that your mirror is no longer reflecting the beauty. You are not now-here.
Allow the rose and its fragrance, its beauty, its dance in the wind and the sun, to penetrate you. Don’t bring your mind in. There is no need to say it is beautiful. If it is, there is no need to say it; if it is not, then it is false to say it. Either it is or it is not. Creating a thought about it in any way is creating ripples in your consciousness. It is like throwing a pebble into a silent lake. Just a moment ago it was reflecting the moon and the stars so beautifully, but your pebble has created ripples; the moon and the stars have all become distorted. That’s what happens whenever a thought arises in you: your consciousness is disturbed, it starts wavering. Waves start arising in you. Now you are not capable of reflecting that which is.
You will have to learn this new art of seeing things without judging; of seeing things without verbalizing; of seeing things without evaluating. See the rose, the bird on the wing, the night full of stars; see the river passing by, see the traffic. Listen to the songs of the birds or a train passing by. Start learning a new art of just being reflective, not bringing any thought in, not saying anything at all.
It will take a little time – old habits die hard – but one day it happens. If you persist, if you are patient enough and if you go on and on working at cleaning your inner world, one day it happens. The benediction of that day is immense. In fact, that day you are born anew. You start seeing the same world with new eyes because your eyes are so clear. Your mirror reflects so deeply, so totally, without distortion, that trees – the same trees that you have seen before thousands of times – are far greener than they have ever been. And their greenness is no ordinary greenness. It is luminous, it is radiating light.
It is the same world, the same people. A Buddha, a Jesus, walks in the same world – the same trees, the same rocks, the same people, the same sky – but he lives in paradise and you live in hell. The difference is created by the mind.
It will take a little while to drop this mind. It has dominated you for so long that in the beginning it is difficult to suddenly disassociate yourself from it. It clings. It can’t leave its power over you so easily. Hence, it goes on coming in from the back door.
You are sitting silently and a beautiful stillness arises. The mind comes in from the back door and says, “Look, how beautiful this moment is!” And it has taken you away. It came so silently, without making any noise and you were caught by it in such a subtle way, that you could not have been aware of it. You rejoiced, you thanked the mind, but it has destroyed your stillness.
When stillness is really true there is no mind to say anything about it. When witnessing is true you are simply a witness. You don’t think, “I am witnessing.” There is no “I,” there is no thinking; there is only the witness – because all thinking and the “I” have all become contents, objects of your witnessing. And witnessing itself cannot be its own object. No mirror can reflect itself. Your eyes cannot see themselves. Your witness cannot witness itself, that’s impossible.
Your question is relevant. You will have to be very, very careful, watchful. It is a razor’s edge. One has to be very cautious because if you fall, you fall into a deep abyss. The ordinary people cannot fall; they have nowhere to fall to – they are already at the bottom. But as you start moving higher, the possibility of falling down grows every day. When you reach the Everest of your consciousness, just a little slip, just a little wrong step and you will go rolling down into a deep abyss.
The greater the meditation, the more is the danger of losing it – naturally. Only a rich man can be robbed, not a poor man. That’s why a beggar can sleep under a tree in the afternoon with the noise of the traffic and the marketplace; nothing disturbs him. He can sleep anywhere, he can sleep deeply. He has nothing to lose – no fear.
Once, at night, a king came across a very strange man, a very luminous man, standing alert underneath a tree. He was so silent, so quiet and so alert. The king was curious: “Why is he standing there?” From his appearance he looked like a monk, one who has renounced the world. The king was a very cultured man and he thought, “It is not right to disturb him.” But it happened every night.
That was the routine of the king: to go around the capital at night in disguise to see how things were going; whether the guards were on duty or not; mixing and meeting with people; going into the hotels and the theaters to find out how things were going – whether things were all right or not.
Every night he would come across this man. He saw this man so many times that it became impossible to resist the temptation. One day he approached him and asked, “Excuse me, sir, I should not interfere – you look so silent – but why do you go on standing there the whole night? What are you guarding? Is there any treasure underneath this tree?”
The mystic laughed. He said, “Not underneath this tree, but within me there is a treasure and I am watching it. It is growing every day and is becoming bigger and bigger, hence I have to be more and more alert.”
The mystic continued: “You can sleep, you have nothing to lose. I cannot, I have much to lose. If I can remain awake I have much to gain.”
The king was very impressed. He asked the mystic to come to his palace – he invited him. The monk agreed. The king was a little puzzled: a monk agreeing so soon, without even refusing once, is not thought to be right. A monk should say: “No, I cannot come to the palace. I have renounced the world. It is all futile. It is all dream, illusion, maya. I cannot come back to the world. I am happy wherever I am.”
But this monk didn’t say anything. He was a Zen master. The king started thinking in his mind, “Have I been deceived by this man? Was he simply standing there every night just to ensnare me?”
But now it was too late; he had invited him.
The mystic came to the palace and lived with the king. Of course, he lived more joyously than the king because he had no worries, no cares about the empire, no problems or anxieties. He enjoyed good food. The king had given him the best room in the palace – and he lived just like an emperor.
Six months passed. Now the king was boiling within and had to ask him, “What kind of renunciation is this? You are enjoying everything – servants, good food, good clothes and a beautiful palace.”
And one day, while they were walking in the garden, he said to the mystic, “Can I ask you a question? Forgive me if you feel offended. This is my question: What is the difference now, between me and you?”
The mystic looked at the king and said, “Why did you wait for six months? You could have asked me this question on the very first night. The moment you invited me and I accepted your invitation, this question arose in your mind. Why did you wait for six months? You tortured yourself unnecessarily. I was waiting for it at any moment. There is no question of my feeling offended – it is a natural question.
“There is a difference, but it is very subtle. If you really want to know the difference, come with me. I cannot tell you here. I will tell you in a certain space, at a certain place. Come along with me.”
They both went outside the city. The king said, “Now can you tell me?”
The mystic said, “Come along.”
When they were crossing the boundary of his empire – it was evening – the king said, “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Now this is the end of my empire. We are entering somebody else’s kingdom and I would like to be answered. What is your answer? I am feeling very tired.”
The mystic replied, “My answer is that I am going. Are you coming with me or not? I am not going back.”
The king said, “How can I come with you? I have my whole empire, my wife, my children. How can I come with you?”
The mystic said, “That’s the difference. But I am going!”
Again the king saw the light, the beauty of the man and fell at his feet. He said, “Come back! I am just stupid. These past six months, I have missed. I have been thinking things which are really ugly. Forgive me and come back.”
The mystic said, “There is no problem for me. I can come back, but you will think the same again. It is better for me now to go ahead – that story is finished, that chapter is closed – so that you can remember the difference.”
The witness lives in the world just like a mirror, reflecting everything. He may be in a hut, he may be in a palace; it makes no difference. What difference does it make to a mirror, whether the mirror is in a hut or in a palace? What difference does it make to the mirror whether the mirror is reflecting beautiful diamonds or just ordinary stones? It makes no difference to the mirror.
Witnessing is the art of transcending the world.
Witnessing is the very essence of Zen, of religion itself. But don’t make it a thought – it is not a thought at all. Thoughts have to be witnessed. Even if the thought of witnessing arises, witness that thought. Remember that it is not witnessing, it is only a thought – it has to be witnessed. It is there in front of you. You are not it.
The witness is irreducible to any thought; it always goes on sliding back. You cannot catch hold of it through any thought. It can witness each and every thought, the thought of witnessing included; hence, it can never itself become a thought.
Next time when you are meditating remember it. Don’t start enjoying the thought: “This is a beautiful moment. My mind is silent, my being is still. This is witnessing!” The moment you say it, you have lost it.
The second question:
Osho,
Please say something more about the man of Zen.
The man of Zen is very ordinary – extraordinarily ordinary. He is so ordinary that there is every possibility if you meet him, you will not be able to recognize him. He lives just like you, eats like you, sleeps like you. He is in every way just like you. As far as his outside is concerned, he is not different from you at all.
The difference is certainly there, but that difference is inner. He has an insight, he has a clarity. He has eyes and you are blind. He is awake and you are asleep. You are drunk: drunk with greed, drunk with lust, drunk with anger, ambition, ego.
The man of Zen is simply not drunk; he is in his senses. He walks consciously, he sits consciously: walking in Zen, sitting in Zen. He is not in any way special. He is not like other so-called saints. He will not lie down on a bed of thorns or on a bed of nails, he will not stand on his head. He is not stupid, he is not an exhibitionist. He will not walk naked in the streets. He is not mad, he is not neurotic. He lives in a very ordinary way, in a very normal way.
That’s why it is the most difficult thing to recognize the man of Zen. You can recognize a saint who walks on water – naturally, it is so obvious that he is special. But a man of Zen does not walk on water. He does not perform any miracles. He does not play any kind of egoistic games. He is not an ego, he is not even a person. He is just a presence, a nonentity. He is absolute nothingness. Only when one is absolute nothingness, is one full of awareness. Whatever he does, he does with totality. Only a man who is not drunk can do things totally. Otherwise one remains partial. Only a part goes on doing something and at the same time, other parts may be going against it, being destructive. You may be creating something with one hand and destroying it with the other. A man who is drunk does not know where he is going. He thinks he is on the right path, but he is dreaming.
Barry Higgins, a traveling salesman, was driving home to London one afternoon after a hard-drinking lunch with a prospective customer. Through the rearview mirror he spied the flashing blue light of a police car. A shiver went up his spine and he grasped the steering wheel tightly to steady his driving. The blue light approached, a siren wailed and a police car overtook him with a hand signaling him to pull in and stop.
Barry was nervous as he saw the policeman get out of his car. His breath was heavy and his hands were moist on the steering wheel. He wondered what he was going to say.
The policeman came up and bent to speak through the car window. “Ay, ay, now then, had a few, eh?”
Barry could not stop himself and blurted, “Ohh…g…good onsternoon, afterble, I…I’m not as think as you drunk I am!”
The man of Zen is absolutely conscious – no greed, no anger, no jealousy, no ambition. These are all intoxicants, these are all drugs; they go on keeping you sleepy. It is a miracle how you manage your life with so many poisons running in your bloodstream, in your very being. That is the only difference; otherwise, from the outside, you will not know.
There are other so-called saints who make outside differences because there is no inner difference. They have to stand naked, they have to torture their bodies, they have to go on fasting. They have to distort their bodies, cripple their bodies. They have to do something that makes them more special than you, “holier than thou.”
A Zen man is not “holier than thou.” He has no idea of being in any way higher than you. He is simply living his nature.
Yoka says:
The man of Zen goes alone…
That is his first characteristic. He is not part of a mob psychology. He is not Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, nor is he Jewish. He is not Indian, Japanese, nor Chinese – he cannot be. He never belongs to any crowd. He is alone. He is a rebel. He lives according to his light. He does not follow, he does not imitate. He has reached the goal.
What is the goal? – the goal is not somewhere outside you. It is not there, far away like a star. It is within you, it is your own interiority. He has entered his own interiority. And the man who has reached his goal…
…can play on the path of nirvana.
His life becomes a play. He is playful, he is not serious. He cannot be serious; the whole of life is a divine play, leela. He is part of it. He is just playing a role. He acts the role as beautifully as he can, as perfectly as he can, but he knows that the whole world is a big stage, a great drama – but nothing more. So he is not serious about it.
The man of Zen has natural manners and is harmonious.
He does not pretend to be special, he has natural manners. He is very human, utterly human. His humanity is superb, intense, absolute. He does not claim any sacredness and because he does not claim it, he is sacred – he is harmonious. He is not divided within himself, he is not in a constant fight with himself, he is not in a constant civil war. He has a melody, a music. If you sit by his side you will be able to listen to the music.
Just the other day, Navanit asked: “Osho, whenever I come close to you, I immediately smell a certain fragrance. What fragrance is it?” I don’t use any perfume – I cannot. Navanit is a doctor, he knows; hence the question has become more pertinent to him. He says that he always finds the same fragrance whenever he is close to me.
That fragrance has nothing to do with any perfume. It is the fragrance of harmony, it is the music. It expresses itself in a multidimensional way. Sometimes you will hear it as a silent sound like a murmur: the wind passing through the pine trees, or the sound of running water. Sometimes you will hear it as music and sometimes you will feel it as a smell, a beautiful fragrance. Sometimes you will see it as an aura, a light, very mysterious.
But the man of Zen simply lives in harmony and out of harmony all these things are manifested.
His spirit is simple, clean, pure and sincere…. His Zen, which no one sees, is treasure beyond all value.
You can see his body, you cannot see his Zen. You cannot see his inner meditativeness, you cannot see his awareness unless you become aware yourself. You can know only that much which you have experienced.
Navanit, you are blessed that you are feeling a certain fragrance. That means you are reaching to a certain depth, a certain height in your being.
His Zen, which no one sees, is treasure beyond all value. This jewel, rare and of incalculable value, never changes however one uses it. And others can freely benefit from it on all occasions.
The man of Zen is always overflowing with joy. You can share it. He is a giver: he gives delight, he gives joy, he gives beauty, he gives truth. He radiates truth, he radiates godliness, but so silently, without any declaration. He goes on pouring his blessings into existence. He is a blessing to the world.
The third question:
Osho,
I know my love stinks, so why do I cling to the smell?
We live according to the past; our lives are rooted in the dead past, we are conditioned by the past. The past is very powerful, that’s why you go on living in a certain pattern. Even if it stinks, you will go on repeating it. You don’t know what else to do; you have become conditioned. It is a mechanical phenomenon. And this is not only so with you, it is so with almost every human being – unless he becomes a buddha.
To become a buddha means to get rid of the past and to live in the present. The past is immense, very huge, enormous, of millions of lives. You have lived in a certain way. Now, being here, you may have become aware that your love stinks, but that awareness is also not very deep; it is very superficial. If it becomes really deep, if it penetrates to the very core of your being, you will immediately jump out of it.
It is as if your house is on fire you will not ask anybody how to get out of it. You will not consult the Encyclopedia Britannica; you will not wait for some wise man to come and tell you; you will not consider whether it is appropriate to jump out of the window or not – you won’t bother about anything. Even if you are taking a bath you will jump naked out of the window; you won’t even bother about clothes. When the house is on fire and your life is at risk, now everything else is secondary.
If your love stinks – this has become your experience – then you will just come out of it. You will not simply ask a question, you will jump out of it. But I think that it is just an intellectual idea because each time you are in love, some misery arises; each time there is some conflict, some struggle, some fight, some jealousy, some possessiveness. So you have started taking an intellectual standpoint: “My love stinks, so why do I cling to the smell?” – because it is not yet really an existential experience for you.
And it is your own smell. One becomes accustomed to one’s own smell. That’s why when people are alone they don’t experience that smell, they experience it only when they are together with somebody.
When you are in love, you start showing your real face. Love is a mirror. The other starts functioning as a mirror. Every relationship becomes a mirror. Alone, you don’t experience your own smell – you cannot; one becomes immune to it. You have lived with it so long, how can you smell it? It is only with the other that you start feeling that he stinks and he starts feeling that you stink. And the fight starts… That is the story of all the couples all over the world.
“Where are you going with that goat, Juan?” asked the policeman.
“I’m taking him home to keep as a pet!” replied Juan.
“In the house?”
“Sure thing.”
“But what about the smell?”
“So what? He ain’t gonna mind the smell!”
Your own smell is not disturbing to you. In fact, if it suddenly disappears you will feel a little jolted; you will feel a little uprooted. You will not feel your natural self; you will feel something has gone wrong.
If you love and there is no jealousy, you will start wondering whether you love or not. What kind of love is this? There seems to be no jealousy! You love a man and if he goes with another woman once in a while, you don’t make much fuss about it. You take it for granted – it is perfectly good for a change. And if your man is happy, why not let him be happy? You love him. If you really love him you will respect his happiness too. He is not going forever.
In fact, if once in a while couples are allowed a little freedom, they will not separate; divorces will drop in the world. Divorce exists only because marriage is too tight. Let marriage be a little more relaxed and divorce will disappear. Divorce is only a by-product of marriage. The tighter the marriage system, the more divorce becomes an absolute need. If divorce is not allowed, then you have double lives: one to show to the society and one to live.
It is because of marriage that prostitution exists in the world. The whole blame goes to the marriage system. If people are a little more loving and less jealous, if they understand nature, it is simple. You eat the same food every day; you get fed up with it and once in a while you would like to go to the hotel. The hotel food may be worse than what you get at home, but even that is good – at least that makes your home food look better. When you come back the next day you feel so relieved that you are back home and you are so happy to have the same food again!
The more man’s mind is understood, the more and more marriage will have to be made a little relaxed. It is perfectly okay to give a few days off in marriage. The woman should be allowed to have her boyfriends and the man should be allowed to have his girlfriends – at least, just as you have Sunday religion, a Sunday marriage! You will be surprised that your own wife looks far better. Again a honeymoon starts – a mini honeymoon. You again start from ABC.
And being with many women and with many men does not destroy marriage – no, not at all. It is a very nonsensical idea that has prevailed over humanity: that it is destructive to marriage and family. It is not so – it is very supportive. It will help the family to be more joyous, less quarrelsome. Otherwise, the woman is constantly spying on the husband and the husband is constantly spying on the woman. What love can exist between two persons who are constantly at each other’s throats?
Yes, your love stinks, as everybody else’s love stinks, but you feel it only when you are in a relationship. You have not yet felt that it really has something to do with you. Deep down you still feel that there must be something wrong with the other. That’s how the mind functions; it throws the responsibility on the other. It accepts itself and it is always finding fault in others.
Several people are sitting in the front row of a movie theater. The show has already begun when suddenly there is a terrible smell.
One of the spectators turns to the man sitting beside him and asks, “Did you shit in your trousers?”
The man beside him answers, “Yes, why?”
People accept themselves totally! Whatever they are doing is right: “Why? What is wrong in it?” They are his own trousers, so who are you to interfere? And freedom is everybody’s birthright!
If your love stinks, try to find out what exactly it is that stinks. It is not love, it is something else. Love itself has a fragrance; it can’t stink, it is a lotus flower. Something else must be in it – jealousy, possessiveness. But you have not mentioned jealousy and possessiveness. You are hiding them. Love never stinks, it cannot; that is not the nature of love. Please try to see exactly what it is that creates the trouble. I am not saying to repress it. All that is needed is a clarity about it – what it is.
If it is jealousy, I would only suggest one thing: be more watchful of your jealousy. When it arises next time, rather than becoming mad, close your doors, sit silently, sit in meditation, watch your jealousy. See exactly what it is. It will surround you like smoke, dirty smoke. It will suffocate you. You would like to go out and do something. But don’t do anything. Just be in a state of non-doing because anything done in a moment of jealousy is going to be destructive. Just watch. I am not saying repress it because that is again doing something.
People are either expressive or repressive and both ways are wrong. If you express, you become destructive to the other person. Whoever is your victim will suffer and is going to take revenge. He may not take revenge consciously, but unconsciously it is going to happen.
Just a few months ago, Krishna Bharti fell in love with a woman. Nothing extraordinary about it, but Deeksha went mad. Deeksha could not accept the idea. For centuries we have been told that if a man loves you or a woman loves you and the man or the woman goes to somebody else, that is a rejection of you.
That is utter nonsense. It is not rejection; in fact, it is just the opposite. If a man loves the woman and he enjoys the woman, he starts fantasizing how it will be with other women. It is really the joy that this woman has given him that triggers his fancy. It is not that he is rejecting this woman. It is really an indication that this woman has been such a nourishment that he would like to see and know how other women are. If a little rope is given he is not going to go very far, he will come back because with the other woman it may be novelty. It will be something new, but it can’t be that nourishing because there will not be any intimacy. It will have something empty about it. It will be sex without love.
Love needs time to grow, it needs intimacy to grow. It needs a really long time. It is not a seasonal flower that blooms within three, four weeks, but then within three, four weeks it is gone. It is a long, long process of intimacy. Slowly, slowly two persons melt and merge into each other, then it becomes nourishing. The other woman or the other man cannot be nourishing. It may be just an adventure, a thrill. But suddenly the feeling will arise – it is bound to arise – that it is good fun, but it is not nourishing. And the person will be back.
Krishna Bharti would have been back, but Deeksha went mad. She behaved just like any other woman. But I was waiting… Sooner or later she was going to take revenge. Now she is taking revenge. Krishna Bharti fell ill, he was in hospital and Deeksha had a little freedom. She fell in love with her own handyman! He really proved handy! Now K.B. is in hell.
There is no need to be so worried about it. I have sent K.B. a message: “Wait, don’t be worried. Just let her take revenge. It is good that the unconscious burden is finished.”
If we understand each other a little more, if we understand human nature a little more, there should be no jealousy. But it is a past heritage of centuries.
So I cannot say that you can drop it right now. You will have to meditate over it. Whenever it possesses you, meditate over it. Slowly, slowly the meditation will create a distance between you and the jealousy. The more the distance, the less jealousy will arise. One day, when there is no jealousy, your love releases such a fragrance that no flower can compete with it. All flowers are poor compared to the flowering of love.
But your love is crippled because of jealousy, possessiveness and anger. Remember: it is not love that stinks because I have seen people who think it is love that stinks so they close up, they become closed; they stop loving. That’s what has happened to millions of monks and nuns down the ages; they became closed to love, they dropped the whole idea of love. Rather than dropping jealousy, which would have been a revolution, rather than dropping possessiveness, which would have been something of immense value, they dropped love. That is easy, that is not much; anybody can do that. To be a monk or to be a nun is very easy, but to love and not to be jealous; to love and not to be possessive; to love and let the other have the whole freedom is really a great achievement. Only then will you feel love and its fragrance.
The fourth question:
Osho,
What do you think? Is Jesus coming back to earth again as he had promised or not?
Once a man becomes awakened he cannot come back. He promises out of his compassion, but it is not possible. It is not possible because it is against the law of life. Jesus has promised to come back; Buddha also has promised to come back; Krishna has also promised to come back. Nobody has come yet and nobody is going to come back. It is against the law of life.
They promise because of their compassion, their love. They promise because they see your misery, they see your sad state of affairs, they see your tears. So they promise and their promise fulfills a certain purpose. Because of their promise you go on remembering them and that remembrance helps you. Because of their promise you go on connecting yourself to them, surrendering to them and that surrendering helps. But they cannot fulfill their promise.
Once a man is awakened there is no possibility of his being born again. One can be born only if something in him has still remained unconscious. Life is an opportunity to become conscious. It is a school, a training school, where people become centered, rooted, integrated. Once they have become integrated, once they have attained self-realization, they cannot be allowed back into the school. They disappear into the universal. They become part of existence.
So the first thing to be remembered: Jesus, Krishna or Buddha cannot come, but that does not mean that awakened people will not be there. There will be people like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna – of the same quality. Maybe their faces will not be the same and their bodies may not be the same…
Who would like to have a body like Jesus? You don’t know about Jesus, that’s why. He was only four feet five inches and a hunchback! It is said in the old scriptures that he was the ugliest man who has ever walked on the earth. Who would like to have his body?
But his disciples have said he was the most beautiful man. They saw his beauty; that is of the inner, hence there is no contradiction. The disciples saw the inner. They saw the real Jesus, the pillar of his consciousness. They saw his interiority. They communed with his being. And yes, there has never been such a beautiful man.
But the others saw only his body. The others could not see his soul, the others could not see his Zen. Only his disciples could see his Zen, his meditativeness, his love. Only his disciples could feel who he was, his divineness. They could say, “He is the most beautiful man who has ever walked on the earth.”
The descriptions are so contradictory that it has been a problem for the historians to decide what is right. Both are right; there is no need to decide. It is not a question of choosing this or that.
In the second place, even if it were possible for him to come back, do you think he is mad? What did you do with him when he was here? Just remember it; you tortured him as you have never tortured anybody else before him.
Socrates’ death was not a torture. He was given poison and within minutes he was dead. His death was a silent one.
The way Jesus was crucified is one of the most violent ways. Sometimes it takes three days for the person to die. Just nailing a man on a cross cannot kill him immediately. Slowly, slowly blood starts oozing from his body. Life starts oozing out, but very slowly. Even the weakest man will take at least six to eighteen hours to die. If the man is healthy he can take even three days or more. This is real hell! This is real torture!
He was dying on the cross and people were throwing stones and abuse at him. Soldiers were poking their spears into his body and blood was coming out. He was alive, he was thirsty and they would not give him water. He was crying for water. One hundred thousand people had gathered to see this torture.
What did you do with Jesus when he was here? I think that was enough to keep him away from this earth forever!
A new arrival knocked on heaven’s door. Jesus was on duty and he opened the door.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Adolf Hitler,” came the reply.
“Adolf Hitler! You cannot come here. You are a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Get away!”
“But I want to mend my ways!”
“No way! Get out!”
“Ah, if you will let me in, I will give you something.”
“Well,” said Jesus, weakening a little, “what is it?”
Hitler, in dress uniform, pulled off his special Iron Cross and showed it to Jesus. “Well,” he asked, “can I come in?”
“Just wait here. I’ll go and ask my dad.”
Jesus found God in his study. “Dad, there’s a newcomer at the gate who wants to come in.”
“Who is he?”
“Adolf Hitler.”
“Adolf Hitler! That megalomaniac bent on world domination? He can’t come in here!”
“But he has something very special to give me.”
“What is it?”
“His Iron Cross.”
God thumped his chair. “What do you need an iron cross for? Hell, you couldn’t even carry that wooden one!”
You forced poor Jesus to carry his own cross. He was weak and he had not slept the whole night. The whole night he was tortured and questioned and investigated. And then he had to carry that big wooden cross. He fell thrice on the road under the burden of the cross. He was hurt and wounded, but the soldiers whipped him again and forced him to carry his cross.
He was only thirty-three years old. He had not seen much of life yet; in fact, it was just the beginning. Had he lived as long as Buddha, the world would have been far more enriched. Buddha lived eighty-four years; Mahavira lived eighty years; Krishna almost the same age. They died at a ripe old age. They saw the whole of life with all its ups and downs, success and failure, misery and joy, ecstasy and agony. They became mature and ripe. They could give something immensely valuable to the world.
Jesus was allowed only three years. He started his ministry when he was thirty years old and he was killed when he was thirty-three. Just three years! He could not do much. He could have done great work for humanity, but we killed him. And now we are waiting for his next coming.
If he comes, you will do the same again because you are doing the same again to people of that quality, of that insight. You have always been behaving as inhumanely as possible with the buddhas.
Jesus is a buddha. That is the exact meaning of the word christ. Christ and buddha are synonymous. Buddha means the awakened one, christ means the crowned one. It is awakening that becomes your crowning, that makes you an emperor, that takes all suffering away from you and gives you the kingdom of God.
No, even if he could come he would decide not to. Man has not learned anything. After Jesus, you did the same with al-Hillaj Mansoor. The behavior toward al-Hillaj Mansoor was even more ugly. And the same is the attitude of the masses even today. Nothing has changed. Man seems to be stagnant, stubborn – just living an unconscious life and repeating it.
But why should you be waiting? You can find the awakened ones any time; they are always available. Fortunately, there is always somebody who is a buddha. Those who are real seekers are bound to find him because he is also seeking and searching for the real seekers. It is not a one-way search.
If you have come here in search of me, I am also searching in my own way for you. It is not one-way. If you are here, you are here only because I have invited you to be here. You are here only because I have called you forth to be here.
Now don’t waste your time thinking about whether Jesus will come or not. What do you want with Jesus? I am ready to give you all that Jesus can give to you. Be receptive, be surrendered because he will ask for the same conditions to be fulfilled. He cannot just deliver you as you are. You will have to fulfill a few conditions. You will have to drop your ego; that is the basic requirement. Fulfill that.
I am your Jesus. Of course, the body is different, the mind is different, but the consciousness is never different. Two awakened persons are exactly the same. They belong to the same dimension, the same fragrance, the same harmony; the same bliss, the same godliness.
The fifth question:
Osho,
Is there a place for competitive sport in the new commune?
In the new commune there will be a new organization called: “Athletics Anonymous.” When you get the urge to play golf, baseball, or anything else involving physical activity, someone will be sent over to drink with you until the urge passes.
The sixth question:
Osho,
I am a Jew, Italian and a psychologist! Is there any hope for me?
You are really fortunate! There is every hope for you; in fact, you cannot miss. Even if you want to miss you cannot because the Jew is going to kill the poor Italian; the psychologist is going to kill the poor Jew and when there is nothing left for the psychologist, they almost always tend to commit suicide!
And the last question:
Osho,
Are you pushing my pleasure button? When I sit in lecture I am all smiles and it takes me hours to wipe it off my face.
Parmita, you fool! Why do you try to wipe it off? I make so much effort to create it and you take hours to wipe it off. Never do it again – so that it becomes something permanent, essential, natural with you; something that surrounds you.
But I know people are afraid of smiling because if you are caught red-handed by others smiling for no reason at all, they will think you are crazy. So people repress their smiles. That’s why Parmita must have been trying to wipe it off.
But when I push the button, I really push the button and now I am going to push harder! You will not be able to wipe it off even if you make an effort for hours or for days. Enjoy it! And why does it matter if people think you are crazy? Why be worried about it? There is nothing wrong in being crazy. Here, at least, everything is crazy.
Just the other day somebody asked, “Osho, there are so many clocks in the ashram. Why do they all show different times?” Just crazy – cuckoo clocks! If they all show the same time, what would be the need for so many clocks? One would be enough!
Parmita, a joke for you:
A young nurse’s first duty on her new job was to bathe the man in room 305. She performed her task and quickly returned to the nursing station.
Her supervisor, an old, seasoned nurse asked, “How was he?”
“He was doing fine,” she said, “but there was a very strange thing… He had the word little tattooed on his prick.”
The older nurse was very curious and decided to check it out. She returned forty-five minutes later, hair messed up, clothes askew and said to the young nurse, “Honey, that tattoo does not say ‘little.’ It says, ‘Little Rock, Arkansas, Pride of the South’!”
Enough for today.
Osho,
It feels that to be a witness is also a kind of thought. So what is the difference between the witness and a thought of the witness?
Witnessing is not a thought, but you can start thinking about witnessing, you can make it a thought. The moment you make it a thought, it is no longer witnessing. Either it is witnessing or it is a thought; it cannot be both together.
When you are witnessing, you are not thinking that you are witnessing. If you are thinking that you are witnessing, this is not witnessing at all; it is another kind of thought. If the witnessing is simple, there is no thought of witnessing at all. If the thoughts are just passing in front of your vision and you are witnessing them, and no idea arises in you that “I am witnessing,” then it is pure witnessing. It is not a thought at all, it is a state of no-thought, no-mind. You are simply reflecting whatever is passing by.
The moment you say, “Aha! This is witnessing. So I am witnessing. This is what meditation is; this is awareness,” you have missed the point. You have fallen back into the mud of the mind. You are no longer a witness. You have become identified. Witnessing cannot be reduced to a thought.
But your problem is significant. It is encountered by almost every meditator. We have become so habituated to witnessing in a wrong way. We think that we witness. We judge, we evaluate and think that we are witnessing. We think that we witness; it is not witnessing. We are associated with a wrong kind of witnessing and that idea lingers for a long time. We have become so conditioned to immediately reducing every experience into a thought. We never allow any experience to remain just a pure experience, even for a few moments.
You come across a beautiful roseflower in the garden. The moment you see it, almost instantly you say inside, “How beautiful!” You can’t let that beauty sink in. The thought of beauty becomes a barrier. The moment you say, “How beautiful!” you have already started comparing it with other roses that you have seen in the past. You have started comparing it with all that you have heard about roses. You are no longer seeing this rose. You are missing its suchness. You have gone into the past. You are searching in your memory to find how many roses you have seen before and to declare: “This is the best one.” But this rose is no longer there in your awareness. Your awareness has become very clouded. So much smoke has come from the past, so much dust has arisen that your mirror is no longer reflecting the beauty. You are not now-here.
Allow the rose and its fragrance, its beauty, its dance in the wind and the sun, to penetrate you. Don’t bring your mind in. There is no need to say it is beautiful. If it is, there is no need to say it; if it is not, then it is false to say it. Either it is or it is not. Creating a thought about it in any way is creating ripples in your consciousness. It is like throwing a pebble into a silent lake. Just a moment ago it was reflecting the moon and the stars so beautifully, but your pebble has created ripples; the moon and the stars have all become distorted. That’s what happens whenever a thought arises in you: your consciousness is disturbed, it starts wavering. Waves start arising in you. Now you are not capable of reflecting that which is.
You will have to learn this new art of seeing things without judging; of seeing things without verbalizing; of seeing things without evaluating. See the rose, the bird on the wing, the night full of stars; see the river passing by, see the traffic. Listen to the songs of the birds or a train passing by. Start learning a new art of just being reflective, not bringing any thought in, not saying anything at all.
It will take a little time – old habits die hard – but one day it happens. If you persist, if you are patient enough and if you go on and on working at cleaning your inner world, one day it happens. The benediction of that day is immense. In fact, that day you are born anew. You start seeing the same world with new eyes because your eyes are so clear. Your mirror reflects so deeply, so totally, without distortion, that trees – the same trees that you have seen before thousands of times – are far greener than they have ever been. And their greenness is no ordinary greenness. It is luminous, it is radiating light.
It is the same world, the same people. A Buddha, a Jesus, walks in the same world – the same trees, the same rocks, the same people, the same sky – but he lives in paradise and you live in hell. The difference is created by the mind.
It will take a little while to drop this mind. It has dominated you for so long that in the beginning it is difficult to suddenly disassociate yourself from it. It clings. It can’t leave its power over you so easily. Hence, it goes on coming in from the back door.
You are sitting silently and a beautiful stillness arises. The mind comes in from the back door and says, “Look, how beautiful this moment is!” And it has taken you away. It came so silently, without making any noise and you were caught by it in such a subtle way, that you could not have been aware of it. You rejoiced, you thanked the mind, but it has destroyed your stillness.
When stillness is really true there is no mind to say anything about it. When witnessing is true you are simply a witness. You don’t think, “I am witnessing.” There is no “I,” there is no thinking; there is only the witness – because all thinking and the “I” have all become contents, objects of your witnessing. And witnessing itself cannot be its own object. No mirror can reflect itself. Your eyes cannot see themselves. Your witness cannot witness itself, that’s impossible.
Your question is relevant. You will have to be very, very careful, watchful. It is a razor’s edge. One has to be very cautious because if you fall, you fall into a deep abyss. The ordinary people cannot fall; they have nowhere to fall to – they are already at the bottom. But as you start moving higher, the possibility of falling down grows every day. When you reach the Everest of your consciousness, just a little slip, just a little wrong step and you will go rolling down into a deep abyss.
The greater the meditation, the more is the danger of losing it – naturally. Only a rich man can be robbed, not a poor man. That’s why a beggar can sleep under a tree in the afternoon with the noise of the traffic and the marketplace; nothing disturbs him. He can sleep anywhere, he can sleep deeply. He has nothing to lose – no fear.
Once, at night, a king came across a very strange man, a very luminous man, standing alert underneath a tree. He was so silent, so quiet and so alert. The king was curious: “Why is he standing there?” From his appearance he looked like a monk, one who has renounced the world. The king was a very cultured man and he thought, “It is not right to disturb him.” But it happened every night.
That was the routine of the king: to go around the capital at night in disguise to see how things were going; whether the guards were on duty or not; mixing and meeting with people; going into the hotels and the theaters to find out how things were going – whether things were all right or not.
Every night he would come across this man. He saw this man so many times that it became impossible to resist the temptation. One day he approached him and asked, “Excuse me, sir, I should not interfere – you look so silent – but why do you go on standing there the whole night? What are you guarding? Is there any treasure underneath this tree?”
The mystic laughed. He said, “Not underneath this tree, but within me there is a treasure and I am watching it. It is growing every day and is becoming bigger and bigger, hence I have to be more and more alert.”
The mystic continued: “You can sleep, you have nothing to lose. I cannot, I have much to lose. If I can remain awake I have much to gain.”
The king was very impressed. He asked the mystic to come to his palace – he invited him. The monk agreed. The king was a little puzzled: a monk agreeing so soon, without even refusing once, is not thought to be right. A monk should say: “No, I cannot come to the palace. I have renounced the world. It is all futile. It is all dream, illusion, maya. I cannot come back to the world. I am happy wherever I am.”
But this monk didn’t say anything. He was a Zen master. The king started thinking in his mind, “Have I been deceived by this man? Was he simply standing there every night just to ensnare me?”
But now it was too late; he had invited him.
The mystic came to the palace and lived with the king. Of course, he lived more joyously than the king because he had no worries, no cares about the empire, no problems or anxieties. He enjoyed good food. The king had given him the best room in the palace – and he lived just like an emperor.
Six months passed. Now the king was boiling within and had to ask him, “What kind of renunciation is this? You are enjoying everything – servants, good food, good clothes and a beautiful palace.”
And one day, while they were walking in the garden, he said to the mystic, “Can I ask you a question? Forgive me if you feel offended. This is my question: What is the difference now, between me and you?”
The mystic looked at the king and said, “Why did you wait for six months? You could have asked me this question on the very first night. The moment you invited me and I accepted your invitation, this question arose in your mind. Why did you wait for six months? You tortured yourself unnecessarily. I was waiting for it at any moment. There is no question of my feeling offended – it is a natural question.
“There is a difference, but it is very subtle. If you really want to know the difference, come with me. I cannot tell you here. I will tell you in a certain space, at a certain place. Come along with me.”
They both went outside the city. The king said, “Now can you tell me?”
The mystic said, “Come along.”
When they were crossing the boundary of his empire – it was evening – the king said, “What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Now this is the end of my empire. We are entering somebody else’s kingdom and I would like to be answered. What is your answer? I am feeling very tired.”
The mystic replied, “My answer is that I am going. Are you coming with me or not? I am not going back.”
The king said, “How can I come with you? I have my whole empire, my wife, my children. How can I come with you?”
The mystic said, “That’s the difference. But I am going!”
Again the king saw the light, the beauty of the man and fell at his feet. He said, “Come back! I am just stupid. These past six months, I have missed. I have been thinking things which are really ugly. Forgive me and come back.”
The mystic said, “There is no problem for me. I can come back, but you will think the same again. It is better for me now to go ahead – that story is finished, that chapter is closed – so that you can remember the difference.”
The witness lives in the world just like a mirror, reflecting everything. He may be in a hut, he may be in a palace; it makes no difference. What difference does it make to a mirror, whether the mirror is in a hut or in a palace? What difference does it make to the mirror whether the mirror is reflecting beautiful diamonds or just ordinary stones? It makes no difference to the mirror.
Witnessing is the art of transcending the world.
Witnessing is the very essence of Zen, of religion itself. But don’t make it a thought – it is not a thought at all. Thoughts have to be witnessed. Even if the thought of witnessing arises, witness that thought. Remember that it is not witnessing, it is only a thought – it has to be witnessed. It is there in front of you. You are not it.
The witness is irreducible to any thought; it always goes on sliding back. You cannot catch hold of it through any thought. It can witness each and every thought, the thought of witnessing included; hence, it can never itself become a thought.
Next time when you are meditating remember it. Don’t start enjoying the thought: “This is a beautiful moment. My mind is silent, my being is still. This is witnessing!” The moment you say it, you have lost it.
The second question:
Osho,
Please say something more about the man of Zen.
The man of Zen is very ordinary – extraordinarily ordinary. He is so ordinary that there is every possibility if you meet him, you will not be able to recognize him. He lives just like you, eats like you, sleeps like you. He is in every way just like you. As far as his outside is concerned, he is not different from you at all.
The difference is certainly there, but that difference is inner. He has an insight, he has a clarity. He has eyes and you are blind. He is awake and you are asleep. You are drunk: drunk with greed, drunk with lust, drunk with anger, ambition, ego.
The man of Zen is simply not drunk; he is in his senses. He walks consciously, he sits consciously: walking in Zen, sitting in Zen. He is not in any way special. He is not like other so-called saints. He will not lie down on a bed of thorns or on a bed of nails, he will not stand on his head. He is not stupid, he is not an exhibitionist. He will not walk naked in the streets. He is not mad, he is not neurotic. He lives in a very ordinary way, in a very normal way.
That’s why it is the most difficult thing to recognize the man of Zen. You can recognize a saint who walks on water – naturally, it is so obvious that he is special. But a man of Zen does not walk on water. He does not perform any miracles. He does not play any kind of egoistic games. He is not an ego, he is not even a person. He is just a presence, a nonentity. He is absolute nothingness. Only when one is absolute nothingness, is one full of awareness. Whatever he does, he does with totality. Only a man who is not drunk can do things totally. Otherwise one remains partial. Only a part goes on doing something and at the same time, other parts may be going against it, being destructive. You may be creating something with one hand and destroying it with the other. A man who is drunk does not know where he is going. He thinks he is on the right path, but he is dreaming.
Barry Higgins, a traveling salesman, was driving home to London one afternoon after a hard-drinking lunch with a prospective customer. Through the rearview mirror he spied the flashing blue light of a police car. A shiver went up his spine and he grasped the steering wheel tightly to steady his driving. The blue light approached, a siren wailed and a police car overtook him with a hand signaling him to pull in and stop.
Barry was nervous as he saw the policeman get out of his car. His breath was heavy and his hands were moist on the steering wheel. He wondered what he was going to say.
The policeman came up and bent to speak through the car window. “Ay, ay, now then, had a few, eh?”
Barry could not stop himself and blurted, “Ohh…g…good onsternoon, afterble, I…I’m not as think as you drunk I am!”
The man of Zen is absolutely conscious – no greed, no anger, no jealousy, no ambition. These are all intoxicants, these are all drugs; they go on keeping you sleepy. It is a miracle how you manage your life with so many poisons running in your bloodstream, in your very being. That is the only difference; otherwise, from the outside, you will not know.
There are other so-called saints who make outside differences because there is no inner difference. They have to stand naked, they have to torture their bodies, they have to go on fasting. They have to distort their bodies, cripple their bodies. They have to do something that makes them more special than you, “holier than thou.”
A Zen man is not “holier than thou.” He has no idea of being in any way higher than you. He is simply living his nature.
Yoka says:
The man of Zen goes alone…
That is his first characteristic. He is not part of a mob psychology. He is not Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, nor is he Jewish. He is not Indian, Japanese, nor Chinese – he cannot be. He never belongs to any crowd. He is alone. He is a rebel. He lives according to his light. He does not follow, he does not imitate. He has reached the goal.
What is the goal? – the goal is not somewhere outside you. It is not there, far away like a star. It is within you, it is your own interiority. He has entered his own interiority. And the man who has reached his goal…
…can play on the path of nirvana.
His life becomes a play. He is playful, he is not serious. He cannot be serious; the whole of life is a divine play, leela. He is part of it. He is just playing a role. He acts the role as beautifully as he can, as perfectly as he can, but he knows that the whole world is a big stage, a great drama – but nothing more. So he is not serious about it.
The man of Zen has natural manners and is harmonious.
He does not pretend to be special, he has natural manners. He is very human, utterly human. His humanity is superb, intense, absolute. He does not claim any sacredness and because he does not claim it, he is sacred – he is harmonious. He is not divided within himself, he is not in a constant fight with himself, he is not in a constant civil war. He has a melody, a music. If you sit by his side you will be able to listen to the music.
Just the other day, Navanit asked: “Osho, whenever I come close to you, I immediately smell a certain fragrance. What fragrance is it?” I don’t use any perfume – I cannot. Navanit is a doctor, he knows; hence the question has become more pertinent to him. He says that he always finds the same fragrance whenever he is close to me.
That fragrance has nothing to do with any perfume. It is the fragrance of harmony, it is the music. It expresses itself in a multidimensional way. Sometimes you will hear it as a silent sound like a murmur: the wind passing through the pine trees, or the sound of running water. Sometimes you will hear it as music and sometimes you will feel it as a smell, a beautiful fragrance. Sometimes you will see it as an aura, a light, very mysterious.
But the man of Zen simply lives in harmony and out of harmony all these things are manifested.
His spirit is simple, clean, pure and sincere…. His Zen, which no one sees, is treasure beyond all value.
You can see his body, you cannot see his Zen. You cannot see his inner meditativeness, you cannot see his awareness unless you become aware yourself. You can know only that much which you have experienced.
Navanit, you are blessed that you are feeling a certain fragrance. That means you are reaching to a certain depth, a certain height in your being.
His Zen, which no one sees, is treasure beyond all value. This jewel, rare and of incalculable value, never changes however one uses it. And others can freely benefit from it on all occasions.
The man of Zen is always overflowing with joy. You can share it. He is a giver: he gives delight, he gives joy, he gives beauty, he gives truth. He radiates truth, he radiates godliness, but so silently, without any declaration. He goes on pouring his blessings into existence. He is a blessing to the world.
The third question:
Osho,
I know my love stinks, so why do I cling to the smell?
We live according to the past; our lives are rooted in the dead past, we are conditioned by the past. The past is very powerful, that’s why you go on living in a certain pattern. Even if it stinks, you will go on repeating it. You don’t know what else to do; you have become conditioned. It is a mechanical phenomenon. And this is not only so with you, it is so with almost every human being – unless he becomes a buddha.
To become a buddha means to get rid of the past and to live in the present. The past is immense, very huge, enormous, of millions of lives. You have lived in a certain way. Now, being here, you may have become aware that your love stinks, but that awareness is also not very deep; it is very superficial. If it becomes really deep, if it penetrates to the very core of your being, you will immediately jump out of it.
It is as if your house is on fire you will not ask anybody how to get out of it. You will not consult the Encyclopedia Britannica; you will not wait for some wise man to come and tell you; you will not consider whether it is appropriate to jump out of the window or not – you won’t bother about anything. Even if you are taking a bath you will jump naked out of the window; you won’t even bother about clothes. When the house is on fire and your life is at risk, now everything else is secondary.
If your love stinks – this has become your experience – then you will just come out of it. You will not simply ask a question, you will jump out of it. But I think that it is just an intellectual idea because each time you are in love, some misery arises; each time there is some conflict, some struggle, some fight, some jealousy, some possessiveness. So you have started taking an intellectual standpoint: “My love stinks, so why do I cling to the smell?” – because it is not yet really an existential experience for you.
And it is your own smell. One becomes accustomed to one’s own smell. That’s why when people are alone they don’t experience that smell, they experience it only when they are together with somebody.
When you are in love, you start showing your real face. Love is a mirror. The other starts functioning as a mirror. Every relationship becomes a mirror. Alone, you don’t experience your own smell – you cannot; one becomes immune to it. You have lived with it so long, how can you smell it? It is only with the other that you start feeling that he stinks and he starts feeling that you stink. And the fight starts… That is the story of all the couples all over the world.
“Where are you going with that goat, Juan?” asked the policeman.
“I’m taking him home to keep as a pet!” replied Juan.
“In the house?”
“Sure thing.”
“But what about the smell?”
“So what? He ain’t gonna mind the smell!”
Your own smell is not disturbing to you. In fact, if it suddenly disappears you will feel a little jolted; you will feel a little uprooted. You will not feel your natural self; you will feel something has gone wrong.
If you love and there is no jealousy, you will start wondering whether you love or not. What kind of love is this? There seems to be no jealousy! You love a man and if he goes with another woman once in a while, you don’t make much fuss about it. You take it for granted – it is perfectly good for a change. And if your man is happy, why not let him be happy? You love him. If you really love him you will respect his happiness too. He is not going forever.
In fact, if once in a while couples are allowed a little freedom, they will not separate; divorces will drop in the world. Divorce exists only because marriage is too tight. Let marriage be a little more relaxed and divorce will disappear. Divorce is only a by-product of marriage. The tighter the marriage system, the more divorce becomes an absolute need. If divorce is not allowed, then you have double lives: one to show to the society and one to live.
It is because of marriage that prostitution exists in the world. The whole blame goes to the marriage system. If people are a little more loving and less jealous, if they understand nature, it is simple. You eat the same food every day; you get fed up with it and once in a while you would like to go to the hotel. The hotel food may be worse than what you get at home, but even that is good – at least that makes your home food look better. When you come back the next day you feel so relieved that you are back home and you are so happy to have the same food again!
The more man’s mind is understood, the more and more marriage will have to be made a little relaxed. It is perfectly okay to give a few days off in marriage. The woman should be allowed to have her boyfriends and the man should be allowed to have his girlfriends – at least, just as you have Sunday religion, a Sunday marriage! You will be surprised that your own wife looks far better. Again a honeymoon starts – a mini honeymoon. You again start from ABC.
And being with many women and with many men does not destroy marriage – no, not at all. It is a very nonsensical idea that has prevailed over humanity: that it is destructive to marriage and family. It is not so – it is very supportive. It will help the family to be more joyous, less quarrelsome. Otherwise, the woman is constantly spying on the husband and the husband is constantly spying on the woman. What love can exist between two persons who are constantly at each other’s throats?
Yes, your love stinks, as everybody else’s love stinks, but you feel it only when you are in a relationship. You have not yet felt that it really has something to do with you. Deep down you still feel that there must be something wrong with the other. That’s how the mind functions; it throws the responsibility on the other. It accepts itself and it is always finding fault in others.
Several people are sitting in the front row of a movie theater. The show has already begun when suddenly there is a terrible smell.
One of the spectators turns to the man sitting beside him and asks, “Did you shit in your trousers?”
The man beside him answers, “Yes, why?”
People accept themselves totally! Whatever they are doing is right: “Why? What is wrong in it?” They are his own trousers, so who are you to interfere? And freedom is everybody’s birthright!
If your love stinks, try to find out what exactly it is that stinks. It is not love, it is something else. Love itself has a fragrance; it can’t stink, it is a lotus flower. Something else must be in it – jealousy, possessiveness. But you have not mentioned jealousy and possessiveness. You are hiding them. Love never stinks, it cannot; that is not the nature of love. Please try to see exactly what it is that creates the trouble. I am not saying to repress it. All that is needed is a clarity about it – what it is.
If it is jealousy, I would only suggest one thing: be more watchful of your jealousy. When it arises next time, rather than becoming mad, close your doors, sit silently, sit in meditation, watch your jealousy. See exactly what it is. It will surround you like smoke, dirty smoke. It will suffocate you. You would like to go out and do something. But don’t do anything. Just be in a state of non-doing because anything done in a moment of jealousy is going to be destructive. Just watch. I am not saying repress it because that is again doing something.
People are either expressive or repressive and both ways are wrong. If you express, you become destructive to the other person. Whoever is your victim will suffer and is going to take revenge. He may not take revenge consciously, but unconsciously it is going to happen.
Just a few months ago, Krishna Bharti fell in love with a woman. Nothing extraordinary about it, but Deeksha went mad. Deeksha could not accept the idea. For centuries we have been told that if a man loves you or a woman loves you and the man or the woman goes to somebody else, that is a rejection of you.
That is utter nonsense. It is not rejection; in fact, it is just the opposite. If a man loves the woman and he enjoys the woman, he starts fantasizing how it will be with other women. It is really the joy that this woman has given him that triggers his fancy. It is not that he is rejecting this woman. It is really an indication that this woman has been such a nourishment that he would like to see and know how other women are. If a little rope is given he is not going to go very far, he will come back because with the other woman it may be novelty. It will be something new, but it can’t be that nourishing because there will not be any intimacy. It will have something empty about it. It will be sex without love.
Love needs time to grow, it needs intimacy to grow. It needs a really long time. It is not a seasonal flower that blooms within three, four weeks, but then within three, four weeks it is gone. It is a long, long process of intimacy. Slowly, slowly two persons melt and merge into each other, then it becomes nourishing. The other woman or the other man cannot be nourishing. It may be just an adventure, a thrill. But suddenly the feeling will arise – it is bound to arise – that it is good fun, but it is not nourishing. And the person will be back.
Krishna Bharti would have been back, but Deeksha went mad. She behaved just like any other woman. But I was waiting… Sooner or later she was going to take revenge. Now she is taking revenge. Krishna Bharti fell ill, he was in hospital and Deeksha had a little freedom. She fell in love with her own handyman! He really proved handy! Now K.B. is in hell.
There is no need to be so worried about it. I have sent K.B. a message: “Wait, don’t be worried. Just let her take revenge. It is good that the unconscious burden is finished.”
If we understand each other a little more, if we understand human nature a little more, there should be no jealousy. But it is a past heritage of centuries.
So I cannot say that you can drop it right now. You will have to meditate over it. Whenever it possesses you, meditate over it. Slowly, slowly the meditation will create a distance between you and the jealousy. The more the distance, the less jealousy will arise. One day, when there is no jealousy, your love releases such a fragrance that no flower can compete with it. All flowers are poor compared to the flowering of love.
But your love is crippled because of jealousy, possessiveness and anger. Remember: it is not love that stinks because I have seen people who think it is love that stinks so they close up, they become closed; they stop loving. That’s what has happened to millions of monks and nuns down the ages; they became closed to love, they dropped the whole idea of love. Rather than dropping jealousy, which would have been a revolution, rather than dropping possessiveness, which would have been something of immense value, they dropped love. That is easy, that is not much; anybody can do that. To be a monk or to be a nun is very easy, but to love and not to be jealous; to love and not to be possessive; to love and let the other have the whole freedom is really a great achievement. Only then will you feel love and its fragrance.
The fourth question:
Osho,
What do you think? Is Jesus coming back to earth again as he had promised or not?
Once a man becomes awakened he cannot come back. He promises out of his compassion, but it is not possible. It is not possible because it is against the law of life. Jesus has promised to come back; Buddha also has promised to come back; Krishna has also promised to come back. Nobody has come yet and nobody is going to come back. It is against the law of life.
They promise because of their compassion, their love. They promise because they see your misery, they see your sad state of affairs, they see your tears. So they promise and their promise fulfills a certain purpose. Because of their promise you go on remembering them and that remembrance helps you. Because of their promise you go on connecting yourself to them, surrendering to them and that surrendering helps. But they cannot fulfill their promise.
Once a man is awakened there is no possibility of his being born again. One can be born only if something in him has still remained unconscious. Life is an opportunity to become conscious. It is a school, a training school, where people become centered, rooted, integrated. Once they have become integrated, once they have attained self-realization, they cannot be allowed back into the school. They disappear into the universal. They become part of existence.
So the first thing to be remembered: Jesus, Krishna or Buddha cannot come, but that does not mean that awakened people will not be there. There will be people like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna – of the same quality. Maybe their faces will not be the same and their bodies may not be the same…
Who would like to have a body like Jesus? You don’t know about Jesus, that’s why. He was only four feet five inches and a hunchback! It is said in the old scriptures that he was the ugliest man who has ever walked on the earth. Who would like to have his body?
But his disciples have said he was the most beautiful man. They saw his beauty; that is of the inner, hence there is no contradiction. The disciples saw the inner. They saw the real Jesus, the pillar of his consciousness. They saw his interiority. They communed with his being. And yes, there has never been such a beautiful man.
But the others saw only his body. The others could not see his soul, the others could not see his Zen. Only his disciples could see his Zen, his meditativeness, his love. Only his disciples could feel who he was, his divineness. They could say, “He is the most beautiful man who has ever walked on the earth.”
The descriptions are so contradictory that it has been a problem for the historians to decide what is right. Both are right; there is no need to decide. It is not a question of choosing this or that.
In the second place, even if it were possible for him to come back, do you think he is mad? What did you do with him when he was here? Just remember it; you tortured him as you have never tortured anybody else before him.
Socrates’ death was not a torture. He was given poison and within minutes he was dead. His death was a silent one.
The way Jesus was crucified is one of the most violent ways. Sometimes it takes three days for the person to die. Just nailing a man on a cross cannot kill him immediately. Slowly, slowly blood starts oozing from his body. Life starts oozing out, but very slowly. Even the weakest man will take at least six to eighteen hours to die. If the man is healthy he can take even three days or more. This is real hell! This is real torture!
He was dying on the cross and people were throwing stones and abuse at him. Soldiers were poking their spears into his body and blood was coming out. He was alive, he was thirsty and they would not give him water. He was crying for water. One hundred thousand people had gathered to see this torture.
What did you do with Jesus when he was here? I think that was enough to keep him away from this earth forever!
A new arrival knocked on heaven’s door. Jesus was on duty and he opened the door.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Adolf Hitler,” came the reply.
“Adolf Hitler! You cannot come here. You are a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Get away!”
“But I want to mend my ways!”
“No way! Get out!”
“Ah, if you will let me in, I will give you something.”
“Well,” said Jesus, weakening a little, “what is it?”
Hitler, in dress uniform, pulled off his special Iron Cross and showed it to Jesus. “Well,” he asked, “can I come in?”
“Just wait here. I’ll go and ask my dad.”
Jesus found God in his study. “Dad, there’s a newcomer at the gate who wants to come in.”
“Who is he?”
“Adolf Hitler.”
“Adolf Hitler! That megalomaniac bent on world domination? He can’t come in here!”
“But he has something very special to give me.”
“What is it?”
“His Iron Cross.”
God thumped his chair. “What do you need an iron cross for? Hell, you couldn’t even carry that wooden one!”
You forced poor Jesus to carry his own cross. He was weak and he had not slept the whole night. The whole night he was tortured and questioned and investigated. And then he had to carry that big wooden cross. He fell thrice on the road under the burden of the cross. He was hurt and wounded, but the soldiers whipped him again and forced him to carry his cross.
He was only thirty-three years old. He had not seen much of life yet; in fact, it was just the beginning. Had he lived as long as Buddha, the world would have been far more enriched. Buddha lived eighty-four years; Mahavira lived eighty years; Krishna almost the same age. They died at a ripe old age. They saw the whole of life with all its ups and downs, success and failure, misery and joy, ecstasy and agony. They became mature and ripe. They could give something immensely valuable to the world.
Jesus was allowed only three years. He started his ministry when he was thirty years old and he was killed when he was thirty-three. Just three years! He could not do much. He could have done great work for humanity, but we killed him. And now we are waiting for his next coming.
If he comes, you will do the same again because you are doing the same again to people of that quality, of that insight. You have always been behaving as inhumanely as possible with the buddhas.
Jesus is a buddha. That is the exact meaning of the word christ. Christ and buddha are synonymous. Buddha means the awakened one, christ means the crowned one. It is awakening that becomes your crowning, that makes you an emperor, that takes all suffering away from you and gives you the kingdom of God.
No, even if he could come he would decide not to. Man has not learned anything. After Jesus, you did the same with al-Hillaj Mansoor. The behavior toward al-Hillaj Mansoor was even more ugly. And the same is the attitude of the masses even today. Nothing has changed. Man seems to be stagnant, stubborn – just living an unconscious life and repeating it.
But why should you be waiting? You can find the awakened ones any time; they are always available. Fortunately, there is always somebody who is a buddha. Those who are real seekers are bound to find him because he is also seeking and searching for the real seekers. It is not a one-way search.
If you have come here in search of me, I am also searching in my own way for you. It is not one-way. If you are here, you are here only because I have invited you to be here. You are here only because I have called you forth to be here.
Now don’t waste your time thinking about whether Jesus will come or not. What do you want with Jesus? I am ready to give you all that Jesus can give to you. Be receptive, be surrendered because he will ask for the same conditions to be fulfilled. He cannot just deliver you as you are. You will have to fulfill a few conditions. You will have to drop your ego; that is the basic requirement. Fulfill that.
I am your Jesus. Of course, the body is different, the mind is different, but the consciousness is never different. Two awakened persons are exactly the same. They belong to the same dimension, the same fragrance, the same harmony; the same bliss, the same godliness.
The fifth question:
Osho,
Is there a place for competitive sport in the new commune?
In the new commune there will be a new organization called: “Athletics Anonymous.” When you get the urge to play golf, baseball, or anything else involving physical activity, someone will be sent over to drink with you until the urge passes.
The sixth question:
Osho,
I am a Jew, Italian and a psychologist! Is there any hope for me?
You are really fortunate! There is every hope for you; in fact, you cannot miss. Even if you want to miss you cannot because the Jew is going to kill the poor Italian; the psychologist is going to kill the poor Jew and when there is nothing left for the psychologist, they almost always tend to commit suicide!
And the last question:
Osho,
Are you pushing my pleasure button? When I sit in lecture I am all smiles and it takes me hours to wipe it off my face.
Parmita, you fool! Why do you try to wipe it off? I make so much effort to create it and you take hours to wipe it off. Never do it again – so that it becomes something permanent, essential, natural with you; something that surrounds you.
But I know people are afraid of smiling because if you are caught red-handed by others smiling for no reason at all, they will think you are crazy. So people repress their smiles. That’s why Parmita must have been trying to wipe it off.
But when I push the button, I really push the button and now I am going to push harder! You will not be able to wipe it off even if you make an effort for hours or for days. Enjoy it! And why does it matter if people think you are crazy? Why be worried about it? There is nothing wrong in being crazy. Here, at least, everything is crazy.
Just the other day somebody asked, “Osho, there are so many clocks in the ashram. Why do they all show different times?” Just crazy – cuckoo clocks! If they all show the same time, what would be the need for so many clocks? One would be enough!
Parmita, a joke for you:
A young nurse’s first duty on her new job was to bathe the man in room 305. She performed her task and quickly returned to the nursing station.
Her supervisor, an old, seasoned nurse asked, “How was he?”
“He was doing fine,” she said, “but there was a very strange thing… He had the word little tattooed on his prick.”
The older nurse was very curious and decided to check it out. She returned forty-five minutes later, hair messed up, clothes askew and said to the young nurse, “Honey, that tattoo does not say ‘little.’ It says, ‘Little Rock, Arkansas, Pride of the South’!”
Enough for today.