Good 

 

 

Ordinary religious teachers say, "Do good." Buddha says: Be silent and good will be done. The good follows silence as your shadow follows you. And there is no way to do good unless you are silent. You can do good, but only wrong will happen if you are not silent. That's why the so-called do-gooders go on doing a thousand and one mischiefs in the world. Your so-called do-gooders are the most mischievous people, but they are doing good for your sake, they are doing it for good, and you cannot even escape from them.

 

Everybody knows that good parents are dangerous parents. A parent that is too good is bound to be a wrong parent - because he will encage you. Too much good is destructive. A good mother will destroy you, because the mother herself is not centered. Her good is enforced; she is TRYING to do good. The good is not natural and spontaneous. It is not like a shadow; it is effort, it is violent. Your so- called MAHATMAS go on crippling people, destroying people, destroying their freedom in many ways. They go on trying to dominate by subtle methods, in subtle ways. But the whole desire is to dominate, and it is very easy to dominate somebody when you are good. He cannot even rebel against you. Against a bad mother you can escape; but what to do against a good mother? She's so good that you start feeling bad. Watch it: everybody has passed through that state, and it has to be understood. Otherwise you will never be able to accept yourself.

 

Whenever there is a child, there is bound to be some conflict between the child and the parents, particularly between the child and the mother in the beginning, and then later on with the father. It is natural - because the mother has her own way, her own ideas, her own philosophy of how life should be lived. And the child is almost wild; he knows no society, no culture, no religion. He's coming directly from God; he's as wild as God. He has nothing but freedom, so there is bound to be some conflict. And the child has to be initiated into the walls of the society. He cannot be left alone - that too is true. So conflict is natural. If the mother is very good then the child is in a difficulty, a very great anguish and anxiety. The anxiety is that the child loves his freedom and knows, intrinsically, that freedom is good. Freedom is an intrinsic value. There is no need to prove that freedom is good - freedom IS good, it is self-evidently good. Everybody is born with that desire. That's why we called the ultimate goal in the east'total freedom', MOKSHA: where the intrinsic desire is completely fulfilled and one has no limitations of any sort. One is absolutely free, unconditionally free.

 

Every child is born with that intrinsic desire to be free, and now everywhere there is bondage. The mother says, "Don't do this, don't do that, sit here, don't go there." And the child feels pulled and pushed from everywhere. Now, if the mother is bad, there is not much difficulty; the child can think that the mother is bad and deep in his heart he can start hating her. Simple, it is arithmetical - she is destroying his freedom and he hates her. Maybe, for political reasons, he cannot express it, so he becomes a diplomat. He knows that she is the rottenest woman in the world, but he goes on paying lip service.

 

But if the mother is good then the problem arises. Then the child is at a loss to figure it out; the mother is good... and freedom is good: "Now, if Mother is good then I must be wrong, and my freedom must be wrong. If I am good and my freedom is good, then Mother must be wrong." Now, to think that the mother is wrong is impossible - because she is REALLY good, and she goes on caring, loving, and doing a thousand and one things for the child. The mother is REALLY good, the child knows that she is good. So there is only one possibility to decide, and that is: "I must be wrong. The mother is good, I must be wrong."

 

Once the child starts thinking, "I must be wrong," he starts rejecting himself. I ordinarily never come across a person who accepts himself totally. And if you don't accept yourself totally you will never grow - because growth is out of acceptance. If you go on rejecting yourself, you are creating a split. You will be schizophrenic. The part that you reject will hang around your neck like a great burden, a great sorrow, a great anxiety, a tension. You cannot throw it away, because it is part of you; it cannot be divided. At the most you can throw it into unconsciousness. You can become unaware of it, you can forget about it, you can believe that it is not there. That's how the unconscious is created.

 

The unconscious is not a natural thing. The unconscious is that part of your being that you have rejected, and you don't even want to face it, you don't want to encounter it, you don't want to see that it exists at all. It is there; deep down in your being it goes on manipulating you. And it will take many types of revenge, because it also needs expression. Now this is the whole misery of human beings.

 

A 'good' mother can create the idea of a 'bad' child. The child himself starts rejecting himself. This is a division, a split in personality. The child is getting neurotic.

 

Because to feel good with oneself should be a natural and easy thing. That's what your religious preachers go on doing, what your priests go on doing: go to the mosque, go to the temple, go to the church, and they are there - thundering, condemnatory, ready to throw you into hell, ready to reward you with heaven if you listen to them, if you follow them. Of course you cannot follow because their demands are impossible, and their demands are impossible because they don't show you the way to be good. They simply say. "Be good."

 

The way to be good has nothing to do with being good. The way to be good has something to do with centering, with awareness. Being good has nothing to do with your character. A really good person has no character at all; he is characterless. And when I say 'characterless', I mean he has no armour, no armature around him. He has no defences around him, he's simply open. He's as characterless as a flower. He's neither good nor bad. He's simply there - alert, conscious, responsible. If something happens he will respond, but he will respond directly, he will respond from here. He will respond out of the now, he will not respond out of the past. 'Character' means: you go on carrying the things that you have learned in your past. 'Character' means: the conscience that has been preached to you and forced upon you. Conscience is a prison for consciousness.

 

Buddha brought a revolution into the world of religion, the greatest ever. The revolution was this: that he emphasized consciousness and not conscience. He emphasized awareness and not character. Of course, character comes automatically, but it comes like a shadow. You are not to carry it; it is not a burden then. Have you ever watched? - your shadow goes on following you, and you are not burdened, and you need not care about it. You need not think about it. Even if you forget completely it will be there. You cannot lose it.

 

Buddha says: Character is real only when you cannot lose it. If you are afraid that you can lose it, then it is conscience and not consciousness.

 

-Osho, "The Discipline of Transcendence Vol 4, #5“