Viciousness

 

 

Question 4

You said that only man is violent and kills for sport and that animals kill for food. yet i have witnessed dogs tearing apart a fox for sport; a fox killing nine chickens and eating only one -- not to mention the red ants viciously attacking us during meditation. does this not put animals in the same category as man?

 

 

You must have come across some very highly evolved animals who are going to be born as human beings in their next incarnation. They are almost human.

 

Dogs are being corrupted by man. Animals which live with man are almost corrupted, they have become human: dogs, cats, and other animals. If you have come across so many situations where you feel that the violence was done for sport, then they are already human beings. Soon you will meet them somewhere in their human form.

 

But I tell you that only man is violent. You may not understand other animals: they may have killed more than they could eat -- that only shows they are not doing right arithmetic, that's all. They might have killed more than they could eat; that simply shows they don't know how to calculate beforehand. But it is not a sport. They are not doing it just for their enjoyment, no.

 

And the ants walking on your body when you are meditating are not vicious, they don't know at all that you are meditating, they don't know at all that you are. They may be on their own business -- ants are very business-like -- they may be on their own trip, you are just in their way, that's all. In fact, you are disturbing them, not they you. You are just sitting there like a rock -- you think you are meditating -- and you are disturbing their whole route. Ants are great followers of their leaders -- the leader has gone one way, so all the ants are going that way. They are always very controlled, they are like the army. So they have to pass you.

 

You think that they are in the way, you think that they are disturbing you; they think that you are just in their way, disturbing them. No, they are not vicious. Nobody is vicious except man, nobody can be, because to be vicious much thinking capacity is needed. To be vicious, one has to think about the future, one has to calculate about the future. To be vicious, one has to think very, very much about the past -- past experiences, possibilities, impossibilities -- and the future. One has to be cunning, clever. To be vicious, one has to be a disciple of Machiavelli or Chankya. Machiavelli says in his 'Prince' that before somebody attacks you, you should attack him, because that is the only defense. Even if the other has not attacked you yet, you have to suspect, and before he attacks, you attack first, because that is the only great defense. If you attack first there is more possibility of winning; if he attacks first there is less possibility of winning.

 

Machiavelli says: Don't trust anybody, not even a friend, because who knows, the friend may become an enemy the next day. So don't say things to a friend which you would not like to say to the enemy; and don't say things about the enemy, bad things about the enemy, because who knows, the next day he may become a friend and then there will be always a barrier. This is cleverness, cunningness. This man, Machiavelli, was really very, very clever, cunning. Nobody has achieved that peak of cunningness ever. Every monarch in the West read his book and every monarch was impressed -- he was right. Every monarch tried to follow him, but no monarch employed him in his service because such a dangerous man could be dangerous. He lived a poor man and he died a poor man. He tried many courts, but all doors were closed. His book was accepted everywhere, but he was not -- such a clever man could be dangerous. They were applying his own ideology against him: if a man can be so clever he will create trouble. Once he comes close he can create trouble.

 

Man is vicious because only man can be machiavellian. Other animals are simple, very simple, and when you think that they are doing something viciously, you are wrong. You think that mosquitoes are disturbing your meditation -- they don't know. They don't know you at all, you are just food for them, and they are seeking their food, a simple thing....

 

When you go to a tree, to an apple tree or to any other fruit tree and you take the fruit from the tree have you ever thought that you are vicious to the tree? No, the idea never comes. The same is being done by the mosquito to you and mosquitoes are very impartial -- even to a Buddha they will do the same.

 

They did. I was staying in Sarnath once, the place where Buddha gave his first sermon. Buddha moved around only a small part of India, the Bihar, so in forty years of wandering he passed through every village many times, but to Sarnath he never came again. He visited it only once, the first time, and he never came again.

 

So I asked the Buddhist BHIKKHU who was the head of the Sarnath temple, what the matter was. Why did Buddha never come again?. He brooded and he said: Maybe mosquitoes.... Sarnath has the biggest mosquitoes in India.

 

Mosquitoes are impartial. They don't bother whether you are a Buddha or not; whether you are meditating or murdering someone they are in search of their food. And as you are in search of your food and you never feel that you are vicious, why should they be thought as vicious? Nobody is vicious. Even the germs that can kill you, they too are not vicious, they are in search of their food. Even the germs that create a cancer in your body that will certainly kill you, that no medicine can help -- even they are not vicious, they are not machiavellian, they are not politicians. They are simple people, just in search of food and they are very happy that they have found a home within you. They are not doing any harm to you knowingly because they cannot do anything knowingly. They are enjoying life as you are enjoying life.

 

Once you understand this.... I don't mean that you just sit naked and become food for them, that is not my meaning. You protect yourself, but don't think them vicious. You protect yourself. If the tree could have protected herself she would have protected herself against you. You protect yourself. Even the mosquito protects itself, even the mosquitoes become immune to DDT. Everybody has to protect himself. I'm not saying that you should become a victim and, thinking that mosquitoes are not vicious, you should sit naked and allow them on you because they are in search of food. Then you are moving to the other extreme, to another foolishness.

 

You protect yourself, everybody protects. Even the mosquito will protect himself -- but don't think that they are vicious, because the idea that life around you is vicious is very dangerous. That idea will harm you more than all the animals and all the mosquitoes and all the ants combined, because that idea will give you a feeling of separateness from life, that idea will give you an enmity towards life, that idea will never allow you to surrender to the whole.

 

-Osho, "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 2, #6, Q4“