Virtue

 

 

Out of awareness is virtue born. Whatsoever comes out of awareness is virtue, and whatsoever comes out of your sleep is sin. If you ask my definition of sin, I will say, “An unconscious act, which is a reaction, is sin. A conscious act which is not a reaction — which is a response — is virtue.”

 

- Osho, “Come Follow To You, Vol 3, #6, Q3″

 

 

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Question 2:

Osho,

Can you say something about virtue?

 

 

Fantastic! Here, we are not concerned about virtue at all. Virtue is for people who are unconscious; it is a training for them to say, "Don't say bullshit, say fantastic!"

 

Virtue is a training a discipline imposed on unconscious people. All the religions talk about virtue as being against sin. They have made fixed categories. Some things are condemned as sin and some things are praised as virtues. The virtuous man will have immense reward after death, and the sinner will be condemned to hellfire for eternity.

 

This is the strategy of fear and greed, because man can be easily manipulated by these two things -- fear and greed. Heaven is nothing but greed exaggerated; so hell is fear exaggerated, and human beings are afraid of eternal hellfire. Out of fear they somehow try to avoid whatever is sin. And the trouble is anything that gives you joy, anything that gives you pleasure is sin.

 

Out of fear they lose all contact with life, they become dry and dead before their death.

 

There is only one consolation: that they are declared saints, they are worshipped. Just their ego is satisfied greatly; otherwise they are suffering deep down immensely.

 

That is why your saints cannot laugh: laughter needs a little juice. There is no juice in them; everything is dry. They are deserts where nothing grows green. So on the one hand the pressure of fear...

 

I have seen pictures of the Middle Ages: there were Christian preachers who made so much fuss about hell and its tortures that just to be in the church listening to their sermons many ladies used to faint. Just the idea that they were going into such detail...

 

what would be done to you? The people thought the preachers were great according to how much they could infect people's psychologies. The greatest preacher was one in whose congregation almost everybody fainted.

 

A deep fear psychology, a deep guilt psychology on the one hand, and on the other hand greed to be fulfilled as a reward. You will be getting everything in paradise: all those things which are sins here on the earth, they will also be available to you.

 

Mohammedans are against alcohol, but in their paradise there are rivers of alcohol. You don't have to go to a small pub, you can drink, you can drown, you can swim. All the rivers, they don't consist of water -- pure wine. Here it is condemned: you should not fall in the trap of love. A woman is condemned and in the heaven -- in every religion's idea of heaven -- women are freely supplied. Of course, according to your virtue you will get. If your virtue is great perhaps, Sophia Loren -- it all depends on your virtue.

 

A strange game has been played with the human mind. Thousands of girls... I say girls, because they don't grow in age. They don't have to feel like Prem Shunyo; they are fixed for eternity at the age sixteen. In fact, they are prostitutes, eternal prostitutes, but they are thought to be rewards for saints. How many other saints have used those rewards, because since the beginning the same staff has been working, not even a shift change. I have never come across anything about a shift change or any staff change in the holy scriptures -- the same young women.

 

They remain always young. They don't perspire; they do not need deodorants. They must be certainly made of plastic, because only plastic does not perspire. A real skin is bound to perspire if it is alive, because through every pore of the skin you are breathing in. And perspiration is a natural way of keeping you at the same body temperature.

 

If it is too cold you start shivering. You may not be aware why you are shivering. You think it is because of the cold; it is to keep your body temperature continuously the same.

 

Shivering gives you inner heat. In the hot season you perspire. You perspire so that your water, perspiration is taken away by the heat; it evaporates so the heat does not affect your temperature. It simply evaporates your perspiration. It leaves you without increasing your temperature; otherwise, if there was no perspiration, your life span would not be very big.

 

The life span can be measured in many ways: in years, seventy years, but as body temperature from ninety-eight to one hundred and ten -- just twelve degrees is your span of life. If there was no perspiration, your temperature would be as high as the heat is around you. The moment you pass one hundred and five, you would start getting dizzy.

 

The moment you pass one hundred and seven, you would be falling into a coma. The moment you pass one hundred and ten, you would have passed away.

 

It is perspiration that saves you; it is your life savior. But those poor plastic girls... and eternal promise for all joys!

 

The Hindu heaven has certain trees, which they call kalpavriksha, wish-fulfillment trees.

 

You don't have to order a cup of tea or a woman or a car; you don't have to order anybody; you don't have to call any bearer or give a call to some agency. You just sit under the wish-fulfilling tree -- and they are all over heaven, everywhere -- you just sit underneath and you say whatever you want, and immediately, instantly, it will be provided.

 

There is a beautiful story of a man, who by some accident stumbled into heaven. He had no idea where he had reached. He was sitting under a kalpavriksha. He was feeling very hungry. He had been traveling a lot and that is how he had stumbled somehow by accident into heaven.

 

He said, "I am feeling hungry but I don't see any hotel anywhere, any restaurant, nothing.

 

I don't see even a single man. But I am feeling very hungry, if I could get some good food... Immediately beautiful women appeared from nowhere with all kinds of sweets and delicious foods. He was so hungry that he did not pay attention to where all these things were coming from.

 

He started eating, feeling perfectly well. He was tired. He went to sleep. Before going to sleep, he thought that sleeping on the ground, uneven with stones, if someone could arrange just a mattress, and suddenly -- he could not believe -- again beautiful women appeared with a beautiful bed and they put him on the bed. But he was so tired that he still did not think what was going on.

 

When refreshed, he awoke. He thought, my God, there is nobody here who has brought the food, and I have not said to anybody; I just thought about it! And he looked at the beautiful bed, "Who has brought this? I had simply thought about lying down on the ground. It seems there must be ghosts around." That was the natural conclusion, because he was not aware that he was in heaven, under a kalpavriksha.

 

"There must be ghosts all around, my God" -- and immediately ghosts appeared, because whatever you would say... The moment he saw the skeletons of ghosts dancing all around, he said, "My god, they are going to kill me" -- and they killed him. The man never came back.

 

Religions have used fear to prevent you from living, and greed to help you so that you can be patient and hope that great things are ahead. Just the small things you are leaving, and for eternity you will enjoy all the pleasures that you want -- and you don't have to pay for them.

 

Virtue is the currency of heaven.

 

The more virtuous you are, the bigger a bank balance you have in heaven. I don't teach you virtue because your virtue is false, because deep down there is greed.

 

I teach you only awareness.

 

Out of awareness whatever you do is virtue according to me. And out of unawareness whatever you do is sin according to me. And according to me, your sins are not going to take you to hell. Your sins immediately give you hell -- here, just now. And your virtues are not going to give you an eternity of paradise. Your virtues give you joy, blissfulness, the moment you act with full awareness.

 

The punishment and the reward is immediate: the reward follows your action. But it depends where your action will lead you. It can be unconscious action, then hell herenow.

 

It has nothing to do with geography; it is something to do with your psychology.

 

Acting consciously, you are in paradise wherever you are. Once you have learned, you will not ask, "What is virtue?" You will ask, "What is awareness? What is consciousness?" You will ask, "What is meditation?" -- because that is going to make you conscious and make you alert.

 

What brings misery is sin.

 

Whatever brings joy is virtue.

 

Alfred North Whitehead has made a beautiful statement: It requires a very unusual mind to make an analysis of the obvious.

 

To me, it is absolutely obvious that virtue or sin, heaven or hell are secondary. The primary is your alertness, your awareness, but people won't ask the obvious. These are by-products, and by getting entangled with by-products you will be in trouble.

 

There is a tale concerning Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson on board a train...

 

They passed a flock of sheep and Watson said, "A sizable flock, Holmes."

 

"Ah, exactly seven hundred and eighty-four in number, my dear Watson," said Holmes sleepily.

 

"Good heavens, Holmes," said Watson. "Surely you can't have counted them."

 

They are in a train; the train has passed the sheep. The flock is left far behind and it must have taken a single moment to pass.

 

"Not directly," said Holmes. "I made use of a simple trick any school child knows. I merely counted the legs and divided by four."

 

Just don't get into nonsense; otherwise, you will always feel what Leonardo da Vinci has confessed in his letters: I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have. Now, Leonardo da Vinci is one of the greatest geniuses, and whatever he has done is incomparable. There is nobody else who even comes close to him. But even such a great man feels a little guilt, "I have not reached the quality it should have."

 

This is the atmosphere that religions have created in the world. They don't allow anybody to be at ease, even the greatest genius. They go on telling you that you are still not doing right; you are still far away from the goal. You are still unworthy; you are always unworthy. They will not leave you at peace so that you can enjoy life and love life and be grateful to God, and be grateful to the universe -- which both mean the same to me.

 

God is not a person. It is this whole universe -- these trees, these clouds, the sun, the stars, you and everybody, whether asleep or awake, whether committing sins or virtues, you are part of one organic universe.

 

If you commit a sin... The word 'sin' has been contaminated by the religions; otherwise it simply means in its roots, forgetfulness, unawareness. It means exactly what I am saying to you. Sin is your unawareness. Any action done in unconsciousness is sin. But religions have completely destroyed the original meaning of the word. Whatever you are doing consciously is virtue and there is no ready-made list of what are virtues, because in a different situation, the same thing may become sin. The thing that was virtue in one condition, in one context, may not be virtue in another context; it all depends. But how are you going to know whether in this context it is virtue or sin.

 

Those dead categories that have been given to you like the ten commandments, fixed forever, they don't take account of the fact that life is continuously changing and you are moving every moment into a new situation -- and a new situation needs a new response.

 

So I don't give you, I can't give you any ready-made list to avoid these things, that these are sins and avoid them because they will lead you to hell. I cannot exploit you and your fears and I cannot say to you that these are the commandments, if you follow them yours is the kingdom of God, because in life things go on changing.

 

It happened...

 

I had a friend; he was a professor in the university -- a very learned professor of Sanskrit.

 

He wanted to go to Tibet because many scriptures in Sanskrit on Buddhism had been burned by the Hindus in India. But their translations exist in Tibetan still, so he wanted to translate them back into Sanskrit.

 

It was a great idea and he was well versed in Sanskrit. He had been learning Tibetan for years and now he was ready. But he was a brahmin by caste, a very orthodox brahmin.

 

In India it is perfectly good to get up at five o'clock, early in the morning and have a good bath in the nearby lake or in the nearby river, and then do your prayer, meditate. Only after that can you enter into the mundane world of your profession, your life, your family.

 

In Tibet, the Tibetan holy book says that only one bath a year is allowed; Tibetan monks are the dirtiest people to find. I have been harassed by Tibetan monks.

 

When the Dalai Lama came for the first time -- escaped from Tibet with thousands of Lamas -- I was taking a camp in Bodhgaya and all the Lamas first came to pay respect to the place where Gautam Buddha had become enlightened. I was taking a camp just there in the compound of the memorial temple for Buddha. I had never come across Tibetan Lamas. But such are habits, they die very hard. They use, I think three or four layers of clothes, one on top of another. Their clothes are greasy, dusty and they will not take any bath because their holy scripture says once in a year is compulsory.

 

When my friend reached Tibet, he continued to follow his pattern of life in India. He could not manage to be there more than three days, because he had to take a bath early in the morning, five o'clock, according to the brahmin religion. Without taking a bath you cannot eat; that is a sin -- and in India it is certainly right. But in Tibet the whole context is different. To take a bath in ice-cold water, five o'clock in the early morning is to freeze yourself to death. Food is not a problem. You will not be able to eat food. In three days he got so tortured by this morning bath.

 

One day he tried; it was too much. The whole day he was feeling as if his blood was frozen. And for another two days he could not eat because he could not take the bath. So he had taken only one bath in Tibet and one day he had eaten and two days he remained without food. But he thought, How long will it be because I cannot survive without food, neither can I survive with the bath. It is better to go home, forget all about those scriptures; it is none of my business.

 

He came back. I was surprised when I saw him back "... so quick you managed to translate."

 

He said, "Forget all about translations. Congratulate me that I am alive." And when he told me I said that this is stupidity.

 

In Tibet you should look at the context, not at your Hindu idea of virtue and sin -- that is stupidity. Mohammedans have been allowed by their founder, Mohammed, four wives, and it is perfectly virtuous to have four wives.

 

Mohammed himself married nine wives. Obviously he was a prophet, no ordinary man, but, it was perfectly right in those times because the Arabs were continuously fighting and killing. But only men were killed; it was against their culture to kill any woman. The women were raped, but not killed.

 

So there was a strange situation; there were four times more women than men. If he had insisted that monogamy was virtue, as is being insisted all over the world -- polygamy or even bigamy is a crime, is a sin -- he would not have been right. Because if monogamy had been virtuous, what would have happened to the three women who are left without men? They would corrupt the whole of society. They will become prostitutes and the whole society would become an ugly scene. So Mohammed is perfectly right; I support him.

 

But not now in India, where women and men are equal as they are everywhere, nature keeps a balance, an exact balance. To keep the balance nature has to take care: it gives birth to one hundred and fifteen boys when it gives birth to one hundred girls, because fifteen boys will pop off before the time of marriage -- boys are weak and fragile.

 

The ordinary idea that women are weak and fragile is just male chauvinistic imposition.

 

Nature knows better: fifteen boys per hundred are going to die. Girls don't die; they have a greater resistance against diseases. They are not so often sick and they live longer than men, five years longer all over the world.

 

So by the time the marriageable age comes, there are a hundred boys and a hundred girls.

 

Monogamy seems to be absolutely right in this context, but Mohammedans go on insisting that it is part of their religion... So even in India they are allowed to have four wives. It is such an ugly situation because it means three men will remain without wives.

 

So the Mohammedans abduct women from other religions.

 

Hindus particularly are very touchy people. If a woman has been forcibly taken by the Mohammedans to their homes, even if they have not touched her she will not be accepted back in the Hindu fold, she has to go to the Mohammedans. She has fallen below the dignity of a Hindu.

 

So Mohammedans have been continually stealing women from other societies. They have to, because what to do with the three men that are without women? Those three men will start relationships with others' wives and that will create a mess. And the Indian constitution, which, in the name of religion, doesn't want to interfere in any religion, cannot do anything to prevent Mohammedans from this polygamy. And those four women that they marry, they use as economic, financial help; they work and the husband rests. This is great!

 

The Mohammedan priests go on insisting on no interference, because a man with four women can create four children per year, very easily, but a woman with four men cannot create four children; she will create only one child. The population of Mohammedans goes on increasing as nobody else can increase the population the way they can. So you will not be surprised that India has been divided; Mohammedans have taken Pakistan and made it separate. The country has been cut into three parts: one side is Pakistan, given to Mohammedans; another side is Bangladesh, given to Mohammedans. And still, within forty years, in India Mohammedans are again number two to Hindus.

 

Again they can ask for another country. And you will also be surprised that India is a Hindu country but the number of Mohammedans in India is more than in any Mohammedan country in the world -- not even Arabia, or Egypt, or Iran, or Libya, or Palestine... No Mohammedan country has so many Mohammedans as India has.

 

India is the greatest Mohammedan country in the world if you take the number of the Mohammedans. And the number goes on growing four times more. Hindus are simply puzzled what to do because soon they will be outnumbering Hindus. They have taken Pakistan, they have taken Bangladesh, and it is not far away when they will be the majority and Hindus will become the minority in their own country.

 

Situations, contexts should be taken into account and that is possible only if you are living a very alert and conscious life; otherwise you will follow dead, ready-made things which may have been relevant at some time. Those times have changed and they have become irrelevant, but the list continues to be the same.

 

So I don't give you any list. I have been asked by priests, Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, that I should make a clear-cut statement: what are sins, what are virtues and what are my fundamental principles of religion?

 

I said, "My first fundamental and the last fundamental is that religion cannot be a fixed thing. It has to be spontaneous. It has to come out of your awareness. Nobody can decide it. No catechism can be given according to me.

 

I can only teach you awareness and then you find out with your awareness, with your own light where to go, what to do.

 

Anything done with awareness is virtue.

 

Anything done with unawareness is sin.

 

- Osho, "The Invitation, #24, Q2"