Aging

 

 

Question 2

Osho,

I  am feeling ancient lately, not ancient as in wise, but ancient as in feeling like a wrinkled up old prune.

 

 

Maneesha, there are many people who like wrinkled up old prunes. I don't like, that's true. Just a few days ago Shunyo has brought me wrinkled up old prunes. I said, "Shunyo, never again."

 

But that does not mean that other people don't like them. Somebody has sent them as a present to me. They were coming directly from the fatherland, Germany.

 

And to feel ancient is great! If you are not wise, be otherwise, but don't feel sad.

 

It is a particularly difficult problem in the West, and more so for Western women, to think of themselves as ancient. Even ancient women, even the dead put on lipstick, do a good make-up and hairdo. And you will rarely suspect whether they are alive or dead, to what century they belong.

 

Particularly in the West I was surprised seeing a few women... My god! As far as I can see these women should be in their graves, and they are doing shopping! And particularly ancient women have nothing else to do, except shopping.

 

So don't be worried about being ancient enjoy! If you can enjoy your childhood, your youth, your old age... then suddenly you realize that you were never a child, never young, never old. You are just pure consciousness, which does not categorize into any age group.

 

It is the body-oriented mind, too much identified with the body, that creates difficulty. The Western woman is very much body-oriented, and there is reason to be, because youth does not last long enough. It is a fleeting phenomenon. And the West is more interested in youth than in anything else. Once you have passed the age of youth, you are ready for the waste-paper basket; nobody cares about you, nobody even looks at you.

 

In the East the situation is not the same. In the East the older the person is the more he is respected, because he is more experienced, he has lived life, he has known much more, and you will also have to pass through the same experiences. It is good to be respectful towards him, because soon you will be old and if this idea becomes fashionable that to be old is not something wrong, but rather experienced and respectable, then your children will respect you when you are old. But you have to create that idea by respecting those who are old.

 

The West has destroyed completely the respectability of the old person, has taken away the dignity of the old person. And because of that, old men and old women and women more so, because old men die sooner; they are more fortunate people, they die five years earlier. And after they are dead, the wife has to live at least five to ten years more alone, old, discarded. Nobody says to her, "Sweetheart." She waits and waits, and remembers the old days, beautiful days, romantic days when she was also called, "Darling."

 

Now nobody takes note of her and she makes a fool of herself, because she wants attention: uses all kinds of make-up, dyes her hair, most probably has become bald by now, then wears some other dead woman's hair...

 

It is so strange that people use wigs. A wig means you are using dead people's hair! And you are not ashamed at all.

 

Tries to behave as if she is young, smokes cigars... And there are old fools also. Every day there is news in the papers that somebody has got married, the man is ninety-seven, the woman is ninety-four, both are dressed up by their friends. And then strange things happen: they even go for a honeymoon with suitcases labeled "Just married."

 

It is so hilarious to see such people.

 

Once a just-married couple reached a hotel on a sea beach. The woman immediately went into the bathroom and she told the man, "Put the light out."

 

The man said, "Why? First you come out, then I will go in the bathroom and then we can go to bed and put the light out."

 

She said, "No, you put the light out. First I will get in bed, and then you can go to the bathroom."

 

The man said, "This is strange the first night of our honeymoon has not even started and the fight has begun."

 

The woman said, "Why do you want to keep the light on?"

 

The man said, "Naturally I want to see you, who you are. All the make-up, whether you are bald, or something else is missing. Naturally I am your husband, I want to know the whole territory. I will keep the light on."

 

The woman said, "If you insist, then it's okay. And when you go into the bathroom I will also keep the light on."

 

He said, "That you cannot do, I am your husband."

 

She said, "It is not possible, this is the age of equality between man and woman. And I am not a small child ninety-four years old. And I know that certainly you are also missing many things. At ninety-seven years you cannot be intact!"

 

The man said, "This is very strange. Okay, I admit that one of my legs is wooden."

 

The woman said, "Anything else?"

 

The man said, "This is not right to inquire about such things, when we are not even well acquainted! One of my eyes is not real."

 

The woman laughed. She said, "Now you can keep the light on, because both my breasts are finished. You were continuously watching my breasts both are just rubber. And you are right" and she threw off her hair "take this wig. Just for your sake I have been wearing some dead woman's hair. And my teeth I will leave in the bathroom!"

 

Now what... why are you getting married? To torture each other? So many people I have seen when I was moving around the world. I could not believe: why are they not silently asleep in their graves? There seems to be no reason but to go on unnecessarily harassing other people.

 

And Maneesha, you are not ancient, yet. Whenever this feeling of ancientness comes to you, just say, "Yaa-Hoo!" And you will feel much younger, healthier. Take a deep breath, and with each "Yaa-Hoo" you will start getting younger and younger and younger. Don't do too much; otherwise you will be late for school. It is a magic formula.

 

I will tell you... if by some accident somebody does it and gets into his childhood again and then feels lost what to do... for him, another formula to bring him back up to his authentic age. That is, "Boo-Hoo!" That you will have to repeat unnecessarily. And "Yaa-Hoo" is perfectly religious, "Boo-Hoo" belongs to witchcraft. These two belong to different sections you must have heard about white magic and black magic. "Yaa-Hoo" is white magic and "Boo-Hoo" is black magic.

 

I am simply making you aware so that if by chance you make some mistake you can correct it.

 

And Maneesha, you say:

 

I WOULD LIKE TO DO WITH THE APPROACH OF OLD AGE, AS SOCRATES DID WITH THE POISONING OF HIS BODY, TO JUST WATCH EVERY BODILY CHANGE AS IT COMES AND KNOW IT IS NOT ME.

 

Now this idea must have come to you because of that great fellow Vimal. He was going to commit suicide, but because of so many people doing "Yaa- Hoo!" he cannot die. I saw him and he himself was doing "Yaa-Hoo!" For two weeks he was still waiting for my answer, and he wanted to commit suicide.

 

Now the same stupid idea... you are under the influence of that Vimal who is going to Goa, not going to die or anything. After two or three days he will be back.

 

It happens to many people here. When they become too old they go to Goa and after two or three days they are back home.

 

And there is no need to do it the way Socrates did it. Somehow you want me to be a criminal! Should I provide poison to you? Vimal wanted to know how he should commit suicide there is no need to commit suicide and there is no need to die like Socrates. Just die like human beings die, on their beds, silently, making no fuss about it.

 

And she is saying,

 

MEANWHILE...

 

She is not going to die soon!

 

MEANWHILE, I LOVE DRESSING UP FOR YOU IN DISCOURSE AND WANT TO LOOK BEAUTIFUL FOR YOU.

 

You are making unnecessary efforts. I know already, you are beautiful. Even Niskriya is laughing, just sitting behind Maneesha.

 

There is no need to dress up. I love you, even if you are a wrinkled up old prune. I will not eat, that much I can say. I can love you, but I will love you from a distance.

 

And she is asking me:

 

FROM WHERE YOU ARE, YOU CAN'T SEE MY WRINKLES. OSHO WHAT DO YOU SEE?

 

Now this is such a universal question everybody is worried whether I am seeing him or not! Just to avoid this question, Hindus have given God one thousand eyes, so he can look. But even one thousand eyes will not do. There are five billion people on the earth. And with so many eyes he will get confused.

 

I look perfectly and don't be worried about your make-up, dressing, don't be worried about your wrinkles... because so many people send me eye creams. From now onwards I will start sending them to Maneesha. Because they are all fake: just they are called eye creams and cheat women, nothing changes. They create instead great trouble.

 

Last night Shunyo put some eye cream in my eye. And the whole day I suffered, because the eye cream should not go inside the eye... and my optician, Premda, is sitting here. He has put in some eye drops, and the eyes are so deeply connected with the throat that since he has put in those eye drops it is feeling so bitter in the mouth!

 

You don't know how much I am tortured, the whole day. And I have many torturers. Now they are making a gymnasium for me! It is certain that they will torture me they go on looking into catalogues and finding what will be right for me. I want to live silently, not to be bothered!

 

So don't be worried about your wrinkles. I cannot see from here particularly today, because my eye has been in pain the whole day and then finally Doctor Premda with his great German expertise... He must have never thought that the eye drops would reach to the throat, but they are all connected. That's why those departments and experts are called E.N.T "eyes-nose-throat!"

 

He has cured my eye, he has destroyed my throat. Now another expert... and I have all the experts. So I will send you all those... and many come, because from Japan, from Germany, from England, from America, people who love me bring something. And I don't know why they bring eye creams, my eyes are perfectly okay.

 

-Osho, “YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, #13“