Question 1

"Only compassion is therapeutic" you said. could you comment on the word 'Compassion', compassion for oneself and compassion for the other?

 

 

YES, only compassion is therapeutic -- because all that is ill in man is because of lack of love. All that is wrong with man is somewhere associated with love. He has not been able to love, or he has not been able to receive love. He has not been able to share his being. That's the misery. That creates all sorts of complexes inside.

 

Those wounds inside can surface in many ways: they can become physical illness, they can become mental illness -- but deep down man suffers from lack of love. Just as food is needed for the body, love is needed for the soul. The body cannot survive without food, and the soul cannot survive without love. In fact, without love the soul is never born -- there is no question of its survival.

 

You simply think that you have a soul; you believe that you have a soul because of your fear of death. But you have not known unless you have loved. Only in love does one come to feel that one is more than the body, more than the mind.

 

That's why I say compassion is therapeutic. What is compassion? Compassion is the purest form of love. Sex is the lowest form of love, compassion the highest form of love. In sex the contact is basically physical; in compassion the contact is basically spiritual. In love, compassion and sex are both mixed, the physical and the spiritual are both mixed. Love is midway between sex and compassion.

 

You can call compassion prayer also. You can call compassion meditation also. The highest form of energy is compassion. The word 'compassion' is beautiful: half of it is 'passion' -- somehow passion has become so refined that it is no more like passion. It has become compassion.

 

In sex, you use the other, you reduce the other to a means, you reduce the other to a thing. That's why in a sexual relationship you feel guilty. That guilt has nothing to do with religious teachings; that guilt is deeper than religious teachings. In a sexual relationship as such you feel guilty. You feel guilty because you are reducing a human being to a thing, to a commodity to be used and thrown away.

 

That's why in sex you also feel a sort of bondage -- you are also being reduced to a thing. And when you are a thing your freedom disappears, because your freedom exists only when you are a person. The more you are a person, the more free; the more you are a thing, the less free.

 

The furniture in your room is not free. If you leave the room locked and you come after many years, the furniture will be in the same place, in the same way; it will not arrange itself in a new way. It has no freedom. But if you leave a man in the room, you will not find him the same -- not even the next day -- not even the next moment. You cannot find the same man again.

 

Says old Heraclitus: YOU CANNOT STEP IN THE SAME RIVER TWICE. You cannot come across the same man again. It is impossible to meet the same man twice -- because man is a river, continuously flowing.

 

You never know what is going to happen. The future remains open.

 

For a thing, future is closed. A rock will remain a rock, will remain a rock. It has no potentiality for growth. It cannot change, it cannot evolve. A man never remains the same. May fall back, may go ahead; may go into hell or into heaven -- but never remains the same. Goes on moving, this way or that.

 

When you have a sexual relationship with somebody, you have reduced that somebody to a thing. And in reducing him you have reduced yourself also to a thing, because it is a mutual compromise that 'I allow you to reduce me to a thing, you allow me to reduce you to a thing. I allow you to use me, you allow me to use you. We use each other. We both have become things.'

 

That's why... watch two lovers: when they have not yet settled. the romance is still alive, the honeymoon has not ended and you will see two persons throbbing with life, ready to explode -- ready to explode the unknown. And then watch a married couple, the husband and the wife, and you will see two dead things, two graveyards, side by side -- helping each other to remain dead, forcing each other to remain dead. That is the constant conflict of the marriage. Nobody wants to be reduced to a thing!

 

Sex is the lowest form of that energy 'X'. If you are religious, call it 'God'; if you are scientific, call it 'X'. This energy, X, can become love. When it becomes love, then you start respecting the other person. Yes. sometimes you use the other person, but you feel thankful for it. You never say thank-you to a thing. When you are in love with a woman and you make love to her, you say thank-you. When you make love to your wife, have you ever said thank-you? No, you take it for granted. Has your wife said thank-you to you ever? Maybe, many years before, you can remember some time when you were just undecided, were just trying, courting, seducing each other -- maybe. But once you were settled, has she said thank-you to you for anything? You have been doing so many things for her, she has been doing so many things for you, you are both living for each other -- but gratitude has disappeared.

 

In love, there is gratitude, there is a deep gratefulness. You know that the other is not a thing. You know that the other has a grandeur, a personality, a soul, an individuality. In love you give total freedom to the other. Of course, you give and you take; it is a give-and-take relationship -- but with respect.

 

In sex, it is a give-and-take relationship with no respect. In compassion, you simply give. There is no idea anywhere in your mind to get anything back -- you simply share. Not that nothing comes! millionfold it is returned, but that is just by the way, just a natural consequence. There is no hankering for it.

 

In love, if you give something, deep down you go on expecting that it should be returned. If it is not returned, you feel complaining. You may not say so, but in a thousand and one ways it can be inferred that you are grumbling, that you are feeling that you have been cheated. Love seems to be a subtle bargain.

 

In compassion, you simply give. In love, you are thankful because the other has given something to you. In compassion, you are thankful because the other has taken something from you; you are thankful because the other has not rejected you. You had come with energy to give, you had come with many flowers to share, and the other allowed you, the other was receptive. You are thankful because the other was receptive.

 

Compassion is the highest form of love. Much comes back -- millionfold, I say -- but that is not the point, you don't hanker for it. If it is not coming there is no complaint about it. If it is coming you are simply surprised! If it is coming, it is unbelievable. If it is not coming there is no problem -- you had never given your heart to somebody for any bargain. You simply shower because you have. You have so much that if you don't shower you will become burdened. Just like a cloud full of rainwater has to shower. And next time when a cloud is showering watch silently, and you will always hear, when the cloud has showered and the earth has absorbed, you will always hear the cloud saying to the earth "Thank-you." The earth helped the cloud to unburden.

 

When a flower has bloomed, it has to share its fragrance to the winds. It is natural! It is not a bargain, it is not a business -- it is simply natural! The flower is full of fragrance -- what to do? If the flower keeps the fragrance to itself then the flower will feel very, very tense, in deep anguish. The greatest anguish in life is when you cannot express, when you cannot communicate, when you cannot share. The poorest man is he who has nothing to share, or who has something to share but has lost the capacity, the art, of how to share it -- then a man is poor.

 

The sexual man is very poor. The loving man is richer comparatively. The man of compassion is the richest -- he is at the top of the world. He has no confinement, no limitation. He simply gives and goes on his way. He does not even wait for you to say a thank-you. With tremendous love he shares his energy.

 

This is what I call therapeutic.

 

Christians believe that Jesus did many miracles. I cannot see him doing any miracle. The miracle was his compassion. If anything happened, it happened without his doing it. If anything ever happens in the highest plane of being, it always happens without any effort. He moved; many sorts of people came to him. He was there like a tremendous pool of energy -- anybody who was ready to share, shared.

 

Miracles happened! He was therapeutic. He was one of the greatest healers the world has ever known. Buddha, or Mahavir, or Krishna -- they are all great healers, on different levels. Yes, you cannot find in Buddha's life any miracle of healing an ill person, or healing a blind man, or bringing a dead person to life. You will be surprised: Was Jesus' compassion more than Buddha's? What happened? Why were many people not healed through Buddha's energy? No. It is not a question of more or less. Buddha's compassion functioned on a different level. He had a different type of audience and a different type of people around him from Jesus.

 

It always happens -- almost always -- I go on watching: continuously a stream of people comes to me from the West -- they never ask anything about their bodies. They don't come to me and say, "I have a constant headache. Osho, help me, do something!" Or, "My eyes are weak," or, "My concentration is not good," or, "My memory is being lost" -- no, never. But Indians come and always something of the physical they bring. Mm? They have had an upset stomach for many years -- "Osho, do something!"

 

Almost always I feel: Why? What has happened to India? Why do these people come only for some bodily, physical problems? They have only those problems. A poor country, a very poor country, has no spiritual problems. A rich country has spiritual problems; a poor country has physical problems.

 

Buddha's time in India was the golden age. That was the time for India at its peak. The country was rich, tremendously rich, affluent. The whole world was poor, and India was very rich. The people coming to Buddha were bringing spiritual problems. Yes, they were also bringing wounds, but they were spiritual wounds.

 

Jesus moved in a very poor country, lived in a very poor country. The people who were coming to him had no spiritual problems, in fact, because to have a spiritual problem you have to attain to a certain standard of living. Otherwise, your problems go on being of the lower levels. A poor man has a problem.

 

Just a few days before, one of my relatives was here. For one month he was here, meditating, doing things. And then on the last day I was hoping he would ask something meaningful. What did he ask? He asked that his son is not doing well. Living one month here, listening to me for one month, this was the only question that came to his mind: his son is not doing well. He drives a taxi, and they have purchased such a car that every day there is some problem or other -- "Osho, do something!" I am not a car mechanic! So I told him, "Sell that car!" He said, "Nobody will purchase it, so do something!"

 

When people are poor, their problems are of the world. When people are rich, their problems are of a higher quality. Only an affluent country can be really spiritual; a poor country cannot be. I am not saying that a poor man cannot be -- yes, a poor man can be, exceptions are there -- but a poor country cannot be. A poor country, on the whole, thinks in terms of money, medicine, house, car, this and that. And it is natural, it is logical!

 

Jesus moved in a very poor world. People were seeking their own solutions. Many were helped -- not that Jesus was helping -- they were helped. And Jesus says again and again: "It is your faith that has healed you." When you have faith, compassion can pour into you. When you have faith, you are open to compassion. Buddha did miracles, but those miracles are of the invisible. Mahavir did miracles, but those miracles are of the invisible. You cannot see them -- they can only be seen by the person to whom they have happened.

 

But compassion is always therapeutic; whatsoever your level, it helps you. Compassion is love purified -- so much so that you simply give and don't ask anything in return.

 

Buddha used to say to his disciples, "After each meditation, be compassionate -- immediately -- because when you meditate, love grows, the heart becomes full. After each meditation, feel compassion for the whole world so that you share your love and you release the energy into the atmosphere and that energy can be used by others."

 

I would also like to say that to you: After each meditation, when you are celebrating, have compassion. Just feel that your energy should go and help people in whatsoever ways they need it. Just release it! You will be unburdened, you will feel very relaxed, you will feel very calm and quiet, and the vibrations that you have released will help many. End your meditations always with compassion.

 

And compassion is unconditional. You cannot have compassion only for those who are friendly towards you, only for those who are related to you.

 

It happened in China: When Bodhidharma went to China, a man came to him. He said, "I have followed your teachings: I meditate and then I feel compassion for the whole universe -- not only for men, but for animals, for rocks and rivers also. But there is one problem: I cannot feel compassion for my neighbor. No -- it is impossible! So you please tell me: can I exclude my neighbor from my compassion? I include the whole existence, known, unknown, but can I exclude my neighbor? -- because it is very difficult, impossible. I cannot feel compassion for him."

 

Bodhidharma said, "Then forget about meditation, because if compassion excludes anybody then it is no more there."

 

Compassion is all-inclusive -- intrinsically all-inclusive. So if you cannot feel compassion for your neighbor~ then forget all about meditation -- because it has nothing to do with somebody in particular. It has something to do with your inner state. Be compassion! unconditionally, undirected, unaddressed. Then you become a healing force into this world of misery.

 

Jesus says: "Love thy neighbor as thyself" -- again and again. And he also says: "Love thy enemy as thyself." And if you analyze both the sentences together, you will come to find that the neighbor and the enemy are almost always the same person. "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and "Love thy enemy as thyself." What does he mean?

 

He simply means: don't have any barriers for your compassion, for your love. As you love yourself, love the whole existence -- because in the ultimate analysis the whole existence is yourself. It is you -- reflected in many mirrors. It is you -- it is not separate from you. Your neighbor is just a form of you; your enemy is also a form of you. Whatsoever you come across, you come across yourself. You may not recognize because you are not very alert; you may not be able to see yourself in the other, but then something is wrong with your vision, something is wrong with your eyes.

 

COMPASSION is therapeutic. "Could you comment on the word 'compassion', compassion for oneself and compassion for the other?"

 

Yes, you have to understand that to be compassionate one has to have compassion for oneself in the first place. If you don't love yourself you will never be able to love anybody else. If you are not kind to yourself you cannot be kind to anybody else. Your so-called saints who are so very hard on themselves are just pretenders that they are kind to others. It is not possible. Psychologically it is impossible. If you cannot be kind to yourself, how can you be kind to others?

 

Whatsoever you are with yourself you are with others. Let that be a basic dictum. If you hate yourself you will hate others -- and you have been taught to hate yourself. Nobody has ever said to you, "Love yourself!" The very idea seems absurd -- loving oneself? The very idea makes no sense -- loving oneself? We always think that to love one needs somebody else. But if you don't learn it with yourself you will not be able to practise it with others.

 

You have been told, constantly conditioned, that you are not of any worth. From every direction you have been shown, you have been told, that you are unworthy, that you are not what you should be, that you are not accepted as you are. There are many shoulds hanging over your head -- and those shoulds are almost impossible to fulfill. And when you cannot fulfill them, when you fall short, you feel condemned. A deep hatred arises in you about yourself.

 

How can you love others? So full of hatred, where are you going to find love? So you only pretend, you only show that you are in love. Deep down you are not in love with anybody -- you cannot be. Those pretensions are good for a few days, then the color disappears, then reality asserts itself.

 

Every love-affair is on the rocks. Sooner or later, every love-affair becomes very poisoned. And how does it become so poisoned? Both pretend that they are loving, both go on saying that they love. The father says he loves the child; the child says he loves the father. The mother says she loves her daughter, and the daughter goes on saying the same thing. Brothers say they love each other. The whole world talks about love, sings about love -- and can you find any other place so loveless? Not an iota of love exists -- and mountains of talk! Himalayas of poetry about love.

 

It seems all these poetries are just compensations. Because we cannot love, we have somehow to believe through poetry, singing, that we love. What we miss in life we put in poetry. What we go on missing in life, we put in the film, in the novel. Love is absolutely absent, because the first step has not been taken yet.

 

The first step is: accept yourself as you are; drop all shoulds. Don't carry any ought on your heart! You are not to be somebody else; you are not expected to do something which doesn't belong to you -- you are just to be yourself. Relax! and just be yourself. Be respectful to your individuality. and have the courage to sign your own signature. Don't go on copying others signatures.

 

You are not expected to become a Jesus or a Buddha or a Ramakrishna -- you are simply expected to become yourself. It was good that Ramakrishna never tried to become somebody else, so he became Ramakrishna. It was good that Jesus never tried to become like Abraham or Moses, so he became Jesus. It is good that Buddha never tried to become a Patanjali or Krishna -- that's why he became a Buddha.

 

When you are not trying to become anybody else, then you simply relax -- then a grace arises. Then you are full of grandeur, splendor, harmony -- because then there is no conflict! nowhere to go, nothing to fight for; nothing to force, enforce upon yourself violently. You become innocent.

 

In that innocence you will feel compassion and love for yourself. You will feel so happy with yourself that even if God comes and knocks at your door and says, "Would you like to become somebody else?" you will say, "Have you gone mad?! I am perfect! Thank-you, but never try anything like that -- I am perfect as I am."

 

The moment you can say to God, "I am perfect as I am, I am happy as I am, "this is w hat in the East we call shraddha -- trust; then you have accepted yourself and in accepting yourself you have accepted your creator. Denying yourself you deny your creator.

 

If you go and see a painting of Picasso's and you say, "This is wrong and that is wrong, and this color should have been this way," you are denying Picasso. The moment you say, "I should be like this," you are trying to improve upon God. You are saying, "You committed blunders -- I should have been like this, and you have made me like this?" You are trying to improve upon God. It is not possible. Your struggle is in vain -- you are doomed to failure.

 

And the more you fail, the more you hate. The more you fail, the more you feel condemned. The more you fail, the more you feel yourself impotent. And out of this hatred, impotency, how can compassion arise? Compassion arises when you are perfectly grounded in your being. You say, "Yes, this is the way I am." You have no ideals to fulfill. And immediately fulfillment starts happening!

 

The roses bloom so beautifully because they are not trying to become lotuses. And the lotuses bloom so beautifully because they have not heard the legends about other flowers. Everything in nature goes so beautifully in accord, because nobody is trying to compete with anybody, nobody is trying to become anybody else. Everything is the way it is.

 

Just see the point! Just be yourself and remember you cannot be anything else, whatsoever you do. All effort is futile. You have to be just yourself.

 

There are only two ways. One is: rejecting, you can remain the same; condemning. you can remain the same; or: accepting, surrendering, enjoying, delighting, you can be the same. Your attitude can be different, but you are going to remain the way you are, the person you are. Once you accept, compassion arises. And then you start accepting others!

 

Have you watched it? -- it is very difficult to live with a saint, very difficult. You can live with a sinner; you cannot live with a saint -- because a saint will be condemning you continuously: by his gesture, by his eyes, the way he will look at you, the way he will talk at you. A saint never talks with you -- he talks at you. He never just looks at you; he has always some ideals in his eyes, clouding. He never sees you. He has something far away and he goes on comparing you with it -- and, of course, you always fall short. His very look makes you a sinner. It is very difficult to live with a saint -- because he does not accept himself, how can he accept you? He has many things in him. jarring notes he feels. he has to go beyond. Of course, he sees the same things in you in a magnified way.

 

But to me only that person is a saint who has accepted himself, and in his acceptance has accepted the whole world. To me, that state of mind is what sainthood is: the state of total acceptance. And that is healing, therapeutic. Mm? -- just being with somebody who accepts you totally is therapeutic. You will be healed.

 

As life is.... I divide it in three parts: breakfast, Lunch, supper. The childhood is the breakfast-time.

 

And as it happens if you have not been given your breakfast today, you will feel very, very hungry, out of all proportion, at lunchtime. And if you have missed lunch also, then of course at supper you will be almost mad. Love is food -- that's why I divide life in three: breakfast, lunch, supper.

 

Love is food: food for the soul. When a child sucks at his mother's breast for the first time, he is sucking two things, not only milk -- milk is going into his body and love is going into his soul. Love is invisible, just as soul is invisible; milk is visible just as body is visible. If you have eyes to see, you can see two things together dripping into the child's being from the mother's breast. Milk is just the visible part of love; love is the invisible part of milk -- the warmth, the love, the compassion, the blessing.

 

If the child has missed at his breakfast, then when he is young he will be too needy for love -- and that creates trouble. Then he will be too impatient for love -- that creates trouble. Then he will be in such a hurry for love -- that creates trouble. Because love grows very slowly, it needs patience. And the more you are in a hurry, the more is the possibility that you will miss.

 

Have you watched it in yourself and in others? The people who are too much in need of love always suffer, because they always feel that nobody is going to fulfill them. In fact, nobody is going to be their mother again. In a mother-child relationship, nothing was expected from the child. What can a child do? -- helpless. He cannot return anything. At the most he can smile -- that's all -- or follow with his eyes where the mother is going -- that s all. Small, beautiful gestures -- but nothing else can he do. The mother has to give, the child has to receive.

 

If at breakfast-time you have missed this, then you will be looking for a woman who can be your mother. Now, a woman is looking for a lover, not for a son -- trouble is bound to be there. Unless by chance, by accident, you can find some woman who is looking for a son -- then things will settle; then two illnesses will fit together.

 

It always happens: a pessimist always finds an optimist to fit; a sadist always finds a masochist to fit; a dominating person always finds one who is in need of being dominated, then they fit. You cannot find two masochists living together, never. I have watched thousands of couples: up to now I have not been able to come to a single couple in which both the partners are sadists or both the partners are masochists. It is impossible to live together -- they have to fit. Only opposites fit, and people always fall in love with the opposite.

 

If you can meet a woman who is in search of a son... that too is ugly, that too is ill, because a woman naturally should be seeking a lover, not a child. And this is the problem, and the problem becomes more complicated: even if she is looking for a son, she is unaware of it; and even if you are looking for a mother, you are unaware of it. In fact, if a woman tries to mother you, you will feel hurt. You will say, "What are you doing? Am I a child?" And you are looking for a mother. Thousands, millions of people are looking for a mother.

 

That's why man seems so much interested in women's breasts -- otherwise there is no need to be so much interested in women's breasts. The interest simply shows that in your childhood, at your breakfast-time, you have missed something. It continues, it hovers on your mind, it haunts you. Breasts are for breakfast time. Now why do you go on thinking and painting -- mm?...

 

Just a few days before, a painter was here and he brought a few of his paintings; just breasts and breasts. He became a sannyasin so I said to him, "Now at least you start to grow a little. This is childish!" And he has won many prizes; he is a world famous painter. His paintings have been exhibited all over the world: in New York, in London, in Paris. in Berlin, and everywhere. And he has been appreciated very much. Of course, must have been appreciated by other children! There is no point in it.

 

So I told him, "Do something else -- breakfast time is over! You are old enough to do something else."

 

He said, "I will try."

 

Now he sends a painting in which I am sitting in the middle -- and breasts and breasts all around. So not I am also part! He has tried his best, but difficult to get out of it.

 

Watch deep down, because it is nothing of your responsibility, it is nothing to do with you -- you cannot change your mother now. It happened as it happened -- but you can become conscious. You can become conscious of all these things inside. And by becoming conscious a miracle happens. If you become conscious of these things, they start dropping. They can cling to you only in deep unconsciousness. A profound consciousness begins to be a transforming force.

 

So just become conscious! If you have some childish attitudes towards love, become conscious, find out, search deep. And just by becoming conscious, they drop. So nothing else is needed. Not that first you have to become conscious and then you have to ask "What to do now?" The moment you become conscious they disappear -- because by becoming conscious you are becoming adult.

 

A child is not conscious. A child lives in a deep unconsciousness. By becoming conscious you are becoming adult, mature, so all that was clinging in your unconsciousness will disappear. Just as you bring light in a room and the darkness disappears; bring consciousness deep in your heart.

 

Then there are people who miss their lunch also. Then in their old age they become what you call 'dirty old people'. hen in their old age they continuously think of sex and nothing else. They may not talk about sex in a direct way -- they may start talking against sex -- but they will talk about sex. Their being against makes no difference.

 

You go and listen to the so-called saints in India, and you will always find them continuously talking against sex and praising brahmacharya. These people have even missed their lunch. Now suppertime has come -- and they are mad. Now they know that death is coming any moment. And when death is approaching near, and time is disappearing from their hands, if they become neurotic it seems natural.

 

These neurotic people have stories in the old scriptures that when they meditate, apsaras -- beautiful women from heaven -- descend. Naked they dance around them. Why should they do such a thing? Who is bothered about an old man sitting in the Himalayas meditating -- who is bothered? dead almost -- who is bothered? Those apsaras from heaven, they can find better people.

 

In fact, so many people are chasing apsaras, how can they find time to chase rishis, these so-called saints? No, it has nothing to do with apsaras or with heaven or anything. It is just that these people have missed breakfast and lunch both. And by suppertime their imagination is playing tremendous games with them. It is their imagination, starved imagination.

 

You do one thing: you just go on a fast for three weeks, and then everywhere you will start seeing food -- everywhere! Even you may see a full moon rushing into the sky and you will say it looks like bread, a chapati. That's how it will happen. You will start projecting, your imagination will be playing games with you.

 

If this happens, then compassion never arises. Move slowly, alert, watching, be loving. If you are sexual I don't say drop sex: I say make it more alert, make it more prayerful, make it more profound, so that it can become love. If you are loving, then make it even more grateful; bring deeper gratitude, joy, celebration, prayer to it, meditation to it, so that it can become compassion.

 

Unless compassion has happened to you, don't think that you have lived rightly or that you have lived at all. Compassion is the flowering. And when compassion happens to one person, millions are healed. Whosoever comes around him is healed. Compassion is therapeutic.

 

- Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #8"