Question 1

I don't have eyes to see. i don't have ears to hear. and i am absolutely stupid. you promise us liberation some day. how is that possible with such a helpless case as i am? and on the other hand, sometimes i am filled with grace which no words can describe. what happens? and where am i in all this?

 

A good beginning. If you can feel that you don't have eyes to see, sooner or later, you will have eyes. To feel that you are ignorant, you have taken the first step towards knowledge. To feel that you are lost is to attain to the path. That is why sometimes you are filled with grace. The very understanding that you are ignorant suddenly illuminates your being.
 

The problem is with those people who think they know. They are in real trouble. They know not and they think they know. So there is no possibility for their growth. And they insist and they defend their knowledge. In defending their knowledge, they are defending their ignorance.

 

If you are ill, you seek a physician. But if you pretend that you are not ill, and you are ill, you avoid the physician. Even if the physician comes to your home, you will say: ’Why have you come here?’

 

Gurdjieff, working with his disciples one day, told a group: ’Unless you know your chief characteristic and become aware of it, you will not be able to enter into your essence and you will remain stuck to your personality.’

 

Somebody asked: ’Please give us concrete examples.’

 

Gurdjieff said: ’Look at the man who is sitting in front of me. His chief characteristic is that he is never at home.’ Everybody could see the absent-mindedness on the man’s face.

 

But the man shrugged his shoulders and said: ’What did you say sir?’ – because that is the chief characteristic: he is not at home. He is always somewhere else, and he wants to grow. Impossible – because you have to be at home to grow.

 

Then Gurdjieff turned to another and said: ’Look at this man. His chief characteristic is that he is always arguing with everybody and everything.’ The man became very heated and said: ’Sir, there you are wrong! I never argue!’

 

Find out what you are defending. That may be the clue to enter within.

 

Just last night, a sannyasin said that from her very childhood, she has been feeling that she is stupid. And she is afraid, so she goes on defending. She tries not to do anything which is stupid. Now she is in a mess, because what can you do? You can avoid, but WHO will avoid? – the stupid mind will avoid. In avoiding, you will do the same stupidity again.

 

A stupid person… and all persons are stupid unless they become aware and alert. All persons are stupid. So when I say stupid, I don’t mean any condemnation – I simply indicate a state of unawareness. Everybody is born stupid. Fortunate are the few who don’t die stupid.

 

Stupidity is the sleep you live in. How can you avoid it? How can a man who is fast asleep avoid dreaming? If he tries, he will create another dream. In the very avoidance, he will do something stupid. Don’t avoid it. Accept it!

 

Because avoidance is trying to defend it. You don’t want anybody to know that you are stupid, but that is not going to help. And the trouble is, that by avoiding continuously, you may yourself forget that you are stupid. Then you are settled in it. Then there is no way out.

 

That’s how you have created your troubles. You have been avoiding them. Then you deceive others and by and by you are deceived yourself. People come to me with problems, but those are not the real problems. Rarely a person comes with an authentic problem. Otherwise they don’t know exactly what their problem is. They have a false problem, so they can be engaged in solving it.

 

They will never be able to solve it – because a real disease can disappear; an unreal disease cannot disappear. In the first place, it is not there. How to make it disappear? And by fighting with the wrong disease, they are defending the right disease. They are engaged in fighting with something which is absolutely pseudo. So they are giving time for the real disease to grow and spread, and become a cancerous phenomenon in their being.

 

To look at the right problem is difficult because from the very beginning you have been taught to avoid.

 

In the Poona newspapers, every day I see somebody dies-husband dies, a wife dies, and in the memory a picture is printed: ’My wife left for the heavenly abode, this very day, one year ago.’

 

You don't say 'death'. That word is too real and hits too hard. 'Left for heavenly abode....' Who are you deceiving? -- not the wife who has already left. You are deceiving yourself. You are afraid of death. You are hiding death in a beautiful terminology: 'heavenly abode'. Now there is no fear; in fact, even a little desire to go yourself.

The basic problem is death. You have made a code and you may forget completely. And this is how you are working with life. You feel angry, but you don't say that you are angry. You say: 'I feel restless.' Restlessness is not a condemnatory thing.

I was reading about a Quaker, a very religious Quaker. One night, a thief entered. The Quaker got his gun. He wanted to say: 'You son of a bitch,' but he couldn't say that. A quaker, a religious person, how can he say that? So he said: 'Dear sir, you are standing in the place where I am going to shoot. Please don't move! And I don't intend to kill you; this is just accidental. You are standing in the place where I am going to shoot.' How can a Quaker kill?

You go on deceiving. Your language, your philosophy, your religion -- everything.

Once it happened: I was talking and I used the word 'pissing'. Ananda Prem wrote a long letter to me immediately, saying: 'Please don't use this word; "urination" has to be used'.

'Urination' is clinical. Nobody urinates. It is a textbook thing. 'Pissing' is alive. The very sound of it gives you the idea. But reality has to be hidden. And that day I understood why Ananda Prem is so upright -- she has been urinating! You have to be uptight then.

Be real, authentic, true, true to life. But even words.... I will tell you one story.

A woman came to listen to a so-called saint with her small child, a young boy. Just in the middle of the discourse the boy started fidgeting and then he said loudly: 'I wanna go to piss.'

The saint was of course very angry -- such a mundane thing in such a sacred atmosphere. He said: 'You have to teach manners to him. Otherwise, don't bring him here. This is not only unmannerly, it is insulting.'

The woman said: 'You tell me how to teach him.'

So he said: 'You can make a code word. He can say: "I wanna sing." Then you will understand.' So the woman taught the boy.

After one year it happened: the saint came to visit the woman's house; he stayed there. One night, the woman had to go to another town; her mother was ill, so the saint was left with the child. Just in the middle of the night, two o'clock, the child awoke the saint and said: 'I wanna sing.' But by that time, the saint had forgotten the code. One year had passed and....

So he said: 'Wanna sing? This is no time to sing'

The child said: 'But I sing every day. Even twice.'

'But you are a very stupid child,' he said. 'In the day you can sing, but not in the night. And don't disturb me keep quiet and go to sleep.'

After a few minutes, again the child said: 'But I cannot go to sleep. And if you don't allow me, it will come out by itself, I tell you!'

The saint said: 'What type of singing? Even the neighbours will be disturbed. You go to sleep!'

The boy said: 'I cannot sleep. First I will have to sing.'

So the saint said: 'Okay. You come near my ear and sing slowly.'

So the boy sang! Then the saint understood the code.

Never hide in codes. Be true. And life is simple, but because of your pretensions you complicate the whole thing. Don't complicate it.

Ninety-nine percent of your illnesses are your own working. Be alert and watch. If you are stupid, you are stupid. This is the first ray of intelligence that has happened to you: that you feel that you are stupid -- perfectly beautiful.

To understand that one is stupid is to already be intelligent. To understand that one is blind and cannot see light, one is already on the way. Now something is possible.

But a blind man goes on imagining that he knows what light is. He dreams about light, he dreams about the eyes. And if somebody says that he is wrong he is ready to protect himself, defend, rationalize, argue.

Look at the bare fact. Whatsoever it is, to accept it is good. You are blind -- everybody is born blind. Nobody comes with eyes. If you have eyes, there is no need to come. You come only to learn how to be able to see. And from the very beginning, you start thinking that you have eyes.

You come here to be enlightened. Life is a process of enlightenment. If you live it truly, Buddhahood is bound to happen. It is not some accident; you carry the seed within you. Just give the right soil and the seed will sprout, and a Buddha will flower in you.

Buddhahood is not accidental, is not only for the chosen few -- it is everybody's destiny. Delay you can, but when you attain, there is nothing to brag about. I will repeat: Delay you can, but when you attain it, there is nothing to brag about. It is very ordinary. It has to be so. It is your intrinsic being. It is your essence. Only the personality has to be dropped. Personality is the falsification.

Watch. And always be true. Whatsoever you say about yourself, be true, and you will never be a loser.

In the beginning it will seem that if you say that you are stupid, everybody will know -- but stupidity is not such a thing that you can hide it. Everybody already knows Everybody already knows. Only you are deceived. Drop all deceptions, because finally, eventually, you will discover that nobody else was deceived, only yourself. And nobody is a loser for it. You lose.

Drop all codes. Drop all falsifications. And when I say 'drop,' I don't mean that any effort is needed. Just see, and they drop. Seeing is dropping. That's why if you feel: 'I don't have eyes to see,' eyes start opening. If you feel: 'I don't have ears to hear you,' you have already heard me!

If you say: 'I am absolutely stupid,' intelligence has arrived -- the first ray has penetrated your being.

YOU PROMISE US LIBERATION...

I don't promise you anything. It is already promised by destiny. You are here for it.

How can I promise something? Who am I to promise r I can promise only because I know -- it is already there. I know -- whether you know it or not -- that it is already there. I can see the flame inside you. You may have forgotten it, but I can penetrate and see. I promise because I know it is already there. Right now, it is the facticity of your being. Nothing is to be done. One just has to become a little more alert, a little truer, a little more in the essence.

Don't cling to the personality that you have created around you. Go to the center.

You feel: HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE WITH SUCH A HELPLESS CASE AS I AM?

Anybody who moves on the path feels helpless. Only those who never move on the path feel themselves very strong. Anybody who moves on the path feels helpless, because on the path one becomes flexible, on the path one becomes aware -- how things are. One becomes aware how small one is. One becomes aware of the tininess of his own existence, and the vastness of the reality around. One is just a small drop in an infinite ocean. Of course, one feels helpless.

But once you feel helpless, the ego has been dropped. And for the first time, from every nook and corner of existence help rushes towards you. The whole ocean rushes towards you. In your helplessness, the drop drops. You become the ocean.

And that's why you say: ON THE OTHER HAND, SOMETIMES I AM FILLED WITH GRACE.

Yes, it happens. It is part of the whole process. If you feel helplessness, you will feel grace reaching to you.

If you feel that you are already strong, the door is closed. You don't need grace.

There is a very ancient story. Krishna is sitting down. His wife, Rukhamani, has brought food for him, and he was just going to take the first bite. He dropped it and rushed towards the door. Then he stopped at the door for a single moment, came back, and started eating.

Rukhamani was puzzled. She said: 'What is the matter? You rushed towards the door as if there is some great emergency, as if the house is on fire or something, or somebody is going to die. And then you stopped, and then you came back. I'm puzzled. Tell me, what is the secret?'

Krishna said: 'One of my devotees, a lover, was passing through a big city. He is almost mad in love with me. People were throwing stones at him. They thought he was crazy. And when the stones hit him and the blood flowed, he just said: 'Krishna, Krishna,' and danced. He was so helpless, I was needed. So I rushed.'

Rukhmani asked: 'Then what happened? Why did you come back from the door?'

Krishna said: 'By the time I reached the door, he had taken one stone in his hand. He was throwing stones himself. Now I am not needed. He has taken the whole situation in his own hands. I am not needed.'

God comes to you when you are helpless. When you are strong, God is not needed. The divine reaches to you when you are empty. When you are too full of yourself, there is no need.

Helplessness is the capacity to call, to invite grace. Grace is always available; you only have to be helpless.

But in your ego, you feel you are strong. You feel you are the master. You feel nothing can harm you. You feel everybody else dies, not you. You feel very superior, and nothing is there in that superiority; it is just a bubble, a soap bubble -- inside, nothing but emptiness. And you know it, because anybody can touch the bubble and it is no more there; it explodes.

Feel helpless and you will never be helpless again. Feel empty and you will be full with the divine. That's the secret.

AND ON THE OTHER HAND SOMETIMES L AM FILLED WITH GRACE WHICH NO WORDS CAN DESCRIBE.

Yes, the grace cannot be described, because when it comes, the mind is not there which can describe. When it comes, the mind ceases to exist. Who can give and bring a report? The reporter is not present. It comes only when the mind is not, and mind could have described.

WHAT HAPPENS? AND WHERE AM I IN ALL THIS?

You are nowhere in this. The moment you come, the grace has disappeared. When you are not, God is. When you are, God is not. Your presence is His absence. Your absence is His presence. Crucify your ego and you will resurrect into a greater infinite life.

 

- Osho, “The True Sage, #6, Q1”