Drop Conscience, Become Conscious

 

 

 

The mind is the inner mass. The mass has created a mechanism inside you; from there you are controlled. The society believes in certain things; the society has inculcated those beliefs in you. Deep down, when you were almost unaware, it hypnotized you into a certain role. If you do something against it, immediately conscience will say no. That conscience is not really conscience; that’s a substitute, a social trick, politics. The society has created certain rules inside your mind, and if you go against them, immediately the voice of the society comes from inside: Don’t do it; it is wrong, it is a sin. The society, from inside, will force you to feel guilty.

 

If you want to leave this so-called conscience, and achieve a real and authentic conscience, then great effort is needed. The whole effort is going to be this: to shift consciousness from your mind to no-mind, from conscience to consciousness.

 

Conscience is given by society; consciousness arises in you. Conscience is borrowed, stale, rotten. It comes from the past which is no more: life has changed completely. Consciousness comes from you. Consciousness is always in the present, it is always fresh. Consciousness makes you integrated – consciousness is integrity.

 

The word integrity is a Latin word; it comes from two roots – in and tangiere. Tangiere means pure, whole, uncorrupted, virgin. A man of integrity is a whole; not many – one. A man of integrity is pure, uncorrupted by the past, virgin. And out of that virginity arises the fragrance which we call religion.

 

Morality is not religion. Morality is a social trick. Religion is individual discovery – you have to discover religion. Morality can be given; religion never.

 

-Osho, “The Search, #4”

 

 

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Drop your conscience, which is imposed, and become conscious of every situation that faces you. And every moment there is a situation that faces you; become conscious of it, and out of that consciousness, act.

 

And whatever you do out of consciousness is right.

 

And whatever you do unconsciously is wrong.

 

So to me the act itself is not right or wrong. To me it depends on you -- your consciousness, the quality of awareness that you bring to the act. Then everything has a different perspective.

 

-Osho, “From Misery to Enlightenment, #11”

 

 

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Morality is for man -- man is not for morality. And morality has to change with the times. Peoples' needs change, requirements change; you cannot continue with old rules. Ten commandments were given three thousand years ago; now everything is different -- they are absolutely irrelevant. You have to find new ways to live, new ways to be. The only possibility is that we drop the whole idea of conscience. Instead of conscience we should depend on consciousness.

 

Conscience is always created by others. It is a manipulation, it is a subtle slavery. Consciousness is created by you. It is your own effort to stand on your own two feet, to look at life and to gather enough courage to live according to your light. Of course when you live according to your light you may commit many mistakes, but there is nothing wrong in committing mistakes because that's the only way to learn. The more mistakes one commits, the more one learns. He only thing to be remembered is: don't commit the same mistake again and again, because that is stupid' Commit new mistakes, find out ways to commit new mistakes.

 

As you grow, as you learn, as you become conscious, as you become more and more alert, a certain inner discipline arises without any imposition, because you can see what is right and what is wrong. And when you see it, there is no split; then you are not of a double mind, then it does not create a kind of schizophrenia. Otherwise the whole humanity has lived a schizophrenic life up to now, because of the moralistic past.

 

We have to free religion from morality. Once religion is freed from morality, then religion gives you a totally new kind of morality, but it will not be of Manu and it will not be of Moses and it will not be of Jesus, and it will not be of Buddha, it will not be mine -- it will be yours. And when it is yours there is a joy in living it, there is great growth through it. You don't feel crippled, paralysed, hampered, obstructed, manipulated; you become more and more natural, simple, spontaneous. You become more and more attuned to the universe.

 

-Osho, “The Imprisoned Splendor, #24“

 

 

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Life needs nothing else to be added to it. All that life needs is that you live it to its totality. If you live only partially, then you will not feel the thrill of being alive. [....]

 

Everybody is living partially, a small part. So you make noise but you can't create a song. You move your hands and legs but no dance happens. The dance, the song, the significance comes into existence immediately your whole functions in harmony, in accord. Then you don't ask such questions as: Is there any point in living? - you know.

 

Living itself is the point. There is no other point.

 

But you have not been allowed to remain one and whole. You have been divided, cut into several parts. A few parts have been completely closed - so much so that you don't know even that they belong to you. Much of you has been thrown in the basement. Much of you has been so condemned that although you know it is there, you cannot dare to accept it, that it is part of you - you go on denying it; you go on repressing it.

 

You know only a very small fragment in you, which they call conscience, which is a social product, not a natural thing, which society creates inside you to control you from inside. The constable is outside, the court is outside controlling you. And the conscience is inside, which is far more powerful.

 

That's why even in a court, first they will give you the Bible. You take the oath on the Bible because the court also knows that if you are a Christian, putting your hand on the Bible and saying, "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," your conscience will force you to speak the truth, because now you have taken the oath in the name of God, and you have touched the Bible. If you speak a lie you will be thrown into hell.

 

Before, at the most, if you were caught you would be thrown into imprisonment for a few months, a few years. But now you will be thrown in hell for eternity. Even the court accepts that the Bible is more powerful, the Gita is more powerful, the Koran is more powerful than the court, than the military, than the army.

 

Conscience is one of the meanest inventions of humanity.

 

And from the very first day the child is born we start creating a conscience in him; a small part which goes on condemning anything that the society does not want in you, and goes on appreciating anything that the society wants in you. You are no more whole.

 

The conscience continuously goes on forcing you, so that you have to always look out - god is watching. Every act, every thought, God is watching, so beware!

 

Even in thoughts you are not allowed freedom: God is watching. What kind of peeping Tom is this God? In every bathroom He is looking through the keyhole; He won't leave you alone - even in your bathroom?

 

There are tribes in the world where even in your dream if you do something wrong, in the morning you have to go to the person.... For example you have insulted somebody in the dream - in the morning you have to go to apologize: "Forgive me, last night I insulted you in a dream; I am so sorry." Even dreams are controlled by the society. You are not allowed even in dream to be yourself They go on talking about freedom of thought - that's all nonsense because from the very beginning they put the base in every child for unfreedom of thought.

 

They want to control your thoughts.

 

They want to control your dreams.

 

They want to control everything in you. It's through a very clever device - conscience.

 

It pricks you. It goes on telling you, "This is not right, don't do it; you will suffer." It goes on forcing you: "Do this, this is the right thing to do; you will be rewarded for it."

 

This conscience will never allow you to be whole It won't allow you to live as if there is nothing prohibited, as if there are no boundaries, as if you are left totally independent to be whatsoever you can be. Then life has meaning, then living has meaning - not the meaning that is derived from ends, but the meaning that is derived from living itself Then whatever you do, in that very doing is your reward.

 

For example, I am speaking to you. I am enjoying it. For thirty-five years I have been continually speaking for no purpose. With this much speaking I could have become a president, a prime minister; there was no problem in it. With so much speaking I could have done anything. What have I gained?

 

But I was not out for gain in the first place - I enjoyed.

 

This was my painting, this was my song, this was my poetry.

 

-Osho, “Osho From Ignorance to Innocence, #23, Q1”

 

 

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I don't believe in conscience, I believe only in consciousness. I don't believe in morality, I believe only in religion. I am amoral.

 

Conscience is a trick of the society played upon you. The society creates conscience so that you may never need consciousness. You have been deceived. For example, when Jesus says 'Love is God' it is not out of his conscience, it is out of his consciousness. He knows it. It is not a belief, it is his experience. When a Christian says 'Love is God' it is his conscience, not his consciousness.

 

He has not known it, he has not lived it. He has only heard it repeated again and again - he has become hypnotized by it.

 

Each child is being hypnotized by the parents, the priests, the politicians, the society. Constant repetition of a certain thing becomes conscience. You go on teaching to the child, 'This is right. This is right. This is right.' Hearing it again and again, his mind is being conditioned. After many years he will also say 'This is right' - it will be automatic. It will not be from his own being, it will come from the gramophone record that the society has placed in his being. It is like an electrode of Delgado. It is the dangerous trick that the society has been playing on everybody, down the centuries.

 

That's why there are so many consciences in the world - the Hindu has one type of conscience, the Mohammedan has another type of conscience. How can consciences be so many? Truth is one. [....]

 

Conscience is created; it is a conditioning. All that you think is good or bad is nothing but a conditioning. But this conditioning can go on managing your whole life. The society has entered in you and controls you from there, from within. It has become your inner voice. And because it has become your inner voice, you cannot hear your REAL inner voice. So my suggestion is: Unburden yourself of conscience. Throw all the conditioning OUt, cathart it, be free from it. That's what I mean when I say don't be a Christian, a Hindu, a Jaina, a Buddhist.

 

Just be. And be alert. In that alertness you will always know what is right and what is wrong. And the right and the wrong is not a fixed thing - something may be right in the morning and may be wrong in the evening, and something may be wrong in the evening and may be right in the night.

 

Circumstances change. An alert man, a conscious man, has no fixed ideas. He has spontaneous responses but no fixed ideas. Because of fixed ideas you never act spontaneously. Your action is always a kind of reaction - not action really.

 

When you act out of spontaneity, with no idea, with no prejudice, then there is real action. And action has passion in it, intensity in it. And it is original and it is first-hand. And action makes your life creative and action makes your life continuously a celebration. Because each act becomes an expression of your being. Conscience is a false being.

 

I think the French language is the only language which has only one word for consciousness and conscience - a single word, meaning both. That is beautiful. Real conscience should be only consciousness, nothing else. You should become more conscious.

 

-Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #4, Q4“