Question :

I see in myself and even in this commune so much unconscious fear of change. Is your approach not Utopian? Will there ever will be anybody willing to form one world government with all its implications?

 

 

Anywhere, at any time, with any Master, there is a utopia, because the whole effort is to transform man. You are accustomed to a certain way of life, and that way of life creates your bondage. Coming close to a Master certainly creates fear. If you don’t see fear around a Master that means there is no Master. The fear simply shows that people know that being here they have to change — and change is painful.

 

It is exactly like a child in the womb of the mother. The child has lived for nine months in the womb comfortably. He will never find such comfort again — no worry, no tension, no question of employment, no wife to nag, no children to harass, no neighbors whom you have to love, no boring friends. He is completely relaxed for nine months. Then suddenly one day he is being thrown out from his world, which was so comfortable. It seems to the child almost a death. And it is natural that it looks like a death. His world is being destroyed. His beautiful home where everything was supplied without demand is being shattered. He is being thrown out into the unknown. It is painful. The child resists to come out, that’s what gives pain to the mother. The child is not willing to come out — why should he have to leave his home? And he knows nothing about where he is going. In absolute darkness to an unknown, why should he go?

 

He makes every effort to cling — that’s why it becomes such a pain to the mother. But there is no way to convince the child, “You are not dying, in fact, you are entering into life. Up to now you were only getting prepared. Now begins your real life, and you are entering into a vast, beautiful universe.” Yes, later on he will understand it, but by that time he has forgotten how it was in the womb.

 

The same is the situation with a Master. It is a new birth. Your whole way of life you have created cozy — comfortable in every way — and the Master is throwing you out into the unknown again. It is painful; there is fear. It is only through the love of the Master that you may gather courage, and you may take a jump.

 

Immense love is needed from the side of the Master because that is the only thing that can dispel fear. Love is almost like light, and fear is just like darkness. If the Master really loves you — and there is no other possibility; an authentic Master is nothing but love. His love is the guarantee that your fear sooner or later will be destroyed, that you will gather courage, that you will take a jump. And once you have taken the jump and attained a new, luminous experience of life, you will be grateful for the Master, grateful for his love — because without his love it would have been impossible for you to get rid of the fear.

 

And once you have experienced something that was just so close — but you were not opening your eyes, you were so afraid; once you take one step out of your fear, anxiety, anguish, then the whole journey becomes easy. Now you know on your own experience that on each step you are becoming new, that on each step you are gaining strength, insight, vision: that things are the same but you are not the same, that the same flowers have a totally different beauty, the same flowers have a new fragrance. The same sunset takes you into an ecstasy which you had never imagined before.

 

You have seen the sunset many times, you have even told your friends, “How beautiful!” Now you know those words were phony, you have simply learned those words — because you have not experienced beauty, you were simply repeating words which are part of etiquette, part of social formality. Otherwise you had no contact with the beauty. Now you see what beauty is, and now it is so difficult to say, “How beautiful” because words fall short. The beauty is so vast, so immense, and the words are so tiny. You cannot put the sky in the small capsules of your words. Now you will be standing there dazed.

 

That reminds me. Just today I was looking at a news. Somebody is telling to the attorney general about my statement, that “Either the attorney general wants to protect the criminals and give them immunity, and if that is not possible, then there is every possibility those criminals will disappear, they will be killed.” The attorney general was not shocked. I was watching his face. Even hearing this, that I am telling that I infer from all the delayings that he can kill the chief criminals and then destroy the whole commune, because then he can put all the crimes on innocent people, he simply said that it is lunacy. I don’t think he understands the word. But, I remembered it in this context.

 

Lunacy comes from lunar. Lunar means the moon. The people who are moongazers were called in the beginning lunatics, and the disease of gazing in the moon was called lunacy. In fact, my name, Rajneesh, means lunatic. I can gaze at the moon for hours, as if time stops. So hearing the attorney general using the word lunacy, I said, “At least this idiot for the first time has said something right.”

 

I can look at a flower for hours. Not even the word beauty arises in my mind, because that will be a disturbance. That will disturb what is transpiring between me and the flower, between me and the moon, between me and you. If a word comes in, it will be a disturbance. When you know beauty, you forget even the word beauty. When you know love, you cannot say so easily as people say, “I love you.” You know that what love is is so much, how it can be contained into these small words, which have been used for millions of times by millions of people? You have also used them when you had no idea of love. You just wanted to go bed with a woman, and you had used “I love you.” Now, to say “I love you” will be sacrilegious, because now there is no idea of going to the bed. It is something so totally different.

 

Once you start going beyond your fear, your paranoia that the society has created around you, the whole sky is yours. Then even farthest stars are not far away. Your wings are small, but they are capable to reach to the farthest stars. Seeing the Master is an encouragement. Loving the Master makes your encouragement more and more strong. I have chosen the symbol for the seekers who have gathered around me of two birds. One is the Master, the other is the disciple. Both are the same kind of bird. Both have the same wings. Just seeing the Master fly, immediately the disciple gets the idea, “I have also got the same wings which I have not been using.” He tries. Maybe once or twice he may fall. Maybe once and twice he may get discouraged. But even if he starts fluttering, that gives him the first glimpse that what is today just fluttering, tomorrow can become flying. It needs just a little discipline, a little more training, a little more time. And to come to this point, you are already beyond fear.

 

So you will find here people who are afraid, you will find people here who are not afraid, who have passed that stage of fear. You will find people on all steps of the whole journey. And that’s the beauty of a commune, that it gives you the whole panorama and you can see somebody is one feet ahead of you, you can be there. Then you see somebody else is one feet ahead of you, why you cannot be there? And these people on different steps of growth help immensely without helping anybody, just their presence creates the atmosphere of encouragement.

 

A commune is a mystery school where people learn how to give rebirth to themselves. Okay? Good!

 

- Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 3, #21”