If a person wants to know truth, he does not set out by himself to discover it; he goes and falls at the feet of a guru saying, "You are my everything. Give me the knowledge of truth. How can I, a sinner, do anything?" He little knows that all his sins are his own doing. A lot of toil and effort is required to become a sinner. He admits his ability to commit sins by saying he is a sinner. At the same time he says, "How can a sinner do anything to gain knowledge of the truth?" Actually, he is begging to be saved from his freedom. He is requesting this guru to become his jailer so that if tomorrow, he finds himself in hell, he can put the responsibility on the Guru. And if he attains heaven, he can always claim the credit for having chosen this guru. Thus, man clings to the shastras, and to gurus.

 

People like Hitler, Mao and Stalin are not born accidentally. They are born only when a whole country desires to be enslaved. Each person eagerly wishes for a man who can stand up and say, "I know what is right, Follow me!" -- so that they can follow him. They want to be told clearly what to do and what not to do. This is why we pursue politicians and sadhus and mahatmas. And these whom we ask, -- they too have asked others. They have no direct knowledge of their own; they too do not know what is right and what is wrong. The fact is, when there are people to inquire, teachers become available.

 

We are eager to place our burden on others. Freedom seems too heavy for our shoulders. It should actually be the other way around: freedom should give us wings to fly in the sky.

 

Freedom seems very cumbersome, because we do not know what to do with it. There was a Zen fakir by the name of Nanin. One day he stayed late at his guru's ashram. He asked his guru to give him a lamp since it was too dark and he had far to go. The guru gave him a lamp but as soon as he began to go down the steps, the guru blew out the flame and extinguished it. Nanin was surprised. "What kind of a joke is this?" he asked.

 

The guru replied, "It never pays to find your path with another's light. Your own darkness is much better than someone else's light. Go, seek in your own darkness, so that the lamp within you may become lightened. The more you seek, the more you shall be cleansed. You will fall, you will dash against things, your limbs may break, but you will discover your soul in the bargain. Therefore, I have extinguished the lamp."

 

Nanin has written in his memoirs that he was never able to forget this man who had snatched the lamp from his hands and snuffed it out. He was the one who pushed him into darkness and made provisions for the lamp within to burn. "Today," he says, "when I see the flame burning within, my head bows down in reverence and gratefulness to this man who caused it to be lit."

 

This is freedom. It is very easy for God to place a light in your hands, but you can only live like worms with the help of such light. You will never fall, never go astray. There will be no hell; you will go straight to heaven. But the heaven that is obtained with the help of another is worse than hell, because such a heaven is a bondage. The good fortune that is not entirely one's own, that has not been sought and attained and experienced by one's own effort is worse than misfortune. Therefore Lao Tzu says: "Tao creates everything but controls nothing. It gives no instructions. It has given us the strength and the means to walk but it does not say, "Walk like this." The power to walk belongs to Tao; the space, the path, the darkness, the light, the very person who walks is Tao; and yet, Tao does not command: "go to the right, go to the left."

 

Tao gives us life, but it makes freedom the very basis of life. This freedom can become the agony of life or the benevolence of life; the choice is entirely ours. This freedom can cause that which lies hidden within to be revealed. This freedom can also be utilised to create our own darkness, our own nether world where we can rot and decay and be destroyed. One thing is certain however: that there is perfect freedom in the world. This perfect freedom is the unacclaimed declaration of the existence of God. This is His silent declaration of "I am".

 

But we are totally unaware of this freedom. We are afraid, because freedom means responsibility. It means that I am the only person responsible for all my actions. If I find myself in hell, I have no one to blame but myself.

 

This responsibility perplexes and confuses us, so we try to shove it on to each other. The husband puts the responsibility on the wife, the wife on the husband, and thus both absolve themselves, taking the other to be accountable. They are not at all conscious of the game they play.

 

Eric Berne has written a book The Games the People Play. In this book he describes almost all the games that human beings play with each other. This act of throwing responsibility on each other is also a game. The funny part is that the one on whom we place the responsibility, places the same responsibility on us. He who cannot be responsible for himself how can he be expected to shoulder the responsibility of others?

 

Unfortunately, neither he nor you are aware of the fact that you have placed your responsibility on each other. And so, we blame each other throughout life, without knowing that we both are beggars who are holding our begging bowls before each other. Each begs of the other, and neither can give!

 

Freedom is frightening, so we try to look for some kind of slavery. Our so-called God [not the Tao that Lao Tzu speaks of] is also a bondage. We place the onus on Him. We say, "We are in your hands. Take care of us!" Therefore, when a man is happy, he never thinks of God; but when he is unhappy, he always thinks of God. He does not want to bear the responsibility for his own unhappiness. He is only prepared to be responsible for his good fortune. He likes to feel and believe it was entirely because of him. But when bad days befall him, he looks up to heaven and cries, "How can I suffer so when you are there? Of what use is your being if I suffer so? Either banish my woes and give me proof of you existence or I shall not believe in you.“

 

A man came to me and said, "I have complete faith in God. I prayed to Him that if my son did not get a job within fifteen days I would never have faith in Him. And, within fifteen days, my son got a job!"

 

I told him, "God has struck a bad bargain with you. Do not ever test Him again in this way or else you will be disappointed.

 

He was adamant in his belief. He said, "I am now convinced that He is!"

 

I said to him, "This very conviction will land you and your God in trouble one day. Your son getting a job is a mere coincidence. Do not pride yourself that God took pains to get your son a job. This way, you prove yourself and your son to be more significant than God. Even his job is more important than God; God has proven himself to be your servant. Do not ask Him for such things again. Such coincidences are never repeated.

 

After two months, the gentleman returned. He said, "What kind of words have you uttered? Everything is confused now. Four times I tried to attain God's favour, and four times He has failed me. God has turned His back on me!"

 

I told him, "God has not turned his back on you. Neither does He turn His face towards you. He has no face and no back, nor is your prayer, your insistence, your appeal, of any consequence. What is precious and meaningful is your own self."

 

Your value, your meaningfulness, depends upon the extent to which you make creative use of your freedom. Your value depends upon the right use you make of your freedom. The very meaning of Sadhana is this: The creative use of your freedom.

 

Sadhana means the creative use of your freedom. The worldly man is one who uses his freedom destructively. He is leading to his own destruction. He makes his freedom the obstruction to his own elan vital and is instrumental in creating his own gallows.

 

We do not remember God in happiness, but we remember Him in our unhappiness because then we want to shove off the responsibility from our shoulders. Russell has written, "I will only believe that God really is when there is no sorrow on earth." Russell is right as far as theism goes. Our theism will fade if there is no sorrow on earth. Think a while: Will anyone remember God if there is no sorrow on earth? Will the temple bells ring? will candles burn in churches then? Will the call of the muezzin fill the morning air? These prayers, these calls, this worship, these oblations of fire -- through all these, our sorrow cries. And the absurdity of it all is that neither temples nor mosques can eradicate our sorrows, because it is we who create them and we alone can destroy them. Sorrow is the misuse we make of our freedom. But it is this freedom that we want to save ourselves from.

 

Really, would the thought of God ever have entered our mind if there was no sorrow on earth? How could it arise? God is like medicine for an illness. If there is no illness, who but a madman would think of taking medicine? God is like a medicine to us. We use Him to cure our ills. When there is sorrow, we think the medicine of His name; when there is happiness, we throw the bottle of this medicine in the dustbin.

 

We think of Him in sorrow only, because we want to place the responsibility for our ills on His shoulders. But you cannot place any responsibility on God's shoulders because God does not bind you. You are free, independent. No one is there in this world who is a greater advocate of freedom than God.

 

The freedom He confers on His creation is so profound that we see so much dissimilarity around us.

 

The socialist and the communist, who always criticize God always put forth this argument: that if there is a God, then why all this inequality? Their argument appears to be correct on the face of it because they do not take the trouble to think. Remember, however, that freedom and equality are opposite conditions. If you desire equality, you cannot have freedom; if you desire freedom you cannot have equality. All people can be made equal, but then all will have to be slaves. Equality can only exist in prison. Even in a prison, if there is some laxity, inequality creeps in. Utmost strictness is required to maintain equality.

 

Complete equality is possible only in complete subservience. Therefore, if communism succeeds, the whole world will be one big prison. If communism does not succeed completely, it cannot be communism.

 

Freedom means that each person has the freedom to be what he wishes to be. Then, inequality is bound to be there. Then inequality is inevitable. If equality is to be maintained, each man will have to be forcibly made to conform to the accepted level of equality.

 

Another interesting development that follows such equality is that the level of consciousness falls according to the degree of equality in a society. The greater the equality, the lower will be the plane of consciousness. Supposing there is a class of thirty pupils. The boy who is the thirteenth in the class cannot be made to attain the first grade; but in order to maintain equality, the first boy can be forcibly constrained to go down to the level of the thirteenth. Actual equality can only be maintained at the level because the lowest can never be pulled up to the highest point, whereas the highest can be obstructed and made to go down. Likewise, it is not easy to bring all the patients in a hospital back to good health, but it is very easy to make healthy people sick. To pull back is always easier; to rise up is always difficult. Therefore, the greater the equality, the lower will be the plane of intelligence; and the greater the freedom, the greater the possibility of intelligence touching the peaks of consciousness.

 

Remember, freedom means that he who wants to reach the peak will reach, and he who does not want to reach will not reach. He is free to remain where he was if he so wishes, and he is free to undertake the long journey -- again, if he so wishes. So to people like Marx who deny the presence of God on the grounds of inequality, I say that this is one of the many proofs of the existence of God: that there in so much inequality and disparity in the world because of the complete freedom He has granted us.

 

People invariably invoice equality and freedom in one breath. Not only this, in France they went a step further and shouted the slogan: "Justice, Freedom, Equality!" This is complete insanity, but we are not aware of it because we are so enchanted by the trickery of words. We never try to investigate deeply, but are simply carried away by the magic of words. If there is equality, there cannot be freedom; and if there is freedom, equality is impossible. And if you want justice, you shall have to choose between the two.

 

Then also, if you opt for freedom, your justice will be entirely different; and if you opt for equality, your justice will be entirely different. If you choose equality, then an attempt to be different will be termed a crime. If you choose freedom, this very attempt would be deemed a just and rightful act. If you choose equality, it will be lawful to keep each man limited; and if you choose freedom it will be considered lawful to encourage a person to be different. It will be unjust and unlawful to hinder or obstruct a person from becoming unusual and different.

 

All this is very difficult to deal with. Freedom and equality are very important problems.

 

So, Marx denied God. He had very little to do with God. Rather, he had no use for Him. But one thing was clear to him: If God exists, freedom cannot be destroyed. Then inequality is bound to remain. So if inequality is to be destroyed, we shall have to destroy the very philosophy of the existence of God. Thus it is not without reason that Communism is atheistic. A person cannot be a communist and still believe in God. He has to be an atheist, because the very meaning of God is freedom -- no control.

 

What Lao Tzu said dates back 2500 years before Marx. Independence and freedom can only be in absence of control. Only where there is freedom is there the possibility of development. But then, the responsibility rests with us. If we wish to avoid it, we will have to find some means of bondage and slavery. If we do not make God or guru our master, we shall make the state our master. It makes no difference. Let he who wills, throw the reins round our necks. We are ready to follow. We are incapable of walking ourselves; we need someone to prod us, to goad us on. Then we are assured and feel confident. We feel there is no need for anxiety; we cannot go wrong. But remember, this is the biggest mistake Whatever we do after surrendering our freedom is an error, a sin, a crime.

 

-Osho, “The Way of Tao, Vol 2, #4”