There are three kinds of freedom.

 

 

Question 1

Osho, you talked yesterday of children asserting their egos and rebelling against their parents, of being able to say no! and thus creating a spine, an individuality, a freedom.

Osho, do we now come to you and say yes! so that we can drop that ego? by doing so, what will happen to our individuality, freedom and spine?

 

 

IF THE EGO IS LIKE A LADDER: you have to use it but you cannot make your house on it. Or, the ego is like a boat: you can use it to go to the other shore but then you need not carry it on your head for your whole life. It has something essential to do, but it should not become a burden forever; when its purpose is fulfilled it has to be dropped.

 

Just as a child needs to say no, the mature person one day needs to say yes. If the child cannot say no to the parents, to the authorities, to the teachers, if the child is unable to disobey, he will not attain to any individuality; he will not have any form, shape. He will be just part of the mob mind, the crowd. He will be impotent; he will not be able to stand on his own. He will not have any self-respect. He will remain hotchpotch, an ugly mess. He will not really be born; he will remain in a psychological womb his whole life, ungrown-up. He has to learn how to disobey. And the wise parents will help him to disobey in such a way that disobeying does not distort him. They will give him opportunities to disobey, they will give him opportunities to say no.

 

That's exactly the meaning of the biblical parable. God said to Adam, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree, the tree of knowledge. If you eat the fruit of this tree you will be expelled from paradise." It is a great temptation! It is giving Adam an opportunity to disobey.

 

And also God said to Adam, "If you eat the fruit of this tree you will become a mortal; right now you are immortal. Secondly, if you eat the fruit of this tree you will become like gods, all-knowing." You see the temptation, the multi-dimensional temptation? First: "You will be able to become like gods, all-knowing." Who would not like to become like gods, all-knowing? And the second, the danger, the risk: "If you eat from this tree you will become mortal; death will start happening to you." Now it is a challenge! Danger always attracts, and death is the greatest danger.

 

God did not leave any possibility for Adam to remain obedient. There must have been millions of trees in the Garden of Eden and only one tree of knowledge; if Adam had been left alone, on his own he might not have discovered it up to now. But God didn't leave it up to him; he pointed out the tree and created the temptation. You think the serpent did it? If the serpent did it, then he must have been in the service of God.

 

A small child was telling his mother...the mother had asked, "What have you been taught today in Sunday school?"

 

He said, "We have been told the biblical story of Adam and Eve and their expulsion. Adam and Eve were told not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, then the servant of God came and tempted them."

 

The mother said, "Servant? You must have misunderstood -- it is not servant, it is serpent!"

 

But my feeling is that the child is right: the serpent must have been in the service of God, must have been in the secret police department of God, the FBI or something like that. And in all civilizations the serpent has always represented wisdom. Jesus says: "Be wise like serpents and innocent like doves." Wise like serpents? God must have used the most wise animal to convey the message, the temptation, to Adam and Eve.

 

The message was given to Eve, not to Adam; since then it has been always so. The salesman comes to the wife not to the husband. The moment the husband leaves for the office the salesman comes and knocks on the door, because the woman can be tempted more easily. The husband will argue, will be stubborn, will not listen, but the wife is easily tempted.

 

One advertising company was told by a big manufacturer of television sets, "Find out some new way to tempt people to purchase our product." The advertising company suggested, "Send letters to all the addresses given in the telephone directory. The letters should be in the husbands' names but on top of the letters there should be a note in red letters: 'Personal. Private. Not to be read by anybody else.' Then the wives are bound to read them; then you cannot miss." And once they read them, once THEY are impressed...all husbands are henpecked -- universally so, categorically so. To be a husband and to be henpecked are synonymous, and I cannot do anything about it. It has been so since Adam; that is the way things are.

 

Once Eve was convinced, tempted, Adam followed suit.

 

If parents are really wise they will create opportunities for the children to say no -- and beautiful opportunities. Right now, unknowingly, they give ugly opportunities. For example, you say to the child, "Don't smoke cigarettes." This is an ugly opportunity because the child WILL smoke -- you have tempted the child to smoke cigarettes. You should have told him something better -- "Don't go out in the sun. Don't climb the tree." But you say to the children, "Don't eat ice cream." You should say to them, "Don't eat fruit" -- that will be a wise temptation! "Eat as much ice cream as you want, but don't eat fruit." Give them such a temptation as leads them to say no to you but does not harm their lives; otherwise they will remain deformed their whole lives.

 

Two old men -- one was seventy, the other was eighty -- were talking. They were talking about the most embarrassing moments in their lives. The seventy-year-old man said, "I have never told anybody, but you are my bosom friend and I know you will keep it a secret. The most embarrassing moment of my life was when I was caught looking through the keyhole of a bathroom when a young woman was taking a bath."

 

The other said, "Forget all about it -- each child does that. There is nothing to be so much embarrassed about."

 

And the old man said, "I know -- but it was yesterday."

 

Once wrong habits are formed they continue; they remain like hangovers and they become more and more ingrained, more and more deep they go into your unconscious.

 

Nitin, I am perfectly in favor of creating an ego in the child, because without an ego the child will remain a part of the parents; he will never be an individual on his own. But the no and the no-saying creates only a superficial individuality; because no is negative it cannot create REAL individuality.

 

The superficial individuality is called personality; the ego gives you a personality. But it is better than having nothing at all at least it gives you a sense of your being, it defines you. But don't remain in it forever; it is a passing phase, a stepping-stone. From the personality you have to reach individuality. From the superficial individuality you have to attain to a core individuality. That is possible only by saying yes. But yes is significant only when you have become able to say no. If you say yes from the very beginning, your yes carries no meaning at all; it is meaningless. If you are capable of saying no then your yes has meaning, as much meaning as your no has strength.

 

Hence the society teaches you a false, superficial personality. But when you come to a Buddha, to a Jesus, to a Krishna, to a Mahavira -- to a MASTER, to a real Master -- he will teach you how to say yes. He will take away your no, he will take away your personality.

 

The personality is like the shell of an egg -- the ego is the shell of the egg. It protects the life within for the time being only; beyond that it will be destructive. The egg has to be broken one day so the bird can come out. No only creates a shell around you. It is good, it is needed, it is protective, but one day you have to come out of it. That's the function of religion.

 

Hence religion is possible only in a civilized, cultured, sophisticated society. The more educated the society is, cultured, civilized, the higher the religion that is possible. The primitive people also have religion, but their religion is not yet religion; it is magic, it is ritual. Hence they have not produced Buddhas. They are good people, simple, beautiful, innocent....

 

You can go around India; there are many tribes still, aboriginals, very beautiful people. I have been to them, I have lived with them, I have enjoyed their beauty and their innocence. But they have never created a Buddha in their whole history; at the most they create magicians. Their religion consists only of rituals, formalities; it never attains to the heights of prayer and meditation; it never reaches to the heights of a Patanjali or a Lao Tzu or a Mohammed. They have not produced any Koran, Upanishads, Bible; they cannot. They are people who have not yet said no, they are people who have not yet disobeyed. They have not eaten the fruit of knowledge, they are simply ignorant.

 

Eat the fruit of knowledge! Become knowledge-able, and one day renounce your knowledge. Then wisdom is born. Wisdom is not ignorance; wisdom is renunciation of knowledge -- but first the knowledge is required.

 

Before you can become a Christ you will have to become a disobedient Adam and Eve, otherwise Christ is not possible. Christ is the higher stage of Adam. Adam says no, creates a personality; Christ says yes, drops the old personality and attains to a new individuality which is eternal. By saying no Adam becomes a mortal; by saying yes Christ becomes an immortal. By saying no Adam becomes only apparently a god; by saying yes Christ REALLY becomes a god.

 

The process is paradoxical, hence the question. I can understand your question, Nitin:

 

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO OUR INDIVIDUALITY, FREEDOM AND SPINE?

 

The spine, the individuality, the freedom, that is created by no is only a transitory process. You have to go beyond it; it is a boat that has to be left behind. When you have reached the roof you leave the ladder; it is a bridge to be crossed.

 

Now learn how to say yes. No you know perfectly well. In fact, Nitin has come from Africa to be here with me forever -- against his parents. This was your ultimate no!

 

Those who come to me, they have to come against their parents, because parents are Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Buddhists, Jainas...I am nobody! Coming to me, a Christian will become a non-Christian and a Hindu will become a non-Hindu and a Mohammedan will become a non-Mohammedan.

 

I am not creating a new religion here, but a new man, a new consciousness. I am not creating a new philosophy or theology, but a new vision, a new humanity. You have to come out of your old, rotten ideologies. Hence parents are bound to be against you; they will not like you to be here. I can understand them -- they are worried about you, they care for you. Their worry is utterly wrong, but still it shows their care and their love. They would like you to remain in the fold in which they and their forefathers have always lived. They are worried you may go astray -- they have not attained to anything by being in the fold, but still they would like you to be in the fold. It is safer, familiar, more secure.

 

Nitin has come with his wife against the desires of his parents; that was the ultimate no. Now I will teach you how to say the ultimate yes. The function of the no is complete; if you go on saying no here too, then you are misunderstanding me completely. I am not your father, I am not your mother! I have to take this no away from you and create yes. The work of the no is complete; now you need a higher flight, now you need a higher altitude of being. That is possible only through yes, because yes is positive.

 

No gives you a negative kind of individuality, yes gives you a positive individuality. A negative individuality is not real individuality, it is only personality, a mask -- good in its own time. But remember always that every means has to be transcended some day or other. If you want to reach the goal, one day you will have to leave the way.

 

Buddha used to say, "Once I saw five fools carrying a boat on their heads in the marketplace. I asked them, 'What is the matter with you? Why are you carrying this boat?'

 

"They said, 'This boat helped us to come from the other shore to this shore; this boat has helped our lives.

 

If this boat had not been available... on the other shore there were wild animals, and if we had had to remain there even only for one night we would be dead by now. We can never forget the great blessing that the boat has bestowed upon us. Out of sheer thankfulness we will carry the boat forever on our heads!'"

 

Buddha said, "This is the way of the stupid people. They carry scriptures, they carry ideologies, they carry philosophies, on their heads. Rather than becoming a help, the boat has become a hindrance. It would have been better if they had died on the other shore; at least they would have been saved carrying this weight their whole lives. Now this WEIGHT will kill them!"

 

No is good, but nobody can live in the no, nobody can make a home out of the no. No is suicidal -- use it, but go beyond it. Be alert and conscious that you don't become encaged in the no-saying. Attain to yes; use no as a stepping-stone.

 

By being part of this commune you have to learn how to say yes with totality. That is trust, that is surrender, that is faith. That's what will become a bridge, the final bridge between you and God. It will not destroy your freedom; it will simply make your freedom positive.

 

There are three kinds of freedom. One is 'freedom from'; that is a negative freedom: freedom from the father, freedom from the mother, freedom from the church, freedom from the society. That is a negative kind of freedom -- freedom from -- good in the beginning, but that can't be the goal. Once you are free from your parents, what are you going to do? Once you are free from your society then you will be at loss. You will lose all meaning and significance because your whole life had meaning in saying no. Now whom to say no to?

 

A young man came to me; he wanted to marry a girl. He was a brahmin, a very high-caste brahmin, very respected in the city, and he wanted to marry a Parsi girl. The parents were obviously against it, absolutely against it. They had told him that if he married that girl they would disown him -- and he was the only son. The more stubborn the parents became, the more the young man became determined to marry the girl. He had come to ask my advice.

 

I said, "Just meditate for three days on one thing: are you really interested in the girl or are you simply interested in saying no to your parents?"

 

He said, "Why do you say this to me? I LOVE the girl, I am absolutely in love!"

 

I said, "If you say so, then get married. But I don't see any love in your eyes, I don't see any love in your heart. I don't see any fragrance of love. I only see some negative aura around you, a black aura around your face. It says you are determined to go against your parents -- the girl is only an excuse."

 

But he wouldn't listen. If he was not going to listen to his parents, how was he going to listen to me? He got married. After six months he came to see me, crying and weeping. He fell at my feet and said, "You were right -- I don't love that woman, that love was false. You were right, your diagnosis was right. Now that I have got married to her and I have denied my parents' order, all love has disappeared."

 

This is 'freedom from'. This is not much of a freedom, but better than nothing.

 

The second kind of freedom is 'freedom for'; that is positive freedom. Your interest is not in denying something, rather you want to create something. For example, you want to be a poet, and just because you want to be a poet you have to say no to your parents. But your basic orientation is that you want to be a poet and your parents would like you to be a plumber. "Better be a plumber! That is far more paying, far more economical, far more respectable too. Poet?! People will think you are crazy! And how are you going to live? And how are you going to support your wife and your children? Poetry can't pay!"

 

But if you are for poetry, ready to risk all, this is a higher freedom, better than the first. It is positive freedom -- 'freedom for'. Even if you have to live a life of poverty you will be happy, you will be cheerful. Even if you have to chop wood to remain a poet you will be utterly blissful, fulfilled, because you are doing what you wanted to do, you are doing your own thing. This is positive freedom.

 

And then there is a third freedom, the highest; in the East we have called it MOKSHA -- the ultimate freedom, which goes beyond both the negative and the positive. First learn saying no, then learn saying yes, and then just forget both, just be. The third freedom is not freedom against something, not for something, but just freedom. One is simply free -- no question of going against, no question of going for. 'Freedom from' is political, hence all political revolutions fail -- when they succeed. If they don't succeed they can go on hoping, but the moment they succeed they fail, because then they don't know what to do. That happened in the French Revolution, that happened in the Russian Revolution...that happens to every revolution. A political revolution is 'freedom from'. Once the Czar is gone, then you are at a loss: What to do now? Your whole life was devoted to fighting the Czar; you know only one thing, how to fight the Czar. Once the Czar is gone you are at a loss; your whole skill is useless. You will find yourself very empty. 'Freedom for' is artistic, creative, scientific. And 'just freedom' is religious.

 

Nitin, before I can teach you MOKSHA -- just freedom, neither for nor against, NETI NETI, neither this nor that, but pure freedom, just the fragrance of freedom -- before I can teach it to you, you will have to know the positive one: 'freedom for'.

 

Hence the commune. It is a creative commune; we are going to be creative in a thousand and one ways. In every possible way we are going to be creative, so that you can learn how to say yes to life.

 

When the yes has destroyed your no, both can be thrown away. That is the ultimate in joy, in freedom, in realization.

 

-Osho, "Be Still and Know, #5, Q1"