Question 2

Osho,

I'm confused. there is fear and wanting in me. there are moments of silence and moments of suppressing my body, my feelings. why don't i let go totally? am i still greedy? is the falling back into old patterns an expression of cowardliness? i have never really been a coward, but always half-hearted. in the last weeks i have become so much in love with you, my trust has grown. the more i could say, "you are not serious," or "i don't agree," the more my feelings got in contact with you. can you say something?

 

 

First, confusion is far more significant than certainty which comes out of belief, faith, blindness. Confusion is a good beginning. Confusion will be leading you to become one day Confucius! Just go on. Don't be worried about confusion.

 

Confusion simply means you have started thinking, you have started being an individual on your own. Confusion means: your Christianity is dropping, your Judaism is falling apart, your Mohammedanism is no longer capable of keeping you faithful. Confusion is not a bad state at all. [....]

 

Secondly, you find many times that you cannot agree with me. What the hell am I doing here? Persuading you every day that you should not agree with anyone! You should be yourself. You were agreeing with Jesus, you were agreeing with Moses, and now you have started agreeing with me. But you remain the same -- the agreeing fool. Your subjects change, but you don't change!

 

I am talking to you in such a way that if you have a little intelligence you cannot agree with me. Every day I go on contradicting myself. How long are you going to put up with me? Sooner or later you will say, "I cannot agree with all these contradictions." And that's exactly what I want.

 

I want you to agree with yourself -- a great agreement with whatever you are.

 

And certainly something of that kind is happening. That's why you feel more love towards me, more trust towards me. You are puzzled because you are disagreeing, you are thinking me nonserious -- and love is growing, your heart is opening towards me. There is nothing contradictory in it.

 

The more you are an individual, the more capable you are of loving. The more you are free of any kind of psychological slavery.... Agreeing with someone else is a psychological slavery. When you are totally free from all the slaveries, your heart is bound to open towards me with gratitude, with love. And this love and gratitude will have a totally different quality.

 

You will love me because I have loved you so much that I don't want even myself to become a fetter to you. Your heart will open towards me without any resistance, without any reluctance, because you know that here is a man who is not going to exploit you, who is not going to put you into another prison.

 

You cannot open to the pope. You cannot open to Ayatollah Khomeini. They force you to believe, because unbelievers go to hell. They force you to have faith, because the faithful will be rewarded in paradise. They are playing on your fear and greed.

 

I have nothing to promise you: no heaven for those who agree with me, and no hell for those who disagree with me. What does agreeing with me have to do with heaven and hell? It is a subtle psychological strategy to make you more and more a slave. The whole humanity is living in slavery. Every faith is slavery; every religion, every church, every synagogue, every temple is nothing but a prison with open doors.

 

Doors are kept open to delude

 

you that you are not in a prison. And doors are kept open because they have caught your very being, now there is no need to be worried about your body. They have programmed your mind so totally that even if you want to go out, you will not. Going out is dangerous. Remain in the fold.

 

Have you ever thought about the words used by Jesus for you? He calls himself the shepherd, and you? -- his sheep. Reducing humanity to sheep. Now the sheep is the most cowardly animal in the whole world. Sheep move in herds, in crowds; a sheep cannot stand being alone. She needs six hundred million Catholics all around, then she feels everything is okay. "I am not alone, there are six hundred million Catholics with the special representative of Jesus, Polack the Pope." Now there is no fear.

 

I want you to get out of this sheepskin, and declare your individuality.

 

I am not your shepherd, because I am not your enemy. I am not holier-than-thou, I am not higher-than-thou. I am just one of you who has thrown all the programs, who has come out of the sheepskin. And because, coming out of all these bounds, all these imprisonments, I have found the eternal source of bliss, I would like you to do the same.

 

But it is not a question of agreeing with me. It is a question of experimenting with what I am saying. Don't make a belief of what I am saying; otherwise you will never forgive me. What I am saying is only hypothetical. Who knows? -- I may be lying. How can you be certain? There is no need to believe. There is no need to have faith, no need to take me seriously.

 

To me all this is beautiful fun!

 

I love talking -- that is fun.

 

You love listening -- that is fun.

 

If in this fun and playfulness something transpires and revolutionizes your life, that is just a by-product. We are not serious about it.

 

If you become enlightened, so what?

 

If you become enlightened, I will start saying, "Drop it! Forget all about it, don't be caught by it. You have far to go. There are far stars to go to."

 

Enlightenment? Just a little piece of experience and you are finished. You have to conquer the whole existence.

 

[....]

 

Have you seen any dead man smile? He is always serious. I am full of life -- how can I be serious? I am absolutely nonserious, and I take life just as a beautiful play, a beautiful drama, a beautiful poetry, a beautiful music, a beautiful dance.

 

Your heart is opening, your love is growing. Confusion, perplexity will be there for a while, because you have been told for centuries that if you have faith, only then will your heart open. That is wrong!

 

Faith means you have closed all possibility of your heart ever opening. You have been told, "Believe, and believe totally, with no doubt; only then will you arrive at truth." That is absolutely wrong.

 

I am not saying, "Disbelieve," because belief or disbelief are the same. One is positive, one is negative, but there is no basic difference between the two.

 

Why not be free from belief and disbelief and just live your life moment to moment, responding to reality according to your consciousness? And the more you respond to reality according to your own consciousness -- not according to some dogma, some catechism, some holy scripture, but just according to you -- you will be surprised how much you have missed up to now. But it is never too late.

 

In India we have a proverb: If a man gets lost in the morning and arrives back home in the evening, he should not be called lost. In the end he has arrived!

 

So whenever you arrive, it is perfectly the right time. You are in a good space. Just allow it to grow, expand, and you will be blessed by the whole existence.

 

-Osho, "From Death to Deathlessness, #14"