Real renunciation means unconditioning the mind.

 

 

LIFE IS DIALECTICAL. It is more Hegelian than Aristotelean because it consists of the opposites. Without the opposites existence is impossible -- day and night, life and death, summer and winter. Life is so vast it can contain contradictions, and yet life in itself is not contradictory. There is harmony in the contradictions; the contradictions are complementary.

 

This is one of the most fundamental things to be understood. If you miss it you will miss the whole message of Kabir -- and you will miss the whole message of religion. And it is very difficult to understand it because our minds have been trained in a simple logic, nondialectical logic. We have been told, we have been taught that the opposites never meet. We have been taught and told that the opposites are REALLY opposites. That is not true. Can you think of love existing without hate? And can you think there is any possibility for life without death? It is not even conceivable that good can exist without bad. God needs the devil. Without the devil God cannot be.

 

The opposites only appear to be opposites because our understanding is not very deep yet. You inhale and exhale, and there is a rhythm and a harmony. Your inhalation.is not against exhalation, neither is your exhalation against your inhalation. They are both part of one process. The pendulum swings from inhalation to exhalation. And you exist just between the two -- in the balance, in the harmony.

 

A rich life is the life of harmony. A rich life is the life of a subtle synthesis.

 

There are two types of poor people in the world. People who know only indulgence are poor because they have not known renunciation. And people who know only renunciation, they are poor; they have not known indulgence. If there is a subtle balance between indulgence and renunciation, in that very balance there is a transcendence; you go beyond the dual.

 

That's why I say life is more Hegelian. Hegel's understanding is truer, closer to life than Aristotle's. Hegel says life moves from thesis to antithesis to synthesis; then the synthesis becomes a thesis again. Once the thesis is there, antithesis is created; again they start creating a new balance; a higher synthesis arrives. That's how life moves. In each single detail, life moves through contradictions, just as the bird has two wings and you have two legs and in your head there are two brains -- contradicting each other and complementing each other -- the left brain and the right brain, reason and intuition, the feminine and the masculine. And there is a possibility of a synthesis. This synthesis is the goal of all religion, of all mysticism, of all yoga. Yoga means meeting, meeting of the opposites; it is a union.

 

We call the world the universe; we don't call it the MULTIverse. We call it the universe because it is one. Still the oneness has multiplicity in it, variety, distinctions, differences. The oneness is not a monotonous oneness. The oneness is not dead; it is alive. And the oneness is not static; it is dynamic.

 

Today's sayings of Kabir have to be understood with this background. They are of tremendous import.

 

TELL ME, BROTHER, YOU CAN I RENOUNCE MAYA?

 

He asks one of the most significant question: How can I renounce the world? How can I renounce? The question is very significant because every seeker, one day or other, comes across it. You have lived in the world -- you have known the misery of it, the agony of it, the frustration of it, the anxiety, the anguish. You are torn apart by it, you are fragmented by it, you are no longer a whole, you have lost all your peace; naturally, renunciation becomes very, very attractive. Renounce the world; there is misery, conflict, agony.

 

But Kabir asks, "How is it possible to renounce? Who will renounce it?" The renouncer will remain there -- and the renouncer is the world because the ego is the world. You can go away, but you will still be there and you will create your world again and again. You are the world. You can move from the marketplace to the monastery: and in the monastery the same politics will enter, and in the monastery the same hierarchy, and in the monastery the same conflict and the same ambition; and you will create the marketplace again.

 

It is natural, because you can renounce the world, but how can you renounce yourself? You will carry all the seeds of your mind within you. All your ambition, competition, comparison, all your ego trips you will carry with yourself. You were trying to become richer in the world, you wanted to show to the world "I am the topmost rich man"; or you were trying to achieve a political post and you wanted to prove to the world "I am something."

 

All inferior people go on trying to prove that they are something. All ambition arises out of an inferiority complex. It is very rare to come across a politician who is intelligent. It is very rare to come across a rich person who is intelligent, very, very difficult. Because an intelligent person, by his very intelligence, becomes noncompetitive. Intelligence is noncompetitive. Intelligence can see the whole absurdity of it. Intelligence can see "I am myself and there is no need to compare myself with anybody else. I am neither higher nor lower. Not that I am just like the others -- I am different -- but there is no higher and lower."

 

We are all different and unique human beings, but nobody is lower and nobody is higher -- and the whole effort to become higher is stupid.

 

But a man can go to the monastery. Now, he cannot earn money there, but he can earn virtue. He can become more and more religious -- he can meditate more than others, he can become the greatest meditator. He can repress himself more than the others and can become the greatest saint. Now again an attitude is bound to arise: the attitude of "holier than thou." It is the same politics, the same competition, the same ego. Nothing has changed; only the object of competition has changed, but the subject remains the same. Now there will be politics again.

 

You can see it: from the lowest priest to the pope, a continuous hierarchy. And the lowest priest is trying to reach the higher post. Every bishop is trying to become the archbishop, and they are moving in a hierarchy, the same world. One day they were trying to rise in political power; now they are trying to rise in religious power. But the whole effort is the same.

 

Kabir says, " TELL ME, BROTHER, HOW CAN I RENOUNCE MAYA?" -- how can I renounce this illusion? -- because I am the base, the root cause of all illusion. This "I" is my world, so wherever I will go, whatsoever I will do, this "I" will come again from the back door.

 

The world cannot be renounced. Renunciation is a desperate effort of a person who has indulged too much, but it is not very wise. Indulgence is foolish, renunciation too. The wise man finds the harmony. He neither indulges nor renounces. He simply becomes aware of the whole situation. He does not bother to escape from the world; he starts becoming aware of his ego which projects the world. And just by becoming aware of all the hidden desires of the ego, those desires disappear. The more light enters in your being, the more aware you become, the less and less competition. Not that you renounce, not that you make any effort to renounce. Just the very understanding becomes a subtle light in your being and you start laughing at all the foolish competitions, comparisons, evaluations that you have been doing -- and you have been suffering for.

 

Remember, renunciation is of the same stupid mind. Nothing has changed. One day you were just seeking more and more indulgence -- more and more money, more and more women and men. Now you have become afraid and you start escaping, running away from the world, but your stupidity has not changed. Your inner being remains the same. You are trying to do the impossible.

 

Unless your innermost core changes, is transformed becomes luminous with a new light and new awareness, it is impossible. The change cannot happen. The change does not happen from the outside; the change has to happen somewhere in the inside. Then the glow spreads all over.

 

I have heard about a despondent fellow who sought the advice of the city's most fashionable -- and expensive -- analyst. "You have acute melancholia," the analyst informed him. "The circus is in town this week. Go to it. It may give you some laughs."

 

"Your advice is worthless," mourned the despondent one. "I am the top clown there."

 

Now, you can even make others laugh, and you may be crying within yourself. You can be the topmost clown in the circus, and yet you can be absolutely depressed.

 

You can look like something which you are not; it is very easy. You can pretend to be a saint and you can remain the same miserable self inside. You can even pretend that you are very happy -- in fact that's what everybody is doing. You can go on pretending. Others may be befooled, but how can you befool yourself?

 

Changing outward things won't be of much help, and by and by you will become more and more pseudo and you will lose contact with your real feelings. For example, an angry man can repress his anger; he can even pretend to become passionate. A man who has no love in his being can show and act and exhibit that he is a very loving person. Maybe somebody else is deceived for a time -- not for long -- but how can you deceive yourself? You will know all the time, all the while, that there is anger, there is fire in you and poison. And that poison will go on destroying your peace, destroying your being. That poison will go on killing you.

 

Your smiles which are painted on the surface are of no help -- unless a laughter arises from your heart.

 

Kabir says renunciation will be of the outside. How can you change the inside through a change of the outside? It is not so easy. You will become a false holy man.

 

I have heard:

 

An actress who had received a magnificent diamond necklace as a gift from her admirer -- one of those Greek shipping magnates -- hit upon what she thought was a foolproof device for safeguarding it. She simply left it conspicuously open on her dressing table when she went out, with a note nearby reading,"This is just an imitation, dear burglar. The original is stashed carefully away in my safe-deposit box."

 

One night, however, she returned to find the necklace gone. In its place was this penciled message: "Thanks, lady -- the substitute is just what I wanted. I am a substitute myself. The burglar who usually cases this hotel is away on vacation."

 

The people you see in the marketplace are substitutes, and the people you see in your monasteries and ashramas and temples, they are also substitutes. Nobody seems to be real and authentic. It is very difficult to come across a real man. The world has become so false. And why has it become so false? Because we are trying to do something which is not possible. What we are trying to do is: we are trying to be happy by pretending happiness, we are trying to be loving by pretending lovingness, we are trying to be holy by pretending holiness. We are trying to paint our faces and wear masks -- to know our original face. This is impossible. This is more impossible than this story I have heard:

 

A very ugly girl was sitting at the beach, when the waves washed a bottle at her feet. She opened it -- and out blew a huge genie in a billow of smoke. "I have been a prisoner in this bottle for five thousand years," cried the genie, "and now you have freed me. As a reward, I will fulfill any wish you make." Ecstatic, the ugly girl announced, "I want a figure like Sophia Loren, a face like Elizabeth Taylor, and legs like Ginger Rogers." The genie looked her over carefully, then sighed, "Baby, just put me back in the bottle."

 

But I say to you, this may be impossible, but humanity has been trying to do the even more impossible. The most impossible thing is to come to the real through the false, to come to the authentic through the pseudo. It is impossible. It cannot be done. And down through the centuries humanity has tried to do it. And your so-called religions have been helping people to become more and more false. The whole world is full of false people.

 

Hence you are missing the ecstasy that life can give to you, that life is meant to give to you. You are missing all that is beautiful, true, all that is good, and all that is constantly showering on you.

 

You don't have your own face on. It is somebody else's face. And not only one false face, you have many false faces -- on top of one, the other, and on top of that, another. And you are completely lost; you don't know who you are.

 

The Zen people say, "Look for your original face; find it out." When somebody asked Bokuju, "What do you mean by 'the original face'?" he said, "The face that you had before you were born -- and the face that you will have again when you have died." Find out that original face. That is truth, or call it God.

 

Kabir says this is not possible -- this whole effort to renounce has not helped.

 

WHEN I GAVE UP THE TYING OF RIBBONS, STILL I TIED MY GARMENT ABOUT ME:

 

In some other way -- if not valuable ribbons, then valueless, cheap ropes -- but one has to tie.

 

WHEN I GAVE UP TYING MY GARMENT, STILL I COVERED MY BODY IN ITS FOLDS.

 

One has to find some way or other.

 

SO, WHEN I GIVE UP PASSION, I SEE THAT ANGER REMAINS:

 

You try to give up passion, and you will become angry. And Kabir's insight is tremendous. That's what the whole of modern psychology says: if you give up passion, you will become angry. Hence your saints are so angry. Their anger simply shows that all the energy that was being released through sexuality, passion, is no longer finding any outlet. It is getting stuck inside, and they become angrier and angrier. It is very difficult to find a saint who is not angry, because where will the energy go? You have stopped one outlet; now it is natural for it to find another outlet.

 

Have you watched it, whenever you are sexually fulfilled you feel less angry, whenever you are sexually unfulfilled you feel more angry? It is the same energy. Unless you have found a new way in your being to absorb this energy, just taking a vow of BRAHMACHARYA, of celibacy, is not going to help. Just deciding "Now -- from now on -- I am going to renounce sex" is not going to help. First create a new passage for the energy to move into.

 

Renunciation is not going to help. It will make you more angry. And if there is a choice between anger and sex, sex is better. At least you will feel more calm and quiet.

 

Down through the centuries two types of people have not been allowed sex. One is the saint, another is the soldier. The soldier is not allowed sex because the politicians came to know that if he is allowed sex he loses the urge to fight, he becomes less angry. It is difficult to fight when you are sexually satisfied. So many wars are possible because people are sexually very much unsatisfied. And politicians are very much afraid; they are afraid of what is going to happen to their politics if people become sexually satisfied. The whole of their politics depends on war. If war disappears, politics disappears. Then the government will be just an organization like the post office and the railway. It has some utility, but no power. War gives power, and the politician cannot allow war to disappear. The politician goes on talking about peace and goes on preparing for the war -- talks about peace, prepares for the war. And sometimes things move to absurd extremes: he prepares for war so that there should be peace in the world. For peace -- to protect peace -- he prepares for war.

 

Politicians cannot allow you to be satisfied in your love. Once you are satisfied in your love you are useless as a soldier. You have to be kept unsatisfied so anger remains burning in you and you are ready to fight -- for any excuse -- foolish things. People can fight for a piece of cloth they call their national flag. Have you watched this? These national flags seem to be more a symbol of death than of life. When somebody dies they lower it down. And millions of people have died because of national flags. In a better world they should be completely burned and they should disappear. They are ugly.

 

You have been taught that you belong to this country and you have to die for this country. Nobody belongs to any country. The whole earth is ours -- and the earth is undivided. It is divided only on the political maps. The earth is undivided. Where do you suppose India ends and Pakistan begins? Where do you suppose India ends and China begins? The earth is one.

 

But politics will not allow you to have that feeling of oneness. Otherwise politics disappears. Politics is needed, the politician is needed, only because there is war. Now this is a vicious circle.

 

And if war is to continue, people have to be starved; they should not become sexually satisfied. They should remain angry, boiling within, ready to burst any moment. Watch people. They are ready to fight. Just anything will do -- politics, religion. Any nonsense will do and they are ready to kill each other.

 

Politics is in the service of death.

 

And your so-called religions are also in the service of death.

 

Kabir wants you to love life. All the great mystics want you to love life.

 

"SO, WHEN I GIVE UP PASSION, I SEE THAT ANGER REMAINS..."so nothing has changed. The energy has moved from one corner to another corner. You remain the same. The total result is the same. In fact it is worse.

 

AND WHEN I RENOUNCE ANGER, GREED IS WITH ME STILL;

 

If you renounce anger you will become very, very greedy. In India this has happened. Mahavir taught nonviolence, nonanger; and his followers became very greedy. This is something to be understood, why it happened. Jainas are the richest people in India, and Mahavir taught no anger, no violence, no fight. Why did his followers turn out to be so greedy? Kabir seems to be right. If you drop anger, then what will you do? Then the energy that was moving in anger will start moving into greed.

 

You will not find miserly people very angry, no. They are using their anger, their energy, for greed. Miserly people are not very angry; they are very humble. Even if you hit them they will not hit back. They say, "We believe in peace." They say, "We believe in Jesus' saying. If somebody slaps us on one side of the face, we give him the other." Greedy people are less angry.

 

Rich people are less angry. Watch it. As a person becomes richer, he becomes less and less angry. Anger remains in the poor people. Hence all the revolutionaries depend on the poor people; they cannot depend on the rich. Marx declared, predicted, that the richest country will become communist first. But it didn't happen. He was wrong. He may have been right about his economic analysis, but he did not know the human mind. A rich person is never angry and cannot become a revolutionary. Only a poor person can be angry, because he has no way to be greedy, he has nothing to be greedy about.

 

America should have become communist if Marx's prediction was right, but there is no possibility of any revolution in America. People have enough; they are greedy. Russia became communist, a very poor country. Then China became communist, a very poor country. And now there is every possibility of India becoming communist; it is on the way.

 

A poor country is very angry. When you have something to be greedy about, your anger takes the form of greed; then you are not angry. Then you are not interested in fighting, because in fighting you may lose. A poor person has nothing to lose -- that's exactly what Marx says in his COMMUNIST MANIFESTO: proletariat of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains. He is right. When you don't have anything to lose, why not fight? Either you gain something or you don't lose anything. In every way you are going to be the gainer.

 

Down throughout history you can watch it happening, that same drama again and again. Poor countries are ready to fight. Rich countries become afraid of fighting -- anger disappears, becomes greed. Rich countries are not ready to fight. It has happened again and again in world history that poor countries have defeated rich countries. What happened in Vietnam? There seems to be no possibility logically why Americans should not win there. They have everything to win with -- better technology, better scientific instruments for killing. They have everything good, and still they could not defeat Vietnam, a very poor country. No, it is very difficult to defeat a poor country.

 

When India was very rich, it was defeated again and again. For two thousand years India was defeated again and again. A rich country. And those people who were coming as invaders were just starving, barbarians -- very poor. Mohammedans, Moguls, Turks, they were all poor people -- desperately in need of fighting. And India was rich -- and desperately in need of being greedy about something it had. It was afraid to fight.

 

I have heard one story that once a donkey challenged a lion, "Stop saying of yourself that you are the king of the forest. I am the king. And if you don't believe it, we can have a fight and prove it." It is said the lion simply disappeared into the forest. A fox was watching; she could not believe what happened. She went to the lion and asked, "What is the matter?" He said, "Have you gone crazy? If I fight with the donkey, and if the donkey is defeated, he loses nothing. But donkeys are donkeys -- one cannot say anything. If I am defeated I have something to lose. He has nothing to lose; he can challenge."

 

A poor person is always angry and ready to fight. The richer you get, the milder you become, softer you become. Your energy starts moving into greed.

 

Kabir's analysis is perfect.

 

So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains;

 

And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;

 

AND WHEN GREED IS VANQUISHED, PRIDE AND VAINGLORY REMAIN;

 

And if greed is vanquished if you renounce your riches, your palaces, your kingdoms -- then vainglory, ego, that remains. But nothing changes radically. You simply go on changing the paint of your house, the color. Everything remains the same; only the color changes from one to another.

 

WHEN THE MIND IS DETACHED AND CASTS MAYA AWAY, STILL IT CLINGS TO THE LETTER.

 

And finally, even if you drop everything, then you start clinging to the Vedas, to the Koran, to the Bible -- I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, I am a Mohammedan. You start clinging to the temple, to the mosque, to the GURUDWARA. Now there is nothing visible to cling to; now you create something invisible. You create gods, theologies, scriptures, and you cling to these verbal things.

 

The word "God" is not God, but people have been fighting about it. All that you say about God has nothing to do with God because those who have known, they all have said nothing can be said about God. Says Lao Tzu, "If you say something about truth, it becomes untrue." The moment you assert, you falsify; truth cannot be said. But people go on discussing, arguing, "My God is right and your God is wrong."

 

One of my friends renounced the world and he became a Jaina monk. After many years I came across him and I asked, "You have really renounced the world?" He said, "I have renounced everything. Can't you see? I am sitting naked. I have renounced the society, I have renounced the world, I have renounced everything." I asked him, "But you still think you are a Jaina?" He said, "Certainly I am a Jaina." Now it is very subtle.

 

The society has taught you that you are a Jaina. You were born in a certain society -- Jaina, Mohammedan, Christian -- and the society has taught you that you are a Jaina. It conditioned your mind. You have left everything, but you cling to the conditioning. You have not left anything at all; you are the same person.

 

Real renunciation means unconditioning the mind. Real renunciation means you don't belong to any society, you don't belong to any religion, you don't belong to any country -- you don't BELONG, you are alone. You belong to the whole in your aloneness. But that is possible only by tremendous understanding, intelligence, awareness, not by playing this game of renunciation -- renouncing one thing, creating another, then renouncing that, still creating another.

 

And remember, when you renounce one thing and something else is created, the second is more subtle than the first and will be more difficult to conquer. Passion you renounce; anger remains. Anger is more subtle than sex. Anger you renounce; greed remains. Greed is more subtle than anger. And greed you renounce; then vainglory, ego, remains. Ego is very, very subtle now. And you even try to drop that, but now the theories, the philosophies, the doctrines, they remain. Something or other remains. You go on changing your prison, but you never become a free man.

 

I have heard:

 

From the giant redwoods sector of California comes the yarn of a truck farmer who decided to buy a power saw. A logging foreman sold him one that he guaranteed would cut down fifteen trees in a single day. A week later a very unhappy farmer came back to report that the power saw must be a faulty one -- it averaged only three trees a day. The foreman grabbed the power saw and plugged it into the nearest outlet. The saw promptly went "BZZZZZZ."

 

"Hey," demanded the startled farmer, "what is that noise?"

 

He was using the power saw without connecting it to any electricity. Then of course a power saw is not a power saw; then it is an ordinary thing.

 

You can renounce, you can go on renouncing, and you can do so without plugging into your innermost core, into the powerhouse -- into your inner power of understanding. If it is not plugged in there, then you will be tired and nothing much is going to happen out of it. It is understanding that makes the difference, all the difference. Rather than renouncing, Kabir would like you to understand how the radical change happens.

 

-Osho, "Ecstasy - The Forgotten Language. #3"