Question 1:

Osho,

How can we believe that the soul exists after death and transmigrates to another form of life, or dissolves into the universe?

 

 

I have never asked you to believe in anything.

 

It is my experience that the soul exists after death, that it transmigrates into other forms of life, and finally when there is no more to learn, no question to be answered, no search, no desire - when that ultimate point of absolute contentment, fulfillment, enlightenment arises - then the soul simply dissolves into existence.

 

To transmigrate you need to have a desire to live, a desire to be fulfilled; that's a basic necessity.

 

It is not you who go on being born again and again; it is your desire that goes on and on, never being fulfilled. You are simply following your desire like a shadow.

 

I have not said that you have to believe it. I would, rather, like you to be skeptical about it, to doubt it, and to enquire into it. I am simply provoking you into an enquiry, not into a faith.

 

My religion is not a faith.

 

It is an enquiry into the ultimate truth.

 

So whatsoever I say, the basic reason behind it is always to inspire you - not to believe in a dogma, but to go on in search.

 

If I say the soul exists after death, it is only a hypothesis for you.

 

For me this is an experience.

 

I don't believe in it:

 

I know it, and I will tell you how I know it.

 

When I say that the soul finally dissolves into the universe, it is not a hope for me.

 

I know it; it has happened.

 

I am no longer separate from existence.

 

As far as I am concerned I do not exist at all as an individual entity. I have not been there for many years. But I am not saying to you to believe it.

 

Again I am provoking you, challenging you to enquire.

 

Perhaps I am wrong - I am not an infallible pope, I don't have any divine authority to impose a belief on you; I hold no power, and I am not in any way programming you. I am simply trying to create a longing in you. It is sleeping, dormant. I am trying to wake it up so that you start enquiring.

 

The people who say to you to believe and to have faith are the people who themselves do not believe and do not have faith. Because I know what I am saying to you is my experience, I can challenge you to doubt, to be skeptical, to try in every possible way to prove that it is wrong - because I know you cannot prove it wrong. The more you try to enquire, the more you will become convinced of the fact.

 

I am not saying that you have to become convinced, I am saying you will become convinced. Even against your own mind, in spite of your whole doubting, skepticism, enquiry, when the truth comes as a revelation, all doubts, all disbeliefs, simply disappear like shadows You have brought light in, the shadows start disappearing; they never existed.

 

So only the man who knows can have the guts to say to you, "Doubt me, question me."

 

There is one question that a sannyasin has asked: "Osho, before, you used to talk about the beautiful way of trust, love, the way of the heart. Now your emphasis seems to be more on reason, questioning, skepticism, intelligence. Has your work changed or is it a new phase of your work?"

 

No, it is not a new phase, it is just the other side of the first. I was teaching about trust because you had come from a world which knows nothing of trust. You had come from a world which has trained you intellectually and tried to deny you the existence of your own heart, to deny that feeling is also a way of knowing.

 

I was talking about trust so that I could open the new door of the heart. Without opening the door of the heart I cannot say to you, "Doubt, be skeptical," because then I am sending you on a dangerous path which leads nowhere. It is a little complex but try to understand.

 

A man who knows nothing about feeling, nothing about trust, who has never experienced anything like love - his heart has never jumped with joy, danced with joy in someone's presence - that man can go on doubting, but he will not find the answer because his doubt will be very shallow. He will not trust his own doubt. His enquiry will be just so-so. He will not trust his own enquiry - he knows nothing of trust.

 

Enquiry will need trust because you will be going into the unknown. It will demand tremendous trust and courage because you are moving away from the conventional and the traditional; you are moving away from the crowd. You are going into the open sea, and you don't know whether the other, further shore exists at all.

 

I could not send you into such an enquiry without preparing you to have trust. It will look contradictory, but what can I do? - this is how life is.

 

Only a man of great trust is capable of great doubt.

 

A man of little trust can only doubt a little.

 

A man of no trust can only pretend that he doubts.

 

He cannot doubt.

 

The depth comes through trust - and it is a risk.

 

Before I send you into the uncharted sea, I have to prepare you for this immense journey on which you will have to go alone - but I can lead you up to the boat. That's what I was trying to teach you - about the beauty of trust, the ecstasy of the way of the heart - so when you go into the open ocean of reality you will have courage enough to keep on going. Whatever happens you will have trust enough in yourself Just see it: if you trust me - how can you trust me if you don't trust yourself? It is impossible. If you doubt yourself how can you trust me? It is - you who are going to trust me, and you don't trust yourself - how can you trust your trust?

 

It is absolutely necessary that the heart should be opened before intellect can be transformed into intelligence. That's the difference between intellect and intelligence.

 

Intelligence is intellect in tune with your heart.

 

The heart knows how to trust.

 

The intellect knows how to seek and search.

 

There is an old Eastern story: Two beggars used to live outside a village. One was blind and one had no legs. One day the forest near the village where these beggars used to live caught fire. They were competitors of course - in the same profession, begging from the same people - and they were continually angry with each other. They were enemies, not friends.

 

People in the same profession cannot be friends. It is very difficult because it is a question of competition, clients - you take away somebody's client. Beggars label their clients: "Remember that this is my man; don't you bother him." You don't know to which beggar you belong, who the beggar is in whose possession you are, but some beggar on the street has possessed you. He may have fought and won the battle and now you are his possession.

 

I used to see a beggar near the university; one day I found him in the market. He was constantly there, near the university, because young people are more generous; older people slowly become more miserly, more afraid. Death is coming close by; now money seems to be the only thing that can help. And if they have money then others may help also; if they don't have money, even their own sons, their own daughters, won't bother about them. Young people can be spendthrifts. They are young, they can earn; life is there, a long life ahead.

 

He was a rich beggar because the university students.... In India a student reaches university only if he comes from a rich family, otherwise it is a struggle. A few poor people also get there but it is painful, arduous. I was also from a poor family. The whole night I was working as an editor of a newspaper, and in the day I went to the university. For years I could not sleep more than three or four hours - whenever I could find time in the day or in the night.

 

So this beggar was very strong. No other beggar could enter the university street; even entry was banned. Everybody knew to whom the university belonged - to that beggar! One day suddenly I saw a young man; the old man was not there. I asked him, "What happened? Where is the old man?"

 

He said, "He is my father-in-law. He has given the university to me as a gift." Now, the university did not know that the ownership had changed, that somebody else was now the owner. The young man said, "i have married his girl."

 

In India a dowry is given when you marry somebody's daughter. It is not just that you marry the daughter: your father-in-law has to give you, if he is very rich, a car, a bungalow; if not very rich then at least a scooter; if not that, then at least a bicycle. But he has to give something or other - a radio, a transistor set, a television - and some cash. If he is really rich then he gives you an opportunity to go abroad, to study, to become a more educated person, a doctor, an engineer - and he will pay for it.

 

This beggar's daughter had got married and as her dowry the young man had been given the whole university. He said, "From today this street and this university belong to me. And my father-in-law has shown me who my clients are."

 

I saw the old man in the marketplace so I said to him, "Great! You have done well in giving a dowry."

 

"Yes," he said, "I had only one daughter and I wanted to do something for my son-in-law. I have given him the best place to beg. Now I am here trying again to arrange my monopoly in the market.

 

It is a very tough job here because there are so many beggars, senior ones who have already taken possession of clients. But there is nothing to be worried about. I will manage; I will throw out a few beggars from here" - and certainly he did.

 

So when the forest was on fire those two beggars thought for a moment. They were enemies, not even on speaking terms, but this was an emergency. The blind man said to the man who had no legs, "Now the only way to escape is that you sit on my shoulders; use my legs and I will use your eyes. That's the only way we can save ourselves."

 

It was immediately understood. There was no problem. The man without legs could not get out; it was impossible for him to cross the forest - it was all on fire. He would have moved a little bit but that would not help: an exit, and a very quick exit, was needed. The blind man also was certain that he could not get out. He did not know where the fire was, where the road was, and where the trees were burning, and where they were not: a blind man, he would get lost. But both were intelligent people; they dropped their enmity, became friends and saved their lives.

 

This is an Eastern fable. And this is about your intellect and your heart. It has nothing to do with beggars, it has something to do with you. It has nothing to do with the forest on fire, it has something to do with you - because you are on fire. Each moment you are burning, suffering, in misery, anguish. Alone your intellect is blind. It has legs, it can run fast, it can move fast, but because it is blind it cannot choose the right direction in which to go. And it is bound to be continually stumbling, falling, hurting itself and feeling life meaningless. That's what the intellectuals of the whole world are saying: "Life is meaningless."

 

The reason why life seems to them meaningless is that the blind intellect is trying to see the light. It is impossible.

 

There is a heart within you which sees, which feels, but which has no legs; it cannot run.

 

It remains where it is, beating, waiting: someday intellect will understand and will be able to use the heart's eyes.

 

When I say the word trust I mean the eyes of the heart.

 

And when I say doubt I mean the legs of your intellect.

 

Both together can come out of the fire; there is no problem at all. But remember, the intellect has to accept the heart above its shoulders. It has to. The heart has no legs, only eyes, and intellect has to listen to the heart and follow its directions.

 

In the hands of the heart the intellect becomes intelligent. It is a transformation, a total transformation of energy. Then the person does not become an intellectual, he simply becomes wise.

 

Wisdom comes through the meeting of the heart and the intellect.

 

And once you have learned the art of how to create a synchronicity between your heartbeats and the workings of your intellect, you have the whole secret in your hands, the master key to open all the mysteries.

 

I could have taught you doubt, but that would have changed you into intellectuals. I would have defeated my purpose and I would have destroyed your life. And there is no contradiction in what I am doing. First I had to teach you the way of the heart because I wanted you to understand that heart is higher than your intellect. I had to deny intellect completely so you forgot all your doubting and skepticism that you acquired from your schools, colleges, universities - which know nothing of the heart, which depend only on the intellect. They create the intelligentsia.

 

Even their greatest intellectuals, like Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger - they are great intellectuals... but poor, blind; they know nothing. They have immense knowledgeability, but they know nothing. They have not experienced anything at all, because experience is something that happens through the heart.

 

The intellect can take the heart into that space where experience happens.

 

The intellect cannot experience it.

 

The experiencer will be the heart.

 

But the intellect can be a good vehicle.

 

If the reins are in the hands of the heart, then the horse of intellect is of tremendous beauty. And this is the harmony which creates a real, authentic seeker.

 

It was a problem for me: from where to begin? I had to begin somewhere; either I had to begin with doubt or I had to begin with trust. I contemplated and weighed both for years. And you cannot teach both together; it will simply confuse people. The best is to teach one first and then the second. Even then it creates trouble. The question is there, that these two things seem to be contradictory. They are not.

 

Is the friendship of the blind beggar and the beggar without legs contradictory? What can be more harmonious? Two people functioning like one person - what can be more harmonious? Eyes belong to somebody, legs belong to somebody else; but eyes and legs belonging to two different people are functioning as if they belong to one person.

 

I would have loved to start with doubt because that is easier; you are already trained in it. That's what J. Krishnamurti has been doing all his life, and has proved an absolute failure. And now there is no possibility for him to change his way of working. Ninety years of continual teaching of doubt, skepticism, intellect, reason.... He has worked hard; one feels sad for him, but all that he has been able to create are doubting Thomases all around the world.

 

Those doubting Thomases are blind, and perhaps J. Krishnamurti also cannot see clearly. He is not blind, but his heart is not on top of his intellect; his intellect is sitting on top of his heart. He has not moved anywhere either: whatever he was saying in 1925 he is saying in 1985 - the same.

 

Just now Sheela was telling me that one of my sannyasins, Deeksha, went to see Krishnamurti in England. At first he was not ready to see her, but Deeksha is not the type to leave anybody so easily.

 

She pestered him, and she wouldn't leave; finally, poor Krishnamurti had to encounter Deeksha.

 

But the first thing she did, she should not have done. She wanted to take over J. Krishnamurti's kitchen - it was a good idea, she is a perfectly good cook - but what she did wrong was that she mentioned she had been with me. That was not the right certificate to produce. That was not the right qualification; that was absolutely the wrong qualification, the wrong certificate.

 

If she had asked me I would have told her how to approach J. Krishnamurti: at least don't mention my name, ever, because my working is totally opposite to his. And he immediately gets enraged....

 

The moment she mentioned my name - you cannot believe that a man like J. Krishnamurti would say such a thing - he said, "Yes, Osho was enlightened, but now he is no longer."

 

Now this is something great! Nobody has ever heard that somebody who has been enlightened can also become unenlightened. Nobody can fall from there because there is nothing to fall, nowhere to fall, nobody to fall; not a single ingredient exists. Where can you fall? The whole universe is in you, and you are in the whole universe. Where can you fall? - there is no other space. And who can fall? - because the one who could fall has fallen long ago: it is his fall that makes enlightenment possible.

 

A person exists before enlightenment, not after enlightenment.

 

After enlightenment, enlightenment exists.

 

No person, no ego, no "I" - so who can fall?

 

That is one of the impossible things in existence: to fall from enlightenment.

 

Yes, one man has been doing it, and that is one of my sannyasins, Gunakar; Germans can do impossible things. He has many times become enlightened. He declares himself enlightened:

 

he cannot wait. He used to become enlightened and then he would write, trying to show his enlightenment in the letter - and it was all rubbish.

 

He wrote to all the government heads of the whole world; he wrote letters to all the members of UNO declaring his enlightenment. And in those letters it was all rubbish, but he was advising everybody.

 

I asked him to come so that I could see his enlightenment. He came, very nervous, and as he sat down in front of me, I said, "now become unenlightened again!"

 

So he said, "If you say so, Osho, then.... In fact I was so impatient: I want to become enlightened."

 

I said, "It is perfectly good that you want to become enlightened, but you need not declare your enlightenment without becoming enlightened. When you become enlightened, you will be recognized. I will write a letter to you, you need not write a letter to me. Just wait!"

 

So he would say, "Okay, so I am not enlightened."

 

This has happened three or four times. Since I came to America he has not come here because he does not want to become unenlightened again. But this is the only case in the whole history of humanity. Gunakar is unique! Otherwise, once a person becomes enlightened he is no more.

 

Now, Krishnamurti saying to Deeksha, "Osho was enlightened; now, since he moved to America, he is no longer" - that too is strange. Krishnamurti lives in America; his whole life he has lived in America or in England, but his home base is America. I have been here only three years, and I have become unenlightened in three years. What to say about him? He has been here his whole life, almost eighty years - at least twenty-five times longer. He must have become unenlightened! And how can America make a person unenlightened? Yes, it is possible that if you are a born Oregonian you may never become enlightened; that is possible, I don't see much hope. But even Oregon cannot do this miracle: make an enlightened person unenlightened.

 

But Krishnamurti is really angry with me. I simply laugh at the poor old fellow. He is nice, but why does he get so angry? And only with me? There are so many gurus around the world, and he is not angry with any of them, so why with me?

 

The reason is very clear, but perhaps not so clear to him. The reason is clear: what he has been trying to do and has been constantly failing to do, I have managed in a very short period. It is a professional.... The same profession - either of beggars or of Masters, it makes no difference. He has no clients, and I have so many clients that I go on chopping and dropping and somehow sorting out the wrong ones.

 

He has been looking for people like you, but he cannot find them because of his own strategy. He has chosen doubt as the first step - that's where he missed. The first step he missed.

 

I have chosen trust as the first step.

 

And once you have felt the taste of trust then doubt is impotent.

 

Doubt cannot destroy your trust.

 

Doubt will destroy your beliefs:

 

They need to be destroyed.

 

Doubt will destroy all that is not authentic:

 

That needs to be destroyed.

 

What doubt cannot destroy is trust.

 

When doubt comes face to face with authentic trust, then doubt accepts the trust - its eyes, its way of feeling - as higher than itself It is so dear, there is no other possibility.

 

Your doubt bows down to your trust, and a friendship happens in you. Your heart is the master, your intellect becomes the servant.

 

And that's what I mean by intelligence. It is intelligence which will ultimately become enlightenment.

 

So I started with trust because I wanted people who can take the risk of trusting, who are confident enough to take the risk.

 

Trust is risky, doubt is not risky. Doubt is really trying to defend you; it is a defense measure so that you are not cheated, you are not exploited, so that somebody does not befool you, you don't fall into the hands of a con man. Doubt simply prevents you from being cheated. But if you don't have anything, and doubt goes on protecting you, what is the point of it all? It is like a man who goes on guarding his safe and knows perfectly well that there is nothing in it. Then what are you guarding?

 

Have a good sleep, because there is nothing! What do you have that can be exploited?

 

Yes, a man of trust has something:

 

He has a throbbing, living, feeling heart.

 

He has a treasure house.

 

Now doubt can be put on guard.

 

First I tried to create the treasure in you:

 

Now I am telling you that you need a guard. You have something to lose, and you should be alert.

 

There is no contradiction at all. Only for intellectuals will it seem that there is a contradiction; for intelligent people it will be immediately clear that there is a synchronicity. I may look mad - one day teaching you trust, another day starting to teach you about doubt - but my madness has a method in it. It is not just madness, but madness with a method.

 

I don't say to you, "Believe me;" I say to you, "Take this hypothesis" - and now I can say to you, "Take this hypothesis..." because this much trust you have in me. I am not asking for a belief or faith, I am simply saying, "I know something which I cannot make you know; I know something which I cannot even express to you. But I can give you a hypothesis just to begin with, so that you can enquire."

 

When I say the soul transmigrates, to me it is an experience: I remember my past lives. I have transmigrated; there is no question of doubt for me, but I am not saying for you to believe it. What I am conspiring is to make you interested in this strange enquiry into past lives. If I can know my past lives - because they are all imprinted in the unconscious, nothing is ever lost - you can descend the staircase and go into your unconscious, and you can start knowing about your past lives. When you know, there is no need to believe - because then you know. When you don't know, never believe, because if you believe you will never know.

 

So belief is not needed at any stage of life.

 

When you are ignorant, belief is not needed; it is very dangerous, because if you start believing then who is going to enquire?

 

Belief stops enquiry, kills enquiry.

 

And when you know something, it will be simply foolish to believe in it. What will be the point of believing? - you know. You don't believe in the sun, you don't believe in the roses - you know. You believe in God because you DON'T know. You believe in the soul because you don't know.

 

I am trying to destroy all unnecessary hypotheses, so you are not diverted; then you can move into an enquiry for God. One thing is certain: if God wants to meet you, He will look for you. In this vast universe you should not be so insane that you can search for God.

 

Man has reached only up to the moon. That too is not very far; it is the nearest planet. The nearest star is four light years away. If someday we can invent - it is impossible but just for argument's sake - if someday we can invent a vehicle, a rocket, which moves with the same speed as light, then we will reach the nearest star in four years. That is a one-way journey; the return journey means eight years. In the first place the problem is the speed, because at the speed of light everything becomes light. No matter what metal is used, at that speed everything is transformed into light - just as at a certain speed in air fire is created.

 

In olden times in India, and even today - in my childhood I have seen it in my village - people who smoked used to carry two stones, the white stones which are available on the shore of any river.

 

They would put a little cotton between those two stones and rub the cotton between them; that rubbing would create fire, the cotton would burn up. That was perhaps the most primitive lighter.

 

Perhaps they are still doing it. I have not been to my village for many years - they must be still doing it. Who will bother about a modern lighter? - you need petrol and you need this and you need that.

 

Those poor people can just get two stones from anywhere, and carry those stones with them. It is the simplest and cheapest way, and they can create fire anywhere.

 

I have seen people creating fire by rubbing two bamboos together. In the aboriginal state of Bastar in India there seems to be perhaps an even more primitive method: by rubbing dry wood together fire is created. That is how forests catch on fire, because in strong winds trees rub against each other and their rubbing creates fire. Just the other day I was telling you that meteorites fall from the sky and burn up. You see a star falling: it is a stone burning because its speed creates great friction with the air. The friction at that speed creates fire.

 

Light travels at the ultimate speed. At that speed everything is going to turn into light: the vehicle, the passengers, everybody. You won't reach the nearest star in four years. And if we move at the same speed - the way we have gone to the moon - it will take perhaps thousands of years, one way; a round trip, thousands more. The people you left behind when you left the earth, you will not find on your return - nobody at all. In those years all those people have gone; generations have passed.... When you come back you will not be able to recognize a single face. And the hazards of such a long journey....

 

Even the hazards of the journey to the moon were tremendous, anything could have gone wrong; but it was only a question of a very short time. Still things were going wrong: machines, after all, are machines. - And there you don't have a workshop and mechanics, engineers and scientists. They are all here on the earth with remote controls, and those remote controls sometimes just don't work.

 

To depend completely on machines for all those years seems to be impossible.

 

And one thing more: God is not on that star, because that is the nearest star. If He wants to avoid man He has so many stars, so far away - stars for which the earth has never existed. Their distance is such that if on the day the earth came into existence their light started traveling towards the earth, by the time that light reaches the earth, the earth will be gone. The distance is such that your earth's few million years of life are not enough for the light to reach here. And there are stars further away than that.

 

If God wants to meet you, the only way is for Him to look for you; and He has not bothered at all. It is man who is bothering about God by looking above. It was good in Jesus' time to look above because it was thought that the stars were very close by, just lamps for the night that God has created to give you some light. The world was very small, the stars were very close. Now we know that they are not lamps created to give you light, and that there are millions of stars, expanding continuously with the same speed as light. The universe is an expanding universe.

 

If God wants to meet you it is up to Him - but I don't think He is interested.

 

You unnecessarily get involved in a search for God. All that you will end up with will be your own hallucination, your own imagination.

 

That's why I want to drop all unnecessary hypotheses, so you can focus yourself on the most necessary hypothesis - and that is your being, your soul.

 

Please first find yourself, then try to find God; otherwise you will not even be able to introduce yourself: Who are you? If by chance, by accident, somewhere you come across Him, and He asks, "Who are you?" you won't be able to answer Him; you don't know. Your name will not work, your religion will not work, your degrees will not work; because you are not your name, you are not your degrees and you are not your profession. He will not ask, "Are you a doctor or an engineer or a plumber?" He will ask, "Who are you? Engineering may be your education - forget about it! Just tell me who you are." And you don't know. This is the basic question.

 

I say to you, you are; but don't believe me, just take it as a hypothesis.

 

That's why I needed first your trust, a little trust: the trust that this man is not going to give you a wrong hypothesis. This much trust - I am not asking much.

 

Jesus and Krishna asked for total surrender. I am just asking for a very simple thing, a thing that any scientist will ask of you: "This is the hypothesis - work on it." You cannot doubt a hypothesis, remember, because a hypothesis is not a belief so the question of doubt does not arise.

 

A hypothesis means something temporarily assumed to help you enquire. And once you find, you can see whether the hypothesis was right or wrong. You can put your experience against the hypothesis and judge. And if this hypothesis has given you the experience, then the hypothesis was right. If the hypothesis just leads you into a desert land, and no oasis ever appears, then drop that hypothesis - and the sooner the better. Find something better. But I tell you I have found it.

 

In a Master you need only hypothetical trust, not a total surrender. How can you surrender totally?

 

I sometimes feel simply surprised that Krishna told Arjuna, "Surrender to me totally." Now, if Arjuna is asking a thousand and one questions about everything, is it possible for him to surrender totally?

 

And for Krishna to ask Arjuna, who is continually doubting everything that Krishna is saying and raising question upon question - to tell him, "Just surrender totally to me"....

 

Do you think it is a child's game? How can this man surrender? And Arjuna was a great intellectual:

 

all the questions that he has raised before Krishna are relevant. And all the answers that Krishna had given to him are just to explain away his question, not to explain. There is no way to explain, he is simply trying to explain them away. But Arjuna is insistent: Krishna tries to escape from one question, Arjuna brings another. This goes on and on, and in the middle of it, Krishna suddenly asks, "You just surrender to me, and leave everything to me."

 

I am surprised by Krishna's demand, and that too of an intellectual like Arjuna. Can't he see that this man is not a gullible type? And even if you can find a gullible type - a man who cannot live totally, cannot do anything totally, can he be expected to surrender totally? Moreover, can surrender be an act on the part of the disciple?

 

One young man used to come to me; he was a very gullible, believing, devotional type. The situation between me and him was just the reverse of that between Krishna and Arjuna. He would just hold my legs and sit on the floor; and he would say, "Accept me. I want to surrender totally to you."

 

Once I said, "You want to surrender totally to me, but I don't want your surrender! Are you going to force your surrender upon me? What am I going to do with your surrender? - I don't need it.

 

You may need it somewhere else; don't waste it totally. Save it for some emergency. Somewhere somebody may demand surrender with a gun, then what will you do? You will say,'I don't have any surrender left, I have surrendered all to one person.' You will be in danger - you keep it."

 

He said, "You are strange. Every master asks, 'Surrender.' And I come to you; I believe in you, and I want to surrender."

 

I said, "Listen, today you have come to surrender; tomorrow you can come and say, 'Give my surrender back.' I will unnecessarily have to take care of your surrender so that it is not lost. I may put it somewhere, and one day you may appear and suddenly ask, 'Give my surrender back.""

 

He said, "You are joking."

 

I said, "I am not joking! If you are surrendering, you have the right to take it back. you are the master, I am not the master. You are surrendering to me - who is the master? It is your act, I am simply outside your act. I am not doing anything, you are doing it - but tomorrow you can cancel it. You can find a better master; you can find some fault in me, and you can take your surrender back."

 

I said, "I don't ask anything from you. I don't need your surrender, all I need is a hypothetical trust.

 

Do what I say; it may prove right, it may prove wrong. So there is no need to trust me, just do it with a 'perhaps.' I have no interest in deceiving you. By your sitting in silence, meditating, I am not going to gain anything. So let it be clear that I am not going to gain anything by your sitting in silence, by your becoming enlightened; I am not going to have any share in it.

 

"So just hypothetically.... And why should I send you in the wrong direction? I have no investment. I am not a priest, I don't live on any priesthood. How in the world, for what reason would I misguide you? So just hypothetically, that's enough. More than that I don't want, because more than that is dangerous. Today you say, 'I surrender totally,' and then you think you need not do anything. What else can you do? - you have done all, you have surrendered totally."

 

Krishna is asking Arjuna to "surrender totally, and I will take care of you." This is certainly destroying the other person's independence, individuality, his freedom to enquire; you are completely killing the person spiritually. But this has been the way of all the religions. Hence, you see some contradiction between trust and doubt. There is none.

 

I have taught you trust and the way of the heart so that your heart is open, available; your eyes are there. Now I have to train your intellect. Before I leave I have to complete my work. I have to train your intellect, sharpen it. I have to teach you doubt, because doubt is not a simple thing.

 

Doubt needs great courage because you will be doubting everything possible. You will be surrounded by all kinds of doubts. All consoling beliefs will be taken away, beliefs which gave you a certain confidence, a certain stability, a certain feeling that you belong to a big tradition, a well- respected religion of holy scriptures, messiahs, representatives of God. You had all these things surrounding you. They gave you a cozy feeling that you are not alone. I am trying to do just this: cut away everything that gives you a false, cozy feeling and that keeps you dozing all your life.

 

Belief is the opium which all the religions have been giving you in good doses.

 

I am trying to destroy your addiction to the opium.

 

My whole effort is to leave you alone.

 

Yes, you will feel fear, you will feel a certain trembling, you will feel all is lost; but this is just in the beginning. A little patience - it is a passing phase. Soon you will feel a tremendous energy arising in you which would have never arisen in the crowd, with its beliefs, because there was no need: you were spoon-fed; there was no need for you to think about your food on your own.

 

I am taking every consolation, every comfort - I mean spiritually - so you are completely alone in your being.

 

And then take the hypothesis:

 

Meditate, be silent, just watch yourself Somebody has asked, "How can we be certain that the watcher is not part of the mind?" It is a relevant question but only intellectual. It is not out of meditation, because in his question the man is bringing in three things, of which he is not aware: the mind, the watcher - and who is this third who is thinking whether the mind and the watcher are one thing? There is a third entity which is raising the question.

 

I say to you: the watcher, your watcher, is part of your mind. And not only that, the second watcher behind it is also part of your mind.

 

When you realize silent watching you don't see any mind anywhere; all thoughts stop. That is the beauty and the revolution of the watcher: when you are in a watching state there is nothing to be watched.

 

This is the trouble: when there is everything to watch, the watcher is not there; when the watcher comes in, there is nothing to watch. Only one can exist, both cannot exist together. The presence of the watcher simply disperses the mind; it is no longer needed. It was just functioning because the watcher was absent.

 

Gurdjieff used to tell a story: A very, rich man went on a pilgrimage. He had many servants and a very, big palace where he lived alone with all these servants. He called all the servants and told them, "One by one, by rotation, you have to be on guard. I don't know how much time I am going to take, it may be many years; the journey is long, the pilgrimage is hazardous. I may come back, I may not come back, but the palace, the garden, everything has to be present as it is."

 

They said, "Of course. Whatsoever you say we will do."

 

The man went away. Months passed, years passed. By and by the servants started completely forgetting that they were servants because the master had been gone so long. Man's memory is not that long, and there are things which one does not really want to remember. One's being a slave and somebody being the master who wants to remember that?

 

Each servant had to guard the palace in rotation, and when each servant was guarding, he would pretend that he was the master. Anybody coming to the palace or passing by would ask, "Whose palace is this?" The servant would answer, "It is my palace, my garden. Don't you like it?"

 

This was happening with all the guards. Years passed; the guards completely forgot about the master and that he was going to return. "By now he must be dead, something must have happened.

 

And it is good that we got rid of that fellow - now we are the masters." They declared to the whole town, "We are the masters" - and the town had also forgotten the master. It was long before - only old people remembered that somebody had been there, but it was only very vaguely. When he went, where he went, and what happened to him, nobody was aware.

 

But one day, the master appeared; he knocked on the door. The slaves looked at him and suddenly fell at his feet: "Master, you are back!"

 

He said, "I told you I would come back, even though it may take a long time."

 

They said, "Forgive us, because the city people will say we have committed a crime against you. We had forgotten you completely, and we enjoyed being the master so much that we declared that we were the masters - and the city believes that we are the masters."

 

Gurdjieff used to tell this story, saying that the same is the case with the watcher. The watcher is absent; the mind - which is just a slave - is pretending to be the master. And it is not a question of a few years - for millions of years the master has been absent. Perhaps the master has never been home; there is no question that he had gone, because once he arrives he never goes. So your thoughts, and the combination of thoughts which you call your mind, certainly, confidently believe that they are the master.

 

Just try to watch your thoughts.

 

Remember one thing: Thought itself cannot watch another thought - that is impossible. A thought cannot become a watcher of another thought; so when in your mind the thought arises, "I am watching," you have missed, because it is a thought. When the watcher is there you will not even have the idea of "Aha! Got it!" Lost it! You were just on the verge of getting it and Werner Erhard entered, and EST finished everything: "Got it!" Even that much, just two words, is enough; the mind is back.

 

It is always the mind that gets it, or does not get it; the watcher simply watches. No idea is formed, just absolute silence prevails. And in that moment is the seeing, knowing, experiencing - without any thought. Can't you experience anything without any thought? You will have to learn, because mind has been trained for centuries just to think every experience in words.

 

You see a beautiful roseflower: immediately the mind says, "How beautiful!" You may not say it aloud, you are not that insane, but silently you will say, "How beautiful!" But in saying it, you miss the experience of the beauty of the flower.

 

The moment you said, "How beautiful!" you went far away from the flower. You have already compared it with your past experiences of the flower. And remember, your past experiences must have been just like this: they were not experiences because those times also you would have missed in the same way, by saying, "How beautiful!" You have always been missing the train!

 

Standing by the side of a roseflower, just stand there. Can't you keep for a few seconds just a watching state of consciousness, with no interference of words - beautiful, ugly, red, yellow? No, just stand by the side - and it is not difficult; it needs just a little knack, and you can practice it anytime, doing anything. Just don't allow words to come in between you and what is happening.

 

Once this knack is learned... the same is the situation inside. Of course, the inside experience is inexpressible, and tremendously more vast and profound than the beauty of a roseflower or the beauty of a sunset; but what you have to do is the same. Just relish it, drown in it, and if for a few seconds....

 

It has been counted exactly by one person, and that is Mahavira - and I agree with him because I have counted it also: it is exactly forty-eight seconds. If you can manage this state of watching without any word interfering for forty-eight seconds - I am not asking much, not even a whole minute, twelve seconds less. It is something of a law of existence that within forty-eight seconds the experience is complete. Then nobody can take it from you, you cannot fall from it. You can come to America, you can come to Oregon - you cannot fall from it.

 

I really enjoyed it when Sheela told me that J.Krishnamurti thinks that I have lost my enlightenment.

 

He must be furious! He cannot be joking, that much is certain. He is not a man to be non-serious, no; he is continually serious. He must have been serious. But what is troubling him? - he started with the wrong step. That is not my fault. If you get out of your bed with the wrong foot, what can I do? It is your bed and your foot, and you go on doing that for eighty years; I have nothing to do with it!

 

I was also in a dilemma in the beginning, but sometimes things which are not appreciated prove tremendously helpful. My laziness proved tremendously helpful. I went on sitting on my bed, figuring out which foot to put down first. I would have waited there my whole life.

 

For almost seven years I never told anybody, "I am no longer part of you." Yes, a few people came to suspect - those who had the experience. One was Magga Baba, a very poor man, a beggar. He was the first to take hold of me - with both his hands he shook me - and he said, "You cannot befool me!"

 

I said, "i have not done anything."

 

He said, "You haven't done anything, that is true, but you have been someplace which you are hiding."

 

I said, "That's true, but please don't tell anybody because I don't want any harassment. I will get out of the bed, but I have not yet decided which foot is the right one to get out with."

 

I am a lazy man, bone lazy. My physician, Doctor Devaraj, wants to give me Vitamin D because I am bone lazy. Calcium is missing he thinks - perhaps! But it has been tremendous; it is good that it was missing. If I had jumped out of bed, I would have been in the same mess as J. Krishnamurti.

 

I got out of bed only when I had figured out everything completely. And since that moment I have been moving with every step calculated.

 

First I taught you about trust, the heart, feeling, love; and now I am teaching you about doubt, skepticism, reason, intellect, because I would like you to be a whole man. You can be completely satisfied with trusting, with the heart, but you will not be a whole man.

 

I would not call Mira a whole person, I would not call Ramakrishna a whole person. They are beautiful, but the intellect is missing; it is all heart. It is too much sugar, it creates diabetes. I am diabetic. Too much of the heart, too much sweetness, and you suffer from diabetes - and I don't want any of you to suffer from diabetes. Yes, just living by the heart you will have spiritual diabetes.

 

Intellect is salty, spicy; it is not all sugar.

 

I would like you to enjoy the wholeness of your being, when your body, your heart, your intellect all fall in tune. I have called that the new man - Zorba the Buddha.

 

-Osho, “From Personality to Individuality, #13, Q1”