Question 2
Osho,
Being with you I feel so blissful and liberated, and there seems to be no end to it. You must have tricked me. What is your secret?
I am a simple man without any secret. I am just an open book, and a book in which nothing is written. If you like to call it a secret it is your choice, but it is a very open secret.
If you want to be, learn the art of being:
Not to be.
Let me repeat it, because I know you are deaf. If you want really to be, the only way is to learn not to be. Disappear. Just as God disappears from existence, you have to disappear from your life. Let life flow of its own accord.
It is the simplest art in the world, to be silent. It is not a doing, it is a non-doing. How can it be difficult?
I am showing you the way of enlightenment through laziness. Nothing has to be done to attain it, because it is your nature. You have already got it. You are just so busy with outer business that you cannot see your own nature.
Deep within you is exactly the same as outside you: the beauty, the silence, the ecstasy, the blissfulness. But please, sometimes be kind to yourself: just sit down and don’t do anything, either physically or mentally. Relax, not in an American way… because I have seen so many American books titled How to Relax. The very title says that the man knows nothing about relaxation. There is no “how.”
Yes, it is okay – “How to Repair a Car”; you will have to do something. But there is no doing as such as far as relaxation is concerned. Just don’t do anything. I know you will find it a little difficult in the beginning. That is not because relaxation is difficult, it is because you have become addicted to doing something. That addiction will take a little time to disappear.
Just be, and watch. Being is not doing, and watching is also not doing. You sit silently doing nothing, witnessing whatsoever is happening. Thoughts will be moving in your mind; your body may be feeling some tension somewhere, you may have a migraine. Just be a witness. Don’t be identified with it. Watch, be a watcher on the hills, and everything else is happening in the valley. It is a knack, not an art.
Meditation is not a science. It is not an art, it is a knack – just that way. All that you need is a little patience.
The old habits will continue; the thoughts will go on rushing. And your mind is always in a rush hour, the traffic is always jammed. Your body is not accustomed to sitting silently – you will be tossing and turning. Nothing to be worried about. Just watch that the body is tossing and turning, that the mind is whirling, is full of thoughts – consistent, inconsistent, useless – fantasies, dreams. You remain in the center, just watching.
All the religions of the world have taught people to do something: stop the process of thought, force the body into a still posture. That’s what yoga is – a long practice of forcing the body to be still. But a forced body is not still. And all the prayers, concentrations, contemplations of all the religions do the same with the mind: they force it, they don’t allow the thoughts to move. Yes, you have the capacity to do it. And if you persist you may be able to stop the thought process. But this is not the real thing, it is absolutely fake.
When stillness comes on its own, when silence descends without your effort, when you watch thoughts and a moment comes when thoughts start disappearing and silence starts happening, that is beautiful. The thoughts stop of their own accord if you don’t identify, if you remain a witness and you don’t say, “This is my thought.”
You don’t say, “This is bad, this is good,” “This should be there….” and “This should not be there….” Then you are not a watcher; you have prejudices, you have certain attitudes. A watcher has no prejudice, he has no judgment. He simply sees like a mirror.
When you bring something in front of a mirror it reflects, simply reflects. There is no judgment that the man is ugly, that the man is beautiful, that, “Aha! What a good nose you have got.” The mirror has nothing to say. Its nature is to mirror; it mirrors. This is what I call meditation: you simply mirror everything within or without.
And I guarantee you…. I can guarantee because it has happened to me and to many of my people; just watching patiently – maybe a few days will pass, maybe a few months, maybe a few years. There is no way of saying because each individual has a different collection.
You must have seen people collecting antiques, postal stamps. Everybody has a different collection; the quantity may be different, hence the time it takes will be different – but go on remaining a witness as much as you can. And this meditation needs no special time. You can wash the floor and remain silently watching yourself washing the floor.
I can move my hand unconsciously, without watching, or I can move it with full awareness. And there is a qualitative difference. When you move it unconsciously it is mechanical. When you move it with consciousness there is grace. Even in the hand, which is part of your body, you will feel silence, coolness – what to say about the mind?
With your watching and watching, slowly the rush of thoughts starts getting less and less. Moments of silence start appearing; a thought comes, and then there is silence before another thought appears. These gaps will give you the first glimpse of meditation and the first joy that you are arriving home.
Soon the gaps will be bigger, and finally the gap is always with you. You may be doing something, the silence is there. You may not be doing anything, the silence is there. Even in sleep the silence is there.
For a meditator there are no dreams; dreams and thoughts are cousin-brothers, there is not much difference. If thoughts disappear, dreams disappear. And if for twenty-four hours a day you are surrounded by silence you will come to know what my secret is.
If you go near a lake, you start feeling cool. There is no secret in it – it is the milieu. You go to the forest and you feel the difference in the atmosphere. You are the same but the atmosphere around you is different.
When you come closer to me… and to come closer to me you are not to walk and sit by my side. To come closer to me is to be not a Christian, not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan, not a Buddhist, not a communist. To come close to me means that you don’t cling to any ideology, you don’t go on holding onto the past. To come close to me means you start living moment to moment.
Neither the past means anything to you, nor are you worried about the future. This very moment becomes the only reality. In fact it is the only reality. And if you can be in this moment, you can be on a faraway star but you will be close to me and you will feel a serenity, a silence, a lovingness such as you have never known.
I am not doing anything, remember, so don’t be grateful to me. I am a non-doer – I am just being available. That is not much of a doing. I am available, like the trees in the forest and the lakes and the ocean, and the sun and the moon. I am available. Now it is up to you to come close to me, or go away from me.
If you can come close to me you will start feeling things that have been unknown to you, and soon you will realize that what you are feeling close to me you can feel yourself wherever you are. That is the greatest moment of happiness for a master, when his disciple can be on his own.
You must know the meaning of being a disciple, people have forgotten; it comes from “discipline.”
And all the religions have corrupted the meaning of discipline; its root meaning is learning.
Coming close is learning.
What I have got, you have got.
I am aware of it, you are not aware of it.
Coming close to me you will learn, "My God! This has always been with me, and I have been searching all over the world, looking into the books, scriptures, seeking the teachers, becoming a member of rotten cults like Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism -- all dead."
Yes, when Buddha was there what is happening to you was happening to his people. But when Buddha is gone what is left behind is mere words, containers; the content is not there. You can go on decorating the containers, but that will not help. You know perfectly well that your statues in the temples, your scriptures in the churches, are just dust of the past. It is better to be finished with them.
But why are you seeking? You are seeking because you are not aware that you have got it already. I cannot give it to you. I can only make you aware, and for that nothing is needed but availability on my part, availability on your part. If these two availabilities are there, two opennesses, without any conditions, it clicks. Suddenly you become a mirror, and the moment you become a mirror you become a master. The same will start happening around you.
So I don't want you always to remain disciples. That will be a shame.
In the past all the religions have tried just the opposite of what I am doing. That's why they cannot believe that this is a religion. I am changing the very definition and the foundations. Those old religions were saying that Jesus Christ is the only begotten son of God, you are not. He is special, you are ordinary. He comes with a message from God, from above. He has a speciality, he is extra-ordinary.
At the most you can be Christians, but you cannot be a Christ. Have you thought about it, that in two thousand years nobody has been a Christ again? What kind of religion is this? Just Christians! The first and the last Christ was crucified two thousand years ago; since then nothing has happened, because unless you become a Christ your Christianity is just a hypocrisy. The same is true about other religions.
Once it happened in Baghdad -- Caliph Omar was the sovereign. A man was brought to him who was claiming that he had been sent by God and that he brought the latest word of God, the latest message, because Mohammed's message was thirteen hundred years old, and in thirteen hundred years a new message -- better, more polished, more sophisticated -- was needed. He had been sent by God.
Now, Mohammedans cannot accept anybody as a prophet after Mohammed. No religion accepts anybody else as a prophet. Christians cannot accept anybody as a Christ. Buddhists cannot accept another as a Buddha. Why? Why this similarity? There is some arithmetic behind it. A new prophet will disturb the gullible, the old believers, because he will say something new. He may say something against the KORAN, THE BIBLE, the GITA; he is bound to.
I cannot agree with Krishna, the GITA that he had spoken five thousand years ago. Five thousand years have not gone just as a waste; man's consciousness has risen, intelligence has become more solid. And what Krishna teaches is violence. If Krishna is right, then the third world war is perfectly okay.
I cannot give that okay to the third world war. Krishna says, "It is God's will. If he wants the war, all your pacifists can go on parading in the capitals of the world with posters against war -- it will not change anything. If God wants the war then the war is going to happen." That is the message of the GITA. Arjuna, Krishna's chief disciple and friend, tried hard to argue.
But those arguments are all ordinary. If I had been in his place, just a single sentence from me would have been enough -- there would have been no need to make such a big book. I would have said to Krishna, "This is God's will, that I am going to the Himalayas. Who are you to interpret God's will? And how can I accept it, that your interpretation is right? You say that God wants the war -- I say no."
And in fact the no seems to be more rational, more loving, more meaningful, more humane. Rather than arguing with that man, Arjuna had just to say: "I have accepted your idea that whatsoever happens, happens according to God" -- and then should have left for the Himalayas.
He wanted to be a sannyasin, a meditator in the Himalayas. Krishna would not have been able to stop him -- just because of his own argument. Arjuna could have said, "If war is to happen, God will bring me back -- but you keep quiet."
Hence Hindus would not like anybody else to be accepted as a prophet of God.
Mohammed talks nonsense. You cannot expect anything better from an uneducated man who could not write, who could not read, who had never been in any way a meditative man.
He married nine women. Now, I cannot support that, because in the world men and women are almost in equal proportions. If one man marries nine women then what about the eight men who will be left without women?
Then California will be all over the world. That catastrophe I cannot allow. I would rather that California went down into the ocean with all its homosexuals, with all its perverts. It would be better, far more beneficial, and a blessing to humanity.
But Mohammed marries nine women -- of course; he is a messenger of God. Mohammedans he allows to marry four women -- naturally; he has to keep himself higher. Mohammedans are still marrying four women. Anyone with any intelligence can see the point: these are the people who create prostitution. They have created prostitutes, because what about the three men whose women they have married?
And can you understand a simple, biological thing? You cannot even satisfy a single woman sexually, what about four or nine? -- because recent research shows that a woman is capable of multiple orgasms. A man is not capable of that. If he is young, below thirty-five, he may be able to have one orgasm. And I am saying maybe. It is not certain, because man is in such a hurry that before the orgasm can happen he is finished.
Orgasm needs a certain patience, to move with the woman, with the same pace. The woman moves slowly. By the time she comes close to her orgasm, the man has gone to sleep and is snoring. Eighty percent of women in the world have not known what orgasm is. And in a country like India, ninety-nine percent of women know nothing about orgasm.
Biologically, a man cannot satisfy four women. Then those women are going to look around the neighborhood. These religions have created all kinds of perversions: prostitution, obscenity. And if these men cannot find women, at least they can look at PLAYBOY -- just pictures of naked women! One feels the world has lived in an insane way. Will your hunger be satisfied by seeing beautiful dishes in a picture? Can you eat them? But that is what is happening to man's sexuality.
He looks into magazines -- vulgar, obscene -- of naked women. For what? -- when there are equal numbers of women available, living, alive, not just photographs.
Four women to one man! But this is nothing, four or nine; Krishna had sixteen thousand women to himself! I sometimes start wondering... sixteen thousand women. Even to remember their names is difficult.
I know, because I have more than half a million sannyasins around the world; I cannot remember their names. And Krishna lived only ninety years. In ninety years how did he manage to make love to sixteen thousand women? Perhaps to one woman once in her life... and then she was abandoned. This is ugly.
That's why new prophets are not allowed by any religion -- because they will look, scrutinize, see that these things are ugly.
In Baghdad this man declared, "I am the prophet of God, the latest, and I bring a more sophisticated message than Mohammed." Mohammedans could not tolerate it. Omar himself was a very cultured man.... Now you may be cultured, but your Mohammedanism is there; it goes on poisoning you. Omar sent the man to the prison, told the guards, "Don't give him food. Bind him to a pole, beat him continuously, and don't let him sleep. After seven days I will come to ask what he thinks."
After seven days he came. The man was almost dying, without food, without sleep, continuously beaten for twenty-four hours a day. Omar laughed and said, "Now have you changed your mind, or do you still think you are the last messenger of God?"
The man laughed more loudly than Omar and said, "This torture for seven days proves that I am the prophet of God, because when I was leaving him to take my voyage to the earth, I asked him, `They have not behaved well with prophets in the past -- what is going to happen to me?' He said, `You will be tortured.' You have proved that I am really the prophet of God. Before this torture sometimes I used to doubt, to think that perhaps I am imagining, but now there is no question of doubt."
At that very moment, from another pole, another naked man who had been there for one month continuously being tortured, shouted, "Omar, don't listen to that idiot! I have not sent him. After Mohammed I have not sent anybody else." One month before this man had been caught declaring himself God!
These religions are just dead history. They cannot give you anything. Only a living master is capable of creating an atmosphere I call the buddhafield, the field for awakening.
And I have chosen Oregon because I could not find so many sleepy people anywhere else in the world; otherwise, who has heard of any prophet in Oregon? I thought, "Even a small place like Judea can claim Jesus, Jerusalem can claim Moses, small places like Mecca and Medina can claim Mohammed. Oregon is absolutely impotent." I thought it would be good; hence I am here.
But to wake up a sleepy man is always a difficult job. The sleepy man does not want to wake up. Sleep helps him to forget all the worries of life, the troubles of life. Sleep is a narcotic. It is a drug naturally provided by biology; otherwise you would all go mad. Six, eight hours of sleep help you to keep on dragging your life towards the grave.
Naturally Oregonians are disturbed: we are celebrating here. And what are they doing? They are collecting National Guard vehicles in Madras -- as if this is an army and we are going to attack and start the third world war. We believe in love, we believe in silence. We believe that man can live in coexistence with nature, with other people.
This is the only city which has no crime, but it has been declared by the attorney general of Oregon to be illegal. This is how sleepy people behave. In their sleep the only legal city looks illegal to them! We have no crime, no prostitutes, no stealing, no drugs. this is our fault. For us to be peaceful, to be silent, just to be happy, they cannot tolerate. They cannot believe it, because it has never happened in their life -- poor people! I really feel sorry for them.
This place is creating a New Man.
But naturally the old mind will create every difficulty, will use every means so that the New Man is not born. Why? -- it hurts. Seeing a man dancing, singing, enjoying, peaceful with himself and existence hurts those people who have become accustomed to living in misery, who have become accustomed to living a life which is not living at all. They cannot tolerate you.
I have heard about a woman who was ugly, really ugly. She used to break mirrors; wherever she found a mirror she would break it immediately.
People asked, "Are you mad? Why do you break mirrors?"
She said, "These mirrors make me ugly."
Now you will be becoming mirrors amongst sleepy people. You will disturb their sleep. They are going to destroy you. And remember, you are very few -- they are many.
But one thing is positively in your favor: you have something -- you have a contentment. They are empty. Just kick the empty boxes as hard as you can! Perhaps they may wake up and thank you for it.
-Osho, "From the False to the Truth, #3, Q2"