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TAO : The Way (道)- Total acceptance, whatsoever the case is -
On The Absolute TAO
"The Tao that can be told of is not the absolute TAO" "The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name."
"When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty,
"When everybody is clear only I am unclear; when everybody seems to be intelligent, I am stupid."
- Lao Tzu -
A man on the way
The word 'Tao' essentially means 'the Way'. Nothing can be said about the goal. The goal remains elusive, inexpressible, ineffable. But something can be said about the Way. Hence, Taoists have never used the word 'God', 'truth', NIRVANA, no; they simply use the word 'Way'. Buddha says, 'Buddhas can only show you the Way. If you follow the path, you will reach to the truth.' Truth will have to be your own experience. Nobody can define the truth, but the Way can be defined; the Way can be made clear. The Master cannot give you the truth, but the Master can give you the Way. And once the Way is there then all that is needed is to walk on it. That has to be done by the disciple.
I cannot walk for you, and I cannot eat for you. I cannot live for you, and I cannot die for you. These things have to be done by oneself. But I can show the Way, I have walked on the Way.
Tao simply means 'the Way'.
-Osho, “The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1, #1”
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Tao is a pathless path. What does it mean? It means that the way and the goal are one; if you are on the way, you have arrived. That is the beauty of Tao: if you are on the way, you have arrived home because the way and the goal are not separate, the journey and the destiny are not separate. The journey itself is the goal. That is the meaning of the word Tao. Tao means the way: the way itself is the goal. The means is the end, there is no other end.
Whatsoever you say looks logical, “The man may be just on the way – may not be yet enlightened, but on the way.” What do you mean? Does it mean “a little bit enlightened?” “partially enlightened?” on the way – moving toward it? There is no possibility of any partial enlightenment: either it is, or it is not. Either you have arrived, or you have not arrived, and between these two there is none. There are no midway stations. A man on the way means a man in the ocean – drowned, arrived, disappeared. As far as Tao is concerned, the way and the goal cannot be separated, they are not separate. That’s the beauty of Tao and the great understanding of Tao. Once there is a goal, then you will become tense because then there will arise the desire and the ambition to achieve it. Then you will have to prepare for it: time will be needed; methods, techniques will be needed; virtue, character, will be needed. And you will always be anxious and afraid whether you are going in the right direction or not. Will you be able to make it or not? Are you going to miss it again? The fear, the anxiety, the trembling will continue because there is a future with the goal. When the way is the goal, there is no future – future is simply destroyed, time disappears.
There is no tomorrow.
Herenow everything is available, there is no need to postpone. These are the tricks of the mind which wants to postpone, the mind which wants to postpone divides the way and the goal. And then the way is also divided into many milestones, into many stages: the first, the second, the third, one goes on dividing. Then there is much space for your mind to be projected into. Tao leaves no space for the mind. It utterly destroys the mind because there is no goal. Just think about it, contemplate it: if there is no goal, how can the mind exist? Then this moment is all there is; this is all. Desire is not possible because there is no tomorrow and there is no goal. Nothing to be achieved – then where will you go? Where will you escape to? Where will you hide? The goal gives you an escape. You can hope. “Today I am not right, tomorrow I will be right. Today I am just a beginner, tomorrow I will become an adept.” But if there is no goal, nowhere to reach, nowhere to arrive, then all tricks, devices, have been taken away; all props have been removed. Then you are left with this moment. This moment is all, and in this very moment there is liberation.
Mind liberated from desire is what liberation is. Mind no longer in desire is what enlightenment is. Mind no longer projecting, hoping, is what coming to the ocean is. Please don’t divide. Look at life as an undivided whole, as one whole.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #12, Q1”
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Tao is another name for God, far more beautiful than God because God, the word God, was exploited too much by the priests. They have exploited in the name of God for so long that even the word has become contaminated – it has become disgusting. Any man of intelligence is bound to avoid it because it reminds him of all the nonsense that has happened on the earth down the ages in the name of God, in the name of religion. More mischief has happened in the name of God than in any other name.
Tao in that sense is tremendously beautiful. You cannot worship Tao because Tao does not give you the idea of a person. It is simply a principle, not a person. You cannot worship a principle – you cannot pray to Tao. It will look ridiculous, it will be utterly absurd, praying to a principle. You don’t pray to gravitation, you cannot pray to the theory of relativity.
Tao simply means the ultimate principle that binds the whole existence together. Existence is not a chaos – that much is certain. It is a cosmos. There is immense order in it, intrinsic order in it and the name of that order is Tao. Tao simply means the harmony of the whole. No temples have been built for Tao; no statues, no prayers, no priests, no rituals – that’s the beauty of it. Hence I don’t call it a doctrine, nor do I call it a religion, it is a pure insight. You can call it dharma; that is Buddha’s word for Tao. The word in English that comes closer or closest to Tao is Nature with a capital N.
-Osho, “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol. 1, #1”
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"To move on the path of meditation is to move on the path of life ... life's joys, life's songs, life's laughter. And take everything easy. Easy is right."
-Osho, “The New Dawn, #28, Q1”
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"A man becomes a Buddha the moment he accepts all that life brings with gratitude. He is on the Way, he is on Tao; and he IS becoming meditative."
-Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3, #5"
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"I would like you to be less clever. In the days that you are here, forget about cleverness; be more muddleheaded. That's what Lao Tzu says: I am a muddle-headed man. When everybody is clear only I am unclear; when everybody seems to be intelligent, I am stupid.
-Osho, "Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast, #2"
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"The more open you become, the more innocent, the more childlike you become, the more the winds of existence start flowing in and out of you. The more you are knowing and have the gesture of knowledge, the more you are closed. Then you don't allow the winds of existence to enter you, then you are always distrustful, you don't trust life. A fool is one who goes on trusting; a fool is one who goes on trusting against all his experience. You deceive him, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you; and you deceive him again, and he trusts you. Then you will say that he is a fool, he does not learn. His trust is tremendous; his trust is so pure that nobody can corrupt it. -Osho, "Dang Dang Doko Dang, #2"
a Taoist almost as if he were lazy.
Osho on TAO and Taoist Man
"My agreement with Tao is absolute. I cannot say that about other religions; with Tao I can say it without any hesitation. Tao is the most profound insight that has ever been achieved on the earth."
-Osho, "Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 1, #9"
"Chuang Tzu says : It is better not to start because once you start it has to be completed. Understand, and don't move in a vicious circle. That is why I say that Chuang Tzu is a rare flowering, rarer than a Buddha or a Jesus. Because he achieved simply by understanding. There is no method, no meditation for Chuang Tzu.
He says: Simply understand the 'facticity' of it. You are born. What effort have you made to be born? You grow. What effort have you made to grow? You breathe. What effort have you made to breathe? Everything moves on its own, so why bother?
Let life flow on its own then you will be in a let go. Don't struggle and don't try to move upstream, don't even try to swim, just float with the current and let the current lead you wherever it leads. Be a white cloud moving in the sky -- no goal, going nowhere, just floating. That floating is the ultimate flowering."
- Osho, "When the Shoe Fits, #1"
The attitude of Tao is of cooperation, not conflict. The attitude of Tao is not to be against nature but to be with it, to allow nature, to let it have its way, to cooperate with it. to go with it. The attitude of Tao is of great relaxation.
Remember, it is not Or inactivity. It is neither of activity nor of inactivity; it is transcendental. The Taoist word is WU WEI: it means action through inaction. That is the goal of Tao: Do. but don't be the doer. Act, but let Tao act through you -- simply be cooperative. Then, through Tao, you can be restful IN LIFE.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #7”
Love is beautiful because there is the possibility of hate, otherwise love would be so sweet that it would create diabetes! Just sugar, sugar, sugar.... No, the salt is also needed; hate gives salt to life. Activity is good, but if there is no inactivity in it, it will create neurosis -- obsessive action. Inactivity is good, but if there is no activity in it, it will be a sort of death, a lethargy, a dullness. Both are good, the whole is good.
Tao says: The whole is good. Don't choose. Let it be as it is. As it is, it is a wise arrangement. There cannot be a better world than this. There is no possibility of any improvement. You accept both, and through that acceptance, you transcend.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #7”
There is a great diametrical opposition between the Taoist attitude and the Confucian attitude; Confucius is as far away from the Taoist vision as possible. Confucius believes in law, Confucius believes in tradition, Confucius believes in discipline. Confucius believes in character, morality, culture, society, education. Tao believes in spontaneity, individuality, freedom. Tao is rebellious; Confucius is very conformist.
Taoism is the profoundest non-conformism that has ever been evolved anywhere in the world, at any time in history; essentially it is rebellion. So there has been a rebellion and the Taoist mystics, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu, go on ridiculing the Confucian attitude.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #3”
Who is a rebellious person? The rebellious person is one who does not bother about the society at all -- he simply lives through his innermost core -- who follows his Tao. If society fits with that inner Tao, good, he goes with the society; he is not reactionary. If the society does not fit with his inner Tao, he goes alone. He is not a traditional. conventional, straight person. His criterion is his inner soul. 'Gentleman' means one who has been persuaded by the society to sell his authentic being and to borrow a false mask from the society.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #7“
A Taoist is a man who does only that which is absolutely necessary. His life is almost like a telegram. When you go to the Post Office you don't write a long letter when you are giving a telegraphic message. You go on cutting words, this and this can be dropped and then you come to ten or nine or whatsoever. If you write a letter you will never write only ten words. And have you watched the thing? A telegram is more expressive than all letters. It says much more in very few words. The unnecessary is dropped, only the most necessary is there. A Taoist is telegraphic, his life is like a telegram. The obsessive, the unnecessary, the feverish, has been dropped. He does only that which is absolutely necessary. And let me tell you that the absolutely necessary is so little that you will see a Taoist almost as if he were lazy.
But remember, I am not praising laziness. I am simply condemning the egoistic attitude. Against ego -- I am for laziness. But I am not for laziness itself; it should be full of awareness. Then you pass from activity and from laziness both. Then you become transcendental. You are neither active, nor inactive; you are centred. Whatsoever is needed you do it, whatsoever is not needed you don't do it. You are neither a doer nor a non-doer. Doing is no more your focus. You are a consciousness.
So please don't take whatsoever I have said in the sense that I am helping you to be lazy. To be REALLY lazy means not to be inactive, but to be so full of energy that you are a reservoir of energy. Lazy as far as the world is concerned, but tremendously dynamic inside, not dull.
A Taoist is lazy from the outside; from the inside he has become a river-like phenomenon, he is continuously flowing towards the ocean. He has dropped many activities because they were unnecessarily leaking his energy. The danger is always there -- in whatsoever I say there is danger -- the danger of interpretation. If I say 'Be active', there is the possibility that you will become egoists. If I say 'Be inactive', there is the possibility that you may become dull. Man is very cunning.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #10, Q6”
If you go to a Yoga master he will tell you how to be still. He will tell you what posture will help you to be still, how to breathe, in what rhythm stillness will be easier, whether to close the eyes completely or just to look at the tip of your nose. He will give you indications, hints, he will supply you with a map.
Taoists don't have any maps. They say: If you try a particular posture and you look at your nose and you breathe in a certain way, you will impose a certain stillness which is not true. It is cultivated, it is a practised thing, it is false. The true stillness has nothing to do with any practice. The true stillness does not come out of exercise. The true stillness comes out of understanding the understanding that desire is futile.
Try to understand this. In Tao there are no exercises. They don't have anything like Patanjali's YOGA SUTRAS They don't have the 'eight limbs of Yoga'. They don't tell you what posture, what discipline, what type of morality... what to eat, what not to eat, when to go to bed and when to get up in the morning. They don't tell you anything, because they say that all these things can give you a false experience of stillness
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #9”
He(Lin Lei) has given the whole message of Tao in these sentences. Be anarchic. Be authentically true to your own being. Listen only to yourself. Don’t allow anybody to discipline you. Don’t allow anybody to make a slave of you. Don’t allow anybody to condition you. Avoid the priest and the politician, avoid the do-gooders. Remember that you have to be just yourself and nobody else. This anarchy, this chaotic freedom… And don’t be ambitious because that is just mediocre. Just live your life as totally as possible. Don’t try to make a mark on the history pages – that is meaningless. And don’t be always concerned with others. By and by learn how to be alone, enjoy solitude – that’s what meditation is all about.
-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1, #5”
Going with The Flow- The way of the Tao is a watercourse way -
When I say 'become water' I mean become a flow -- don't remain stagnant. Move, and move like water.
Lao Tzu says: The way of the Tao is a watercourse way . It moves like water. What is the movement of water? or of a river? The movement has a few beautiful things about it. One, it always moves towards the depth, it always searches for the lowest ground. It is non-ambitious; it never hankers to be the first, it wants to be the last.
Remember, Jesus says: Those who are the last here will be the first in my kingdom of God. He is talking about the watercourse way of Tao -- not mentioning it, but talking about it. Be the last, be non-ambitious. Ambition means go uphill. Water goes down t searches for the lowest ground, it wants to be a nonentity. It does not want to declare itself unique, exceptional, extraordinary. It has no ego idea.
That is what I mean when I say become water: drop the ego. Drop ambition. Don't struggle for the top of the hill and don't start moving upstream. Go with the stream, down the stream, seek and search the lowest -- because only in the lowest will you find peace and tranquillity and silence. And only in the lowest will you find the inner emptiness I have been talking about all these days. When you start striving to be somebody, you will not be empty. You will become full of bullshit, you will become garbage.
Go downward. Search the lowest depths and disappear there... one thing.
Second thing: the water is soft, feminine. The water is non-aggressive, it never fights -- it makes its way without fighting. It is from water that the Chinese and Japanese learnt the secret art of judo or jujitsu. Winning without fighting, conquering through surrendering -- WEI-WU-WEI.
Learn from the water one thing: that it comes across great stone walls, granite walls. It does not fight, it goes on flowing silently. If the stone is too big it finds another way, it bypasses it. But slowly slowly the granite is dissolved into water, becomes sand. Ask the sands of the oceans from where they have come. They have come from the mountains. They will tell you a great secret: "Water wins finally. And we were hard, and we knew... how can water will ' So we were very very settled. We could not believe that this poor water, so soft, unharming, unhurting, non-violent... how can it destroy us? But it destroyed us."
That is the beauty of the feminine energy. Don't be like a rock! Be like water -- soft, feminine. And victory IS yours.
-Osho, "Take it Easy, Vol 1, #14, Q5"
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Lao Tzu used to call his way the watercourse way - a beautiful name, so soft, so liquid, no rigidity. You can put it into any form. It is always ready, gives no resistance. If you put it in a bottle, it takes the shape of the bottle. If you put it into a jar, it takes the shape of the jar, with no resistance at all. Such a non-resistant element finally destroys the rock. But somebody has to say to you, “I have faced the same situation. Don’t be discouraged. The rock will disappear, will have to disappear. That is the way of existence.”
-Osho, “The Last Testament, Vol 3, #16”
A Man of Tao - The Ordinary Man- The really spiritual person is one who is absolutely ordinary -
"A man of Tao remains ordinary, absolutely ordinary. Nobody knows who he is, nobody knows what he carries within him, what treasure. He never advertises, he never tries to display. But why do we advertise? Because of the ego."
-Osho, "When the shoe Fits, #5"
"Every mind is seeking some extraordinariness. That is what the ego is: always trying to be somebody in particular, always afraid of being nobody, always afraid of emptiness, always trying to fill the inner void by anything and everything. Every human being is seeking extraordinariness - and that creates misery. It is not possible. Nobodiness is your very nature, nonbeing is the very stuff you are made of. Howsoever you try you will never succeed; even Alexanders fail. You cannot be somebody because that is not possible in the nature of things. You can only be nobody. But there is nothing wrong in being nobody; in fact, the moment you accept your nobodiness, immediately bliss starts flowing from you in all directions - because misery disappears. Misery is the shadow of the ego, the shadow of the ambitious mind. Misery means you are doing something impossible and because you are failing in it you are miserable. You are doing something unnatural, trying to do it and failing, so you feel frustrated, miserable. Hell is nothing but the end result of an impossible, unnatural effort. Heaven is nothing but to be natural.
You are nobody. You are born as a nobodiness with no name, no form. You will die as a nobody."
- Osho, "Tao The Three Treasures Vol 1, #2"
"Just to be ordinary is to be enlightened. It is not something special that one has to achieve, it is not an achievement, it is not something that one has to reach. It is you - in your absolute ordinariness it flowers. To be extraordinary is the disease of the ego.
The ego always wants to be extraordinary, someone special, unique, incomparable - that is the hankering desire of the ego. If you can become a Rockefeller, good; if you can become a Hitler, good; or if you cannot become a Rockefeller or a Hitler, then renounce the world and think of becoming a Buddha. But become someone, someone special, a historic phenomenon.
Lao Tzu is not bothered about enlightenment and all that nonsense. He says: Just be ordinary. Eat when you feel hungry, drink when you feel thirsty and go to sleep when sleep comes. Just be as natural as the whole existence, and suddenly there is everything in all its glory. Nothing is needed.
To be ordinary is the most extraordinary state of being because the ego dissolves. The ego is subtle. [....]
The ego is very wise - wise in its cunningness. Lao Tzu does not give the ego any foothold, any ground to stand on, so he does not talk about enlightenment. So if you meet Lao Tzu don't ask him, "Do you believe in sudden enlightenment or in gradual enlightenment?" He will not answer you. He will laugh at you: What foolishness! There is no need for any enlightenment. That word doesn't occur for Lao Tzu, it is not part of his vocabulary.
He is very simple. He says: Just be ordinary. Why this hankering to be extraordinary, to be someone? And if you cannot be someone in the world then become enlightened at least. But why? Why can't you be satisfied and content with yourself as you are? If you ask me, to be content with oneself as one is is enlightenment. It is nothing special, as yogis have made it sound: kundalini rising, light showing, inner experiences, angels and God and this and that. This is all nonsense if you understand it. Enlightenment is nothing of this sort.
All these things - kundalini and the light and God and angels and heaven and hell - are part of the magician's bag. You want them - he immediately produces, supplies them. You create the demand and the magician supplies the things to you. You want something special, he gives it to you. He exploits you. He lives on your absurd desires.
Lao Tzu is absolutely simple. He has no bag. He says: Why not just be? What is wrong? What is wrong in that which you are? Why make an effort? And who will make the effort? You will make the effort. Your effort cannot go beyond you, and whatsoever you do, you will do. How can it go beyond you? How can it be transcendental? By your own efforts how can you transcend? It is not possible; you are trying to do the impossible. You can go on jumping for thousands of lives and nothing will be attained.
Accept yourself. That is the only reality there is, that is the only possibility there is. Accept yourself as you are and suddenly everything is transformed. Acceptance is the word for Lao Tzu, not enlightenment - total acceptance, whatsoever the case is. Nothing else is possible.
This is how things are. This is how you have happened into this vast universe. This vast universe wanted you to be like this - now you accept."
- Osho, "Tao The Three Treasures Vol 1, #10"
The natural desire of the human mind is to become special — to become special in the ways of the world, to have many degrees, to have much political power, to have money, wealth — to be special. The mind is always ready to go on some ego trip. And if you are fed up with the world, then again the ego starts finding new ways and new means to enhance itself — it becomes spiritual. You become a great mahatma, a great sage, a great scholar, a man of knowledge, a man of renunciation; again you are special.
Unless the desire to be special disappears, you will never be special. Unless you relax into your ordinariness, you will never relax.
The really spiritual person is one who is absolutely ordinary.
-Osho, “Ecstasy – The Forgotten Language, #1“
Don't try to be special
All the nonsense that goes on in the name of religion and spirituality is nothing but ego decoration. A really religious man is bound to be very ordinary. [....]
Don't try to be special -- because the only way to be special is to run counter to the ordinary man. If the ordinary man is interested in sex, you be interested in celibacy -- run counter. If the ordinary man is interested in eating and drinking and merrying, you drop all those. If the ordinary man is interested in small things, you simply remain interested in great things -- God, nirvana, moksha, truth. If the ordinary man lives in the marketplace, you go to a monastery.
Just do the REVERSE, that is the only way to be special. If the ordinary man simply stands on his feet, you stand on your head, do SIRSHASANA. If the ordinary man feels good to lie down in a comfortable bed, you make a bed of thorns. If the ordinary man wants his body to be beautiful, you make your body ugly, you destroy its grace. If the ordinary man is doing something, then just to be counter to it, just to be against it, is your religion. And that's what religion is not feasting but fasting. That's what religion has become.
But this is not the true religion -- not the religion of the Buddhas, of those who know. [....]
What is the Law of Men and the Law of Buddha? What is Tao, what is Dhamma? To be just natural, easy. To be that which you are, with no hankering to be somebody else. Just see the point: great joy arises then. Of course nobody will know you, nobody will know that you are a great historical person. Nobody will know that you are of those few people who make or mar history. Nobody may ever know about you -- not even your wife may know, or your husband or your children -- because you will be simple and you will be living your life naturally.
Who knows about a rosebush that blooms? Nobody takes note of it in history. Nobody will take note of you either, but there is no need. History is the concern of the foolish people, fame is the concern of the foolish people, name is the concern of the foolish people.
The really wise person is not interested in fame, name, etcetera. He simply lives the moment: Sometimes he becomes famous, but that is another matter. Buddha became famous but he was not trying to; there was no desire. If he becomes, it is okay; if he does not become, it is okay. It is all okay, it is ALWAYS okay. His flavour is that of okayness, everything is okay.
Enjoy your food, enjoy your bath, enjoy the sun, enjoy the wind and the rains, and enjoy everything that is available to you. And just remain whosoever you are -- true to yourself, creating no hypocrisy, creating no pretension, creating no facade, no face. And utter joy will be yours, God will be yours. God comes only to those who are in an utter relaxation with their being. And the person who longs for something cannot be relaxed, because that longing creates tension. [....]
Just see the ordinary people. But it is very difficult to find ordinary people, very difficult, because everybody has become extraordinary. It is very difficult to find a sane person, because everybody has become insane. Centuries of priests, mahatmas and saints have driven everybody out of his soul, out of his home.
There are only neurotic people on the earth. Friedrich Nietzsche is reported to have said that everybody is neurotic -- and if you think you are not, then that must be another kind of neurosis. But everybody is neurotic. What is neurosis? Not being happy with yourself is neurosis, not being contented with yourself is neurosis. And then you get into turmoil and trouble. Then you lose all peace of mind, all joy of life. Then you exist in anguish, then you create hell for yourself.
Become ordinary. That's my teaching too, if it can be called a teaching -- because up to now, teachings have been to drive you towards some extraordinary goal. But if you ask the awakened, they have always been saying: Just be ordinary. Don't strive. Live effortlessly, live in a let-go. And then nature takes possession of you. Your life becomes spontaneous, you live moment-to-moment -- with no ideology to follow, with no conclusions. You live without conclusions; each moment brings its own reality and you respond to it. And you respond out of your total being -- every cell of your body and mind and soul is involved in it.
Then you never repent -- because how can you repent? You responded totally, so whatsoever happens is okay, because nothing else was possible. You had done ALL -- you responded totally, you took the challenge. You can't repent if you live spontaneously.
-Osho, "Take It Easy, Vol 2, #3"
A man of Tao remains ordinary, absolutely ordinary
Tao says that whatsoever is beautiful in you, hide it, never act it out; whatsoever is truthful in you, valuable, hide it, because whenever a truth is hidden in the heart, it grows like a seed hidden in the earth. Don’t throw it out. If you throw a seed on the street for everybody to see, it will die, and die to no purpose. It will simply die, there will be no rebirth.
Treat all that is beautiful, good and true, just like a seed. Give it some soil, a hidden place in the heart, don’t display it. But just the opposite is done by everybody: whatsoever is wrong, you hide it, you don’t want it to be known by others. Whatsoever is ugly you hide and whatsoever is beautiful, even if it is not, you try to advertise it, you magnify it, you display it. Hence the misery – because the ugly grows and the beautiful is lost. The untrue grows, it becomes a seed, and the truth is thrown away.
The precious is thrown and the rubbish grows; you become like weeds. No flower comes to your life because you have never done the right thing – hidden the seed of the flower within. This opposite is the path, and I say this is one of the most secret keys of Tao.
A man of Tao remains ordinary, absolutely ordinary. Nobody knows who he is, nobody knows what he carries within him, what treasure. He never advertises, he never tries to display. But why do we advertise? Because of the ego. You are not satisfied with yourself, you are satisfied only when others appreciate you. KOHINOOR is not enough. You may have a valuable stone, but it is not enough; others must appreciate it. Others’ opinion is more valuable – not your being. You look into others’ eyes as if they are mirrors and if they appreciate you, applaud you, you feel good.
Ego is a false phenomenon. It is the accumulation of others’ opinions, it is not a knowledge of the self. This self, the so-called self which is really the ego, is nothing but the accumulation of reflections – and then there is always fear. Others may change their mind, you are always dependent on them.
If they say you are good you have to follow their rules to remain good, you have to follow them to remain good in their eyes, because once they change their opinion you will no longer be good. You have no direct approach to your being, it is via others. So you not only advertise, you magnify, you falsify. You may have a little truth, a little beauty, but you magnify it and it becomes ridiculous.
I remember – and I will never forget it – the first time Mulla Nasrudin was introduced to me. A mutual friend introduced us. The friend said, among other things, that Mulla Nasrudin was a great writer. And he smiled knowingly. So I asked Mulla Nasrudin: What have you written? He said: I have just finished Hamlet. I couldn’t believe my ears, so I asked him again: Have you ever heard of a guy known as William Shakespeare? Mulla Nasrudin said: This is strange, because before, when I wrote Macbeth, somebody asked the same thing. And he asked: Who is this man William Shakespeare? It seems that he keeps on copying me. Whatsoever I write, he also writes. You think that everybody is copying you and the reality is that you go on copying everybody else. You are a carbon copy, you are not a real person, because a real person never needs any display.
I have heard that it happened once at a hill station, on the lawn of a big hotel, that three elderly women were playing cards. A fourth approached and she asked if she could join them. They said: Of course, you are welcome, but there are a few rules. And they handed her a printed card, with four rules on it. The first was, never talk about mink coats, because we all have them. Second, never talk about your grandchildren, because we are all grandmothers. Third, never talk about jewelry, because we all have precious jewelry purchased from the best of places, and fourthly, never talk about sex – what was, was!
But everybody wants to talk about himself, his mink coats, his jewelry, his children, his sex. And everybody bores everybody else. And if you tolerate bores, you tolerate them only because it is a mutual understanding: if he is boring you he will allow himself to be bored by you. You are just waiting – when he stops his display, you can start your own. And the whole of life becomes a false, a continued display. What do you achieve through it? Just a false feeling that you are important, extraordinary. How can one become extraordinary by having mink coats? How can one become extraordinary by owning valuable jewelry? How can one become extraordinary by doing this or that?
Extraordinariness is not concerned with what you do, it is concerned with what you are. And you are already extraordinary, everyone is unique, there is no need to prove it. If you try to prove it, you will just prove the opposite. If something is already the case, how can you prove it? If you try to prove it you simply show that you are not aware of the uniqueness that has already happened to you.
So if you want to prove something it shows that you are doubtful about it. You want to destroy your doubt through others’ eyes, through their opinions. You are not really convinced of your beautiful person, you would like others to say that you are beautiful.
In a small village it was the custom of the village priest that whenever he married somebody he would kiss the bride. It was an old tradition. One woman who was going to be married was very concerned. She thought herself very beautiful, as every woman does. It is womanly, it is nothing new. Really, every woman thinks so – even the ugliest. She thought herself very beautiful and she was very concerned and worried. She said again and again to the would-be husband, to the groom: Go and tell the priest that I don’t want to be kissed after the marriage.
Just before the marriage, she again asked the groom: Have you been to the priest and told him? The groom very sadly said: Yes. The bride asked: Why are you so sad? The groom said: I told the priest and he was very happy. He said: ’In that case I will charge only half the usual fee.’
You may go on thinking yourself a beautiful person but nobody thinks that way about you because everybody is concerned with his own beauty, not with yours. And if anybody nods and says, ’Yes, you are beautiful’, he or she is just waiting for you to nod about his or her beauty. It is a mutual bargain: You fulfill my ego, I fulfill yours. I know well that you are not beautiful, you know well that I am not beautiful, but I fulfill your ego, so you fulfill mine.
And everybody seems to have such a need to feel unique. That means you have not come upon your own being which is unique without any need of proof. Proofs are needed only for lies – remember. That is why you cannot prove God – because he is the ultimate truth. Proofs are needed only for lies, truth needs no proof; it is – simply it is.
And I tell you that you are unique, extraordinary. Don’t try to be so, it is ridiculous, you simply become a laughing stock and everybody smiles when you turn your back. If you are not convinced about your uniqueness who is going to be convinced about it? Conviction is beyond proof. And how does it come? It comes through self knowledge.
So there are two ways; Knowledge – direct, knowing oneself directly, immediately – this is the right way. And the wrong way is knowing oneself through others, what they say. And if you don’t know yourself, how can they know you? They are very far away. You are the nearest person to know yourself. If you don’t know your reality, how can others know?
But because we lack self knowledge we need a substitute: ego is the substitute and ego is on constant display. You are just like a display window in a market. You have become a commodity, you have made yourself a commodity on display, always on display, always begging for somebody to say: You are good, beautiful, you are saintly, you are great, extraordinary. Tao is against this, because Tao says that this is how you waste your life. The same energy can move directly towards your being and when the being is revealed it is extraordinary.
So a man who is in search of self knowledge will remain ordinary in the eyes of others. He will not bother, he will hide himself, he will not display. He will not be on exhibition, he will not be a stageshow. He will remain silent, live silently, enjoy life silently. He would like nobody to bother about him, because whenever somebody bothers about you, thinks about you, it is going to be difficult and complex – self knowledge becomes more and more difficult.
You have to go there alone, and if you are looking at the crowd, and if you think that the crowd has to follow you, you will never reach it. If you are an exhibitionist then you will remain a commodity, a thing. You can never become a person, because ’person’ is hidden deep in the recesses of being. It is the deepest possibility in the whole of existence. You are the greatest abyss. Nobody else can go there with you. You will have to go alone. And if you are too concerned about others, what they say, what they think, you will remain on the periphery. That is one thing.
The second thing is: just to be on display you hide whatsoever is ugly. In clothes, in words, in gestures, in masks, in actions, you try to hide whatsoever is ugly and wrong. What are you doing? This wrong will become a seed inside and it will grow. And the more you push it in, the more you are throwing it towards the source of all energy; it will be strengthened. And the beautiful you throw out – it will never become a seed.
Just do the opposite. If you have something ugly, show it to others: it disperses. If you are an angry man, tell everybody: I am an angry man, don’t love me, don’t be a friend to me. I am a very bad man. I am ugly, I am immoral, I am greedy, I am sexual. Say whatsoever is ugly about you, not only say it but authentically act it out. And you will be surprised that whenever something is thrown out, it disperses. And hide the beautiful; let it go deeper so that it can get roots in your being, and it will grow. But you have been doing just the opposite.
– Osho, “When the Shoe Fits, #5”
♦
Everyone considers himself extraordinary.This is Ego.
Question 6 Can the common man acquire the capability of egolessness?
From his question it seems it is not possible for an ordinary person, whereas the fact is, it is very difficult for an un-ordinary person to attain egolessness. The very meaning of un-ordinary is egoistic. But it is not attained by the ordinary ordinary. It is attained by the extraordinary ordinary. The ordinary ordinary, I call him, who is looked upon as ordinary generally but who does not consider himself ordinary. The extraordinarily ordinary I call him who even though the world looks upon him as extraordinary, considers himself to be ordinary.
I travelled all over the country for 10-12 years and met thousands of people. Many of them would come and tell me that what I said would not be understood by ordinary people. I would then ask the person if he understood and he invariably said he did but he was sure the ordinary man would not. I would then tell him that it was years that I had been going about and not once has the ordinary man come along who would say he did not understand, that he was an ordinary person. I would ask him to bring the ordinary man so that I may see him!
No man considers himself ordinary. Everyone considers himself extraordinary. This is Ego. If man knows and accepts himself to be ordinary, Ego will leave him. All men are ordinary.
All men are ordinary, no one is extraordinary. Only one person can be termed extraordinary -- the one who becomes aware or his ordinariness. Our mind refuses to believe that we are ordinary. In a thousand ways we try to assure ourselves that there is no one like us, there never can be. We never try to explain to ourselves, how we reached this conclusion. What is the qualification, what is so special, so distinctive about us? Nothing -- but the mind refuses to believe for as soon as I accept this fact, the journey upwards stops.
There is a reason behind my considering myself extraordinary. When I consider myself extraordinary then my place, my position and surroundings all become unworthy of me. My rightful place is above and not where I am. The world does not know this and creates barricades or else I would reach the place where I belong. I shall not rest content till I reach my rightful place. But I shall never attain this rightful place for the simple reason that wherever I reach, that place will become ordinary and my extraordinary place will shift yet further up! Ego can rise only when it believes that its place is further up and not down. This is the chemistry of the flight of the ego.
Lao Tzu says that if you were to know for certain and accept the fact that you are ordinary you are nobody. nothing, you will not try to rise up as soon as the thought of ordinariness spreads over the mind. You will begin to feel that perhaps you are not worthy of the place you are standing upon, perhaps you are committing an excess. You then begin to step back and back till you reach a place where you can go no further back. You will reach a place that no one wants to occupy, where there is no one to be jealous of your position and no one to push you out of it. Lao Tzu says, "Then that very day you attain the extraordinary life."
If God is not attained by even such a one who has become so humble then all talk of God is nothing but trash. If even such a person who has become so empty does not behold perfection then perfection can never be beheld. Do not think how an ordinary person can attempt to become egoless. Every man is ordinary and every man can do it. But each of us is under the illusion that he is extraordinary. This illusion has to be broken.
And Lao Tzu does not exhort you to break this illusion. He only says if you do not break it, you shall suffer. You do not want to suffer but you take good care of your maladies lest they leave you. Then you suffer and then you go about wailing how miserable you are! We are not prepared to leave the things that trouble us. The knot of the ego is the root cause of all our woes. To know oneself as the most ordinary of ordinaries is the cure of all ills.
Try out this experiment. Become ordinary for twenty-four hours. Let only one thought be within you for those twenty-four hours that I am an ordinary person. I am nothing. After these twenty-four hours you will never want to be extraordinary again. The glimpse of bliss that you will get in this ordinariness would be one beyond your imagination. This glimpse is always available to us but we are so stiff with our arrogance of being extraordinary, special! How can we experience this flash of joy when we sit with all the doors and windows closed? Get down from your throne. The mystery of life cannot be unfolded on the gilded throne of the ego. What is attained on the ordinary rough and dusty path of humility can never be attained on the gilded peaks of the ego.
-Osho, “The Way of Tao, Volume 1, #22, Q6”
The Pathless Path"Ignorance is not the barrier against truth - Knowledge is the barrier."
Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu, the three Taoist Masters, only talk about the Way 'Tao' means the Way - they don't talk about the goal at all. They say: The goal will take care of itself; you need not worry about the goal. If you know the Way you know the goal, because the goal is not at the very end of the Way, the goal is all over the Way - each moment and each step it is there. It is not that when the Way ends you arrive at the goal; each moment, wherever you are, you are at the goal if you are on the Way. To be on the Way is to be at the goal. Hence they don't talk about the goal, they don't talk about God, they don't talk about MOKSHA, NIRVANA, enlightenment - no, not at all.
Very simple is their message: You have to find the Way.
Things become a little more complicated because they say: The Way has no map, the Way is not charted, the Way is not such that you can follow somebody and find it. The Way is not like a super- highway; the Way is more like a bird flying in the sky - it leaves no marks behind. The bird has flown but no marks are left; nobody can follow. So the Way is a pathless path. It IS a path, but it is a pathless path. It is not ready-made, available; you cannot just decide to walk on it, you will have to find it. And you will have to find it in your own way; nobody else's way is going to function.
Buddha has walked, Lao Tzu has walked, Jesus has walked, but those ways are not going to help you because you are not Jesus, and you are not Lao Tzu, and you are not Lieh Tzu. You are you, a unique individual. Only by walking, only by living your life, will you find the Way. This is something of great value.
That's why Taoism is not an organised religion cannot be. It is an organic religion but not an organised religion. You can be a Taoist if you simply live your life authentically, spontaneously; if you have the courage to go into the unknown on your own, individual, not leaning on anybody, not following anybody, simply going into the dark night not knowing whether you will arrive anywhere or you will be lost. If you have the courage, that risk is there - it is risky, it is adventurous.
Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism are super-highways: you need not risk anything, you simply follow the crowd, you go with the mob. With Tao you have to go alone, you have to be alone. Tao respects the individual and not the society. Tao respects the unique and not the crowd.
Tao respects freedom and not conformity. Tao has no tradition. Tao is a rebellion, and the greatest rebellion possible.
That's why I call Tao 'the pathless path'. It IS a path, but not like other paths. It has a very different quality to it the quality of freedom, the quality of anarchy, the quality of chaos. Tao says that if you impose a discipline on yourself, you will be a slave. The discipline has to arise out of your awareness, then you will be a Master. If you impose an order on your life this will be just a pretension: the disorder will remain deep in the very core of your being; the order will be on the surface, at the centre there will be disorder. This is not going to help. The real order arises not from the outside, but from the innermost core of your being. Allow disorder don't repress it. Face it, take the challenge of disorder - and by taking the challenge of disorder and living it, living dangerously, an order arises in your being. That order is out of chaos, not out of any pattern. This is a totally different gestalt: it is born into you and it is fresh; it is not traditional, it is virgin; it is not second-hand. Tao does not believe in the second-hand religion and in the second-hand God. If you take the God of Jesus you become a Christian, if you take the God of Krishna you become a Hindu, if you take the God of Mohammed you become a Mohammedan. Tao says: But until you find YOUR God you are not on the Way.
So all these ways simply distract you from the real Way. Following others, you are going astray.
Following any pattern of life, you are becoming a slave. Following any pattern, you are imprisoning yourself. And God, or Tao, or DHARMA, or truth. is possible only to one who is absolutely free, unconditionally free.
Of course, freedom is dangerous because there is no security in it, no safety in it. There is great safety when you are following the crowd: the crowd protects you. There is great safety when you are following the crowd; because of the very presence of so many people you feel that you are not alone - you cannot be lost. Because of this security you are lost, because of this security you never search and you never seek and you never enquire. And truth cannot be found unless you have enquired unless you have enquired on your own. If you take borrowed truths, you become knowledgeable; but to be knowledgeable is not to know.
Tao is very much against knowledge. Tao says that even if you are ignorant and the ignorance is yours, it is good at least it is yours. and it has an innocence to it. But if you are burdened with accumulated knowledge, scripture, tradition, then you are living a false, pseudo life. Then you are not really living, you are just pretending that you are living. You are making impotent gestures, empty gestures. Your life has not the intensity, the passio - cannot have the passion. That passion arises only when you move on your own, alone, into the vast sky of existence.
Why can't you move alone? Because you don't trust life. You move with Mohammedans, you move with Hindus, you move with Jews, because you don't trust life you trust crowds. To move alone one needs great trust in life... the trees, the rivers, the sky, the eternity of it all - one trusts this. You trust man-made conceptions, you trust man-made systems, you trust man-made ideologies. How can man-made ideologies be true?
Man has created these ideologies just to hide the fact that he does not know, to hide the fact that he is ignorant. Man is cunning, clever, and he can create rationalisations; but these rationalisations are bogus - you cannot move with them into truth. You will have to drop them. Tao says that ignorance is not the barrier against truth - knowledge is the barrier. [....]
When truth is seen through screens, it is beauty; when beauty is naked, it is truth. So the difference between the poet and the mystic is not much. The poet is coming closer, the mystic has arrived. For the poet, there are only glimpses of truth; for the mystic, truth has become his very life. The poet is only sometimes transported to the world of truth and then falls back again. For the mystic, truth has become his abode: he lives there; he lives AS truth.
Poets come closest to religion. Thinkers, philosophers, logicians, theologians, scientists, are very far away. Their whole approach is verbal. The poetic approach is more existential, and the mystic’s approach is existential par excellence; it is absolutely existential. Tao means to exist on the Way, and to exist in such a way that the Way and you are not two. This existence is one — we are not separate from it. The separation, the idea of separation, is very illusory. We are joined together, we are one whole. We are not islands, we are one continent. You are in me, I am in you. The trees are in you, you are in the trees. It is an interconnected whole. Basho has said: It is as if it were a vast spider’s web. Have you tried? Touch the spider’s web anywhere and the whole web starts shaking, trembling; the whole vibrates. Touch a leaf on the tree and you have made all the stars vibrate with it. You may not be able to see it right now, but things are so deeply related that it is impossible not to touch the stars by touching a leaf, the mall leaf of a tree. The whole is one — separation is not possible. The very idea of separation is the barrier. The idea of separation is what we call the ego. If you are with the ego, you are not on the path, you are not in Tao.
When the ego is dropped, you are in Tao. Tao means an egoless existence, living as part of this infinite whole, not living as a separate entity.
Now, ordinarily we have been taught to live as separate entities, we have been taught to have our own will. People come to me and they ask me ‘How should we develop our will-power?’ Tao is against will, Tao is against will-power, because Tao is for the whole and not for the part. When the part exists in the whole, everything is harmonious. When the part starts existing on its own, everything becomes disharmonious — there is discord, conflict, confusion. When you are not fused with the whole, there is confusion. If the fusion is not happening with the whole, there is bound to be confusion.
Whenever you are not with the whole you are unhappy. Let this be the definition of happiness: To be with the whole is to be happy. To be with the whole is to be healthy. To be with the whole is to be holy. To be separate is to be unhealthy. To be separate is to be neurotic. To be separate is to fall from grace. The fall of man is not because he has disobeyed God. The fall is because he thinks HE IS. The fall is because man thinks that he is a separate entity. This is foolish: you could not have existed if your parents were not there, and your parents' parents, and their parents' parents back... go to Adam and Eve. If Adam and Eve had not existed you would not be here. So you are connected with the whole past.
And Adam and Eve are just a myth. The past has no beginning - cannot have any beginning; the very idea of beginning is absurd. How can things suddenly begin? It is a beginning-less procession of events. You are connected with the whole past; and you are connected with the whole future too, because without you the future will not be the same. You may be nobody, but you will leave your mark. The whole future, the whole eternal future, will have a certain quality because you existed. [....]
Everything is connected. This connectedness is what is meant by the word ‘Tao’: the connectedness, the interconnectedness, the interdependence of all. Nobody is separate, hence ego is absurd. Only the whole can say ‘I’; the parts should not say ‘I’. If they have to say, they should say it only as a linguistic formality, but they should not claim the ‘I’. When you exist separately from existence you exist in misery, because you become disconnected; and nobody else is responsible for it — it is you. When you are happy, watch what happens. Whenever you are happy, you don’t have the ego. In those moments of happiness, joy, bliss, suddenly the ego disappears — you are more melting into the whole; boundaries are less clear, boundaries are more blurred. When the boundaries are totally blurred as if the river has disappeared into the ocean when all boundaries are blurred and you are one, throbbing with the whole, there is happiness. [....]
This is the meaning of 'the poor in spirit': one who possesses nothing, who has nothing, who knows nothing, who is nothing. Tao says: When you are nothing you will become all. Dissolve and you will become whole. Claim that you are and you will be miserable.
This Tao, this merging with the whole, this disappearing into the cosmos, cannot be taught. You can learn it, but it cannot be taught. So Lieh Tzu and other Taoist Masters don't preach anything; they don't have anything to preach. They talk in parables. You can listen to the story, and if you really listen, something... something will burst open in you. So the whole thing depends on how you listen.
Lieh Tzu himself was with his Master for many years, just sitting silently, not doing anything, just learning to be silent, learning to be passive, learning to he receptive, learning to be feminine - that is how one becomes a disciple. Let me tell you: there are no Masters, there are only disciples - because it cannot be taught, so how to say that there are Masters? Buddha cannot teach you, Lieh Tzu cannot teach you, so why call them Masters? But if there is a disciple, he learns.
So a Master is not one who teaches you, a Master is one in whose presence you can learn. Let the difference be known: a Master is not one who teaches you - because there is nothing to teach. a Master is one in whose presence it is possible to learn.
-Osho, “Tao The Pathless Path Vol 1, #1”
Life is the way. Life has no goal.
Question3 Osho, I don't know where I'm going, and I don't know what there is to do. Do I have what I need for this adventure?
There is no need to know where you are going. There is no need to know why you are going.
All that is needed to be known is that you are going joyously, because if you are going joyously you cannot go wrong.
If you are going dancing, singing, celebrating, the direction does not matter, the road does not matter, the goal does not matter. Every moment becomes paradise.
Let me repeat it again to you: there is no goal in existence. There are only moments, and the art is to squeeze the moment, its whole juice, herenow. And as moments go on coming into your hands, go on squeezing all the juices that existence contains for you.
In fact, you are where you are supposed to be, so if you are going somewhere it is just a morning walk. Don’t be worried. There is no goal, you can turn back from any point. You are not going anywhere!
My whole teaching is just to be here and let all the blissfulnesses of existence shower on you.
Why should you go anywhere? And anyway, where will you go? Trains are there, buses are there, planes are there and you can go wherever you want – to the moon you can go. In just a few years you may be able to go to Mars; in a few more years you may be able to go to some star. But that is all stupidness – what are you going to do standing on the moon? Have you ever thought about it? You will look utterly weird to yourself: “What are you doing here?”
Life is the way. Life has no goal.
That’s why I love the word Tao. Tao means the way, with no goal. Simply the way. It was courageous of Lao Tzu, twenty-five centuries ago, to tell people that there is no goal and we are not going anywhere. We are just going to be here, so make the time as beautiful, as loving, as joyous as possible. He called his philosophy Tao, and Tao means simply “the way.”
Many asked him, “Why have you chosen the name Tao? Because you don’t have any goal in your philosophy….”
He said, “Specifically for that reason I have chosen to call it ‘the way,’ so that nobody forgets there is no goal, but only the way.”
And the way is beautiful, the way is full of flowers. And the way goes on becoming more and more beautiful as your consciousness goes on becoming higher. The moment you have reached the peak, everything becomes so sweet, so ecstatic, that you suddenly realize that this is the place, this is home. You were unnecessarily running here and there.
Never think of going somewhere. Think in terms of transforming yourself here.
“There” is a cunning strategy of the mind to deceive you. The mind always makes you interested in things far away, there, so that you can be led away from here. Or at least your attention is no longer here, it is there. And you will never be there. Going from here to there, slowly, slowly you acquire the habit of always looking there, so wherever you reach, that place is no longer in your focus – your goal has shifted somewhere else.
In India there is an ancient proverb – diya tale andhera – “there is darkness under the lamp.” The lamp gives light all around, and just exactly underneath it there is darkness. This is the situation of man. You are capable of seeing everywhere, all around, but you are incapable of seeing where you are, who you are.
So cancel all the tickets you have booked! There is nowhere to go; just being here is so blissful. Close your eyes, so that you can see the reality of the here.
There and then are only fictions. Here and now are the only realities.
-Osho, “Sermons in Stones, #15”
Sudden enlightenment or the gradual one
Question 1 : Do taoists agree with the happening of sudden enlightenment or the gradual one?
THEY DON'T BOTHER. Lao Tzu does not bother, because he says: Just to be ordinary is to be enlightened. It is not something special that one has to achieve, it is not an achievement, it is not something that one has to reach. It is you - in your absolute ordinariness it flowers. To be extraordinary is the disease of the ego.
The ego always wants to be extraordinary, someone special, unique, incomparable - that is the hankering desire of the ego. If you can become a Rockefeller, good; if you can become a Hitler, good; or if you cannot become a Rockefeller or a Hitler, then renounce the world and think of becoming a Buddha. But become someone, someone special, a historic phenomenon.
Lao Tzu is not bothered about enlightenment and all that nonsense. He says: Just be ordinary. Eat when you feel hungry, drink when you feel thirsty and go to sleep when sleep comes. Just be as natural as the whole existence, and suddenly there is everything in all its glory. Nothing is needed.
To be ordinary is the most extraordinary state of being because the ego dissolves. The ego is subtle.
You get rid of it in one direction, it comes from another. You push it out from one door, go inside the room and it is sitting on the throne - it has entered from another door. Before you even come in it is already there.
I had a friend who had a small cat, a very beautiful cat. He asked me what name he should give to the cat. I called the cat "Ego" because the ego is very cunning and a cat of course is cunning. There is nothing like a cat for cunningness. So he named his cat "Ego."
But by and by he got fed up. He was a lonely man, a bachelor with no wife, no children, and he wanted always to be alone but the cat was a continuous disturbance. He would be sleeping and she would jump on his chest. And she would come in with bloodmarks on her paws and destroy a whole chair-seat or his clothes, because she was continuously hunting mice. So she was a trouble to him, and for a bachelor who had never cared for anybody, she was too much of a wife. He asked me what to do. This Ego had become a trouble. So I told him, "Ego is always a trouble. You go and throw it out."
He said, "But she knows all the ways of the town. She will come back." I told him, "You go to the forest."
So he went to the forest so that the cat could not find the way home. He went in and in - and then lost the way! Then there was only one thing to do: he let the cat go, followed her, and came back home. That was the only way, there was nobody else to ask. The cat came back as certain as an arrow, not even hesitating for a single moment which way to follow.
So I told him, "Your cat has the quality of the ego perfectly. You cannot throw it out easily. Wherever you go to throw it, when you come home, it is already there. Or sometimes you may get lost and then you will have to follow it, because only it knows the way."
The ego is very wise - wise in its cunningness. Lao Tzu does not give the ego any foothold, any ground to stand on, so he does not talk about enlightenment. So if you meet Lao Tzu don't ask him, "Do you believe in sudden enlightenment or in gradual enlightenment?" He will not answer you. He will laugh at you: What foolishness! There is no need for any enlightenment. That word doesn't occur for Lao Tzu, it is not part of his vocabulary.
He is very simple. He says: Just be ordinary. Why this hankering to be extraordinary, to be someone? And if you cannot be someone in the world then become enlightened at least. But why? Why can't you be satisfied and content with yourself as you are? If you ask me, to be content with oneself as one is is enlightenment. It is nothing special, as yogis have made it sound: kundalini rising, light showing, inner experiences, angels and God and this and that. This is all nonsense if you understand it. Enlightenment is nothing of this sort.
All these things - kundalini and the light and God and angels and heaven and hell - are part of the magician's bag. You want them - he immediately produces, supplies them. You create the demand and the magician supplies the things to you. You want something special, he gives it to you. He exploits you. He lives on your absurd desires.
Lao Tzu is absolutely simple. He has no bag. He says: Why not just be? What is wrong? What is wrong in that which you are? Why make an effort? And who will make the effort? You will make the effort. Your effort cannot go beyond you, and whatsoever you do, you will do. How can it go beyond you? How can it be transcendental? By your own efforts how can you transcend? It is not possible; you are trying to do the impossible. You can go on jumping for thousands of lives and nothing will be attained.
Accept yourself. That is the only reality there is, that is the only possibility there is. Accept yourself as you are and suddenly everything is transformed. Acceptance is the word for Lao Tzu, not enlightenment - total acceptance, whatsoever the case is. Nothing else is possible.
This is how things are. This is how you have happened into this vast universe. This vast universe wanted you to be like this - now you accept.
There are only two choices available: either you reject yourself or you accept yourself. If you reject then there are again two possibilities open: you reject in a wordly way or you reject in an other- worldly way. If you reject yourself in a worldly way it means that you would like to be more beautiful than you are, you would like to be more strong than you are, you would like to be more rich than you are, you would like to have a bigger house than you have. This is to reject in a worldly way. If you reject yourself in an other-worldly way, the religious way, it means that you would like to attain satori, samadhi, enlightenment, nirvana; you would like to become a Buddha; you would like to possess God; you would like to live in infinite bliss. This is how you reject in a religious way. These are both rejections and both are wrong. For Lao Tzu both are equally absurd.
Your marketplace is a marketplace; your temple is also part of it. Your this-worldly desires are worldly desires; your other-worldly desires are also desires and worldly. In fact there cannot be any other-worldly desire. Desire itself is this-worldly. Desire means this world.
I would like to tell you an anecdote.
It happened in a Sufi's life. A great mystic, living silently by himself, one day was suddenly awakened by a messenger from God.
The messenger said, "Your prayers have been accepted. Now the Supreme Being, the Creator, is very happy with you. You can ask, and whatsoever you desire will be fulfilled. You ask and immediately it will be fulfilled."
The mystic was a little puzzled and he said, "You came a little late. When I needed things, when I had many desires, you never came. Now I have no desires, I have accepted myself, I am totally at ease, at home. Now I don't bother even whether God exists or not, I don't pray to him. I pray because it feels good. I have stopped thinking about him at all. My prayer is not addressed to anybody anymore; I simply pray as I breathe. It's so beautiful whether God exists or not is irrelevant. You came a little late. Now I have no desire."
But the angel said, "This will be an offense against God. When he says you can ask, you have to ask."
The man was puzzled, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "But what to ask? Can you suggest anything? - because I have accepted everything and I am so fulfilled. At the most you go and tell God that I'm grateful. Give my thanks to him. Everything is as it should be. Nothing is lacking, everything is perfect. I am happy, blissful, and I don't know anything about the next moment. This moment is all, I am fulfilled. You go and give my thanks."
But the angel was stubborn. He said, "No, you will have to ask something - just as a mannerism. Be a little understanding."
Then the man said, "If you insist, then ask God to keep me as desireless as I am. Give me only one thing - desirelessness... "
... or acceptability, they both mean the same thing.
Desire means rejection of something - you would like to be something else; desirelessness means acceptance - you are happy as things are. In fact, things are irrelevant, you are happy. You are happy, that's the point. Lao Tzu says: Be content as you are, nothing else is needed - and then suddenly everything happens. In deep acceptance the ego disappears.
Ego exists through rejection: whenever you reject something ego exists. Whenever you say no ego is strengthened, but whenever you say yes, a total yes to existence, that is the greatest meditation you can enter into. In all other meditations you can enter but you will have to come out. This is the only meditation in which you enter and you cannot come out, because once you enter you are no more. Nobody can come out of it.
- Osho, "Tao The Three Treasures Volume 1, #10"
Don’t be a monkey – be a man.
Tao says, that when nobody knows what to make of you – you are so ordinary that nobody knows what to make of you, nobody knows any utility for you, you cannot be used, you are so ordinary, without any talent – then, they say, the real mystery reveals itself through you. Then you become a real mystery. When you cannot be used you become god like. What is the meaning? Whenever you are used, you become a thing; whenever you cannot be used, you become a person.
A person is not a utility; a thing is a utility. If somebody asks you: Who are you? You say: I am a doctor. What do you mean? It means that society is using you as a doctor. It is a function, not a personality. It is not your person, not your being, it is a utility – society is using you as a doctor.
Somebody is a carpenter, somebody else is a shoemaker. Is this your being? Or just a utility in society? Society is using you as a thing, and the more valuable your use, the more society will value you. But if you drop all talents, if you become just ordinary, and nobody knows what to do with you, nobody can use you, you have gone beyond society. Now you are no longer a thing, you have become a person. And this does not mean that you will not do anything, you will, but nobody will use you. You will ’do’ on your own, it will be your flowering.
A rose flowers, not for those who will pass, not for those who will see, not for those who will smell the fragrance. No! It flowers on its own. A man of Tao flowers on his own. He is like a rose, he is not a utility. And a man who has not known his innermost being is always like a thing, always on display in the window of a shop; always waiting for somebody to come and use him with all his certificates, distinctions, talents; always crying: Come and use me, make me a thing. I am a most valuable thing, you will never get any thing better than me. Come and use me! This is your whole cry. And if this is your cry, you will become a thing.
A man of Tao drops all distinctions, he burns all certificates, he destroys all bridges, he remains in himself, he becomes a flower. And this flowering is purposeless – it has no utility. Many are benefitted by it, but it is not for them, it is for one’s own self. He has attained his own destiny. Then there is fulfillment.
As a thing you will remain unfulfilled because you have to be a person, an authentic person. You have not to be a thing, not to be a husband, because to be a husband is a thing; you have not to be a wife, because to be a wife is to have a utility. Just be a flower, then you can love. But there is no need to be a husband, no need to be a wife. You can share, but there is no need to advertise.
A flower flowers; it does not need any advertisement. If somebody partakes of its pleasure and happiness, it is okay; if nobody passes by the spot, it is also okay. When you flower for yourself, everything is okay, nothing is wrong. When you are for somebody else, just waiting in a showcase, labelled, priced, catalogued, advertised, you will never reach to a fulfillment because a thing is a dead thing, only a person is alive.
Be alive, and be a person. And this you can never be if you go on copying. If you remain on the monkey mountain you will never be the real, you will continue to be the false. Drop all falsities, exhibitions, displays. Just be yourself, ordinary and unique, and fulfill your destiny. Nobody else can do it for you. You can absorb me, you cannot follow me. I never followed anybody, I had my own path. You will have your own path. You will move on a path on which nobody has ever moved and nobody will move on it ever again.
In the spiritual world no footprints are left. It is just like the sky: a bird flies – no footprints are left, nobody can follow. Just take a delight in me, be happy with me and you will absorb. And that will become a light within you and that will show you the path. But don’t copy, don’t believe or disbelieve, don’t be head-oriented. Don’t be a monkey – be a man.
- Osho, “When the Shoe Fits, #5”
Be cheated. It is worth it.
Question 10 You said that mind is the devil: "drop it!" oh, but a man of a civilized, complex society of today, like me, feels him self surrounded and lost in mind and mind and nothing else. how to proceed? moreover, if one goes with an innocent, childlike mind into this world, he will probably be cheated.
Be cheated. It is worth it. What have you got that you are so much afraid of being cheated? A naked fakir -- worried where he will dry his clothes if he takes a bath. Be cheated! You have nothing.
This idea that "... with an innocent childlike mind into this world, he will probably be cheated," is already cunning, clever, calculating. If you want to become childlike, even then you calculate what will happen? A child is just a child. Whatsoever happens, happens.
And I tell you, if you allow yourself to be cheated, in the end you will find that those who were cheating you were really the victims. They have been cheated. They could not take anything from you because, in the first place, you had nothing.
When death knocks at your door, you will be happy that you allowed people to cheat you rather than cheating them. Because there are only two possibilities: either you cheat or you allow people to cheat you. There is no other possibility. If you think: "I will not cheat others, but I will not allow anybody to cheat me," you have the wrong attitude. You don't understand what you are thinking, It is impossible.
The only way not to be cheated is to cheat. Ask Machiavelli, he knows. Ask Kautilya or Chanakya, they know. Machiavelli says: "The only way to defend yourself is to attack." He is exactly your cunningness, embodied. He is the incarnation of cunningness. But he's saying a perfectly logical thing: if you want not to be cheated, cheat. That is the only way not to be cheated; there is no other way. But I tell you, if you cheat people, in the end you will find that you have been doing much and your hands are empty.
When Alexander was dying he told his people, "My hands should be hanging out of the coffin, outside it."
They were worried. They said, "This has never been done. What are you thinking, and why? Why should your hands be hanging out of the coffin?"
He said, "So that people can see that I am going empty handed." A great understanding dawned on him. But very late, when nothing could be done. He had been accumulating the things of the world, he had become almost the conqueror of the world, and at the end he realized that his hands were empty.
Hands will always be empty if you go on cheating people. Once you understand that there is nothing to fear, let them cheat. In their cheating you, they are not very clever; they are simply foolish.
And the more you allow them to cheat you, the more you trust them, the more a different kind of treasure will open its doors to you. It is available only to a childlike consciousness — innocent.
-Osho, "Come Follow To You, Vol 2, #10, Q10"
Nobody
Question 3 Osho, I am afraid of being nobody. Would you please commend?
Everybody is afraid of being nobody. Only very rare and extraordinary people are not afraid of being nobody. A Gautam Buddha is needed to be a nobody. A Nobody is not an ordinary phenomenon; it is one of the greatest experiences in life -- that you are and still you are not, that you are just pure existence with no name, with no address, with no boundaries... neither a sinner nor a saint, neither inferior nor superior, just a silence.
People are afraid because their whole personality will be gone; their name, their fame, their respectability, all will be gone; hence, the fear. But death is going to take them away from you anyway. Those who are wise allow these things to drop by themselves. Then nothing is left for death to take away. Then all fear disappears, because death cannot come to you; you don't have anything for death.
Death cannot kill a nobody.
Once you feel your nobodiness you have become immortal. The experience of nobodiness is exactly the meaning of nirvana, of nothingness, of absolute undisturbed silence, with no ego, with no personality, with no hypocrisy -- just this silence... and these insects singing in the night.
You are here in a way, and still you are not.
You are here because the old association with the body. But look within, and you are not. And this insight, where there is pure silence and pure isness, is your reality which death cannot destroy. This is your eternity, this is your immortality.
Enjoy as much as you can moments of nobodiness. And it is such a simple, uncomplicated experience -- because you are nobody; you have just to sink within yourself a little deeper. Your personality is only on the surface. Inside is only a vast sky -- infinite.
Once you taste it without fear, you would love to go back again and again into the experience. Whenever you will have time, you would like to dive deep into your nobodiness.
When you are nobody you are a Gautam Buddha. When you are nobody you are the whole existence.
There is nothing to fear. There is nothing to lose. And if you think anything is lost -- your name, your respectability, your fame -- they are worthless. They are playthings for children, not for mature people. It is time for you to be mature, it is time for you to be ripe, time for you, just to be. [....]
All your name, and all your fame, and all your degrees and qualifications, and your richness, and your respectability and prestige, are nothing but different kinds of alcoholic beverages.
Only one who is nobody is not drunk. Only one who is nobody is fully awake, fully alert. And in his alertness he gains the whole world; in his nobodiness the whole universe can disappear. It is so vast.
Your somebodiness is so small. The more you are somebody, the more small you are. The more you are nobody, the bigger.... Be absolutely nobody, and you are one with the existence itself.
-Osho, "The Razor's Edge, #19"
Osho on Innocence
Zen says that if you drop knowledge - and within knowledge everything is included; your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others - if you drop all that has been given by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being: innocence. This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality, and there will be a resurrection of your innocence. You will become a child again, reborn.
-Osho, "Dang Dang Doko Dang, #7"
Innocence and Ignorance
Ignorance is darkness. It is a state of total negativity; it is a state of knowledge -- the lowest state of knowledge, the zero state of knowledge. But it is not different from the knowledgeable mind; they belong to the same category. The ignorant person and the knowledgeable person, they are not qualitatively different, only quantitatively different. The difference is that of degrees: the knowledgeable person knows more, the ignorant person knows less. And you can be knowledgeable in comparison to one person and ignorant in comparison to another. Hence it is a question of relativity. Even the most ignorant person may be knowledgeable in comparison to somebody else, or even the most knowledgeable person may be ignorant except his own expertise. The mathematician is ignorant as far as physics is concerned, the physicist is ignorant as far as chemistry is concerned, the chemist is ignorant as far as mathematics is concerned and so on, so forth. All experts are knowledgeable only in one direction and in all other directions they are utterly ignorant.
That's why a very strange phenomenon is well known that the people who are very logical, very argumentative, rational in their particular field prove to be very gullible in other fields. You may find a great scientist believing in Satya Sai Baba. It looks absurd, but it is not so absurd. Deep down that great scientist knows nothing of religion. He is as ignorant or even more ignorant than an ordinary person. The ordinary person knows much more about religion than the great scientist. The great scientist has poured his whole energy into one concentrated field, excluding everything else. [....]
Ignorance simply means you are missing knowlegeability. A little education, and your ignorance can become knowledge. Just a little conditioning, schooling, and your ignorance can be changed into knowledge. I here is no difference between ignorance and knowledge; they are interchangeable.
But innocence is a totally different phenomenon. It has nothing to do with knowledge and nothing to do with ignorance either. It is a state of total freedom -- from ignorance and knowledge both. It is a state of wonder. It is a very positive state of tremendous awe. When you are full of wonder and awe; when your heart starts throbbing with each beautiful moment that passes by -- with the roses, with the marigolds, with the lotuses, with the stars, with the sun, with the moon, with people, with rivers, mountains; when you can experience and feel the mystery of life; when you are so sensitive, so vulnerable, so open that the miraculous can penetrate to the very core of your being, then you are innocent.
The knowledgeable cannot be innocent. It is because of his idea that he knows, his wonder dies. All his answers are borrowed. All that he knows he really does not know, but he carries all kinds of answers, ready-made answers. Because of those ready-made answers nothing surprises him, nothing at all. He can go on amidst this beautiful existence without feeling any joy, any surprise, any wonder, any thrill. any excitement, any ecstasy. He is almost deaf. He cannot hear the music of the birds singing in the morning, he cannot hear the music of the wind passing through the pine trees. He cannot see the life of the trees, of the grass. He cannot see the beauty of a bird on the wing in the silent infinite sky. He walks without ever experiencing the splendor of the stars. He remains blind. He knows no poetry. His approach towards life is completely blocked by his acquired knowledge, by his accumulated answers. He has a ready-made answer for everything. Before a question arises, the answer is already there; even before the question, the answer is already there. The knowledgeable person never listens to the question. He never tries to go deep into the question itself He hears the question and a process of many answers is triggered in him and he starts answering.
But the man of innocence has no answers. He listens to life in silence. He listens, he sees, he tastes, he smells, he touches. He is very alive. The knowledgeable person is dead, completely closed. He lives in his own grave, that's why he drags. He has to carry such a burden.
The man of innocence dances; he does not even walk. He is very light. And each small thing fills him with the presence of the mysterious. A butterfly and all its colors, a rainbow in the sky, is enough to throw him into deep meditativeness. He knows no answer, he can only WATCH the rainbow. He has nothing to say, he can only see -- his seeing is clear -- he can only hear. [....]
Innocence is a positive state of wonder, of awe. No society allows innocence because the society needs knowledge, it depends on knowledge. And I can understand that knowledgeable people will be needed; the whole technology, science, everything depends on them. So it is okay to be knowledgeable when you are working, but leave it there. Don't carry it around twenty-four hours. People are carrying twenty-four hours things which should not be carried twenty-four hours.
When you are a doctor, be a doctor But when you leave your hospital, forget all about medicine, forget all about what you know, forget all about your M.D.s and F.R.C.S. and everything. Just be innocent so that you can again be in that tremendously beautiful state of childlikeness.
Jesus says: Blessed are those who are like small children for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Never for a moment get confused between innocence and ignorance. Many times they appear to be the same ut they are not same; they can never be the same. Innocence is a state of meditativeness. When you are silent, aware, open, in contact with the whole, in tune with Tao, then you are innocent. [....]
Remember, I am not telling you to remain ignorant; I am telling you to get rid of ignorance AND knowledge both. They are not different -- two sides of the same coin. Throw the whole coin, and then you are innocent.
-Osho, “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2, Q1”
To live in the moment is innocence
To live in the moment is innocence, to live without the past is innocence, to live without conclusions is innocence, to function out of the state of not knowing is innocence. And the moment you function out of such tremendous silence which is not burdened by any past, out of such tremendous stillness which knows nothing, the experience that happens is beauty.
Whenever you feel beauty — in the rising sun, in the stars, in the flowers, or in the face of a woman or a man — wherever and whenever you feel beauty, watch. And one thing will always be found: you had functioned without mind, you had functioned without any conclusion, you had simply functioned spontaneously.
The moment gripped you, and the moment gripped you so deeply that you were cut off from the past. And when you are cut off from the past you are cut off from the future automatically, because past and future are two aspects of the same coin; they are not separate, and they are not separable either. You can toss a coin: sometimes it is heads, sometimes it is tails, but the other part is always there, hiding behind.
Past and future are two aspects of the same coin. The name of the coin is mind. When the whole coin is dropped, that dropping is innocence. Then you don’t know who you are, then you don’t know what is; there is no knowledge. But you are, existence is, and the meeting of these two is-nesses — the small is-ness of you, meeting with the infinite is-ness of existence — that meeting, that merger, is the experience of beauty.
Innocence is the door; through innocence you enter into beauty. The more innocent you become, the more existence becomes beautiful. The more knowledgeable you are, the more and more existence is ugly, because you start functioning from conclusions, you start functioning from knowledge.
The moment you know, you destroy all poetry. The moment you know, and think that you know, you have created a barrier between yourself and that which is. Then everything is distorted. Then you don’t hear with your ears, you translate. Then you don’t see with your eyes, you interpret. Then you don’t experience with your heart, you think that you experience. Then all possibility of meeting with existence in immediacy, in intimacy, is lost. You have fallen apart.
This is the original sin. And this is the whole story, the biblical story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Once they have eaten the fruit of knowledge they are driven out of paradise. Not that somebody drove them out, not that God ordered them to get out of paradise, they themselves fell. Knowing they were no more innocent, knowing they were separate from existence, knowing they were egos… knowing created such a barrier, an iron barrier.
You ask me, Ram Fakeer, “What is innocence?”
Vomit knowledge! The fruit of the tree of knowledge has to be vomited. That’s what meditation is all about. Throw it out of your system: it is poison, pure poison. Live without knowledge, knowing that “I don’t know.” Function out of this state of not knowing and you will know what beauty is.
Socrates knows what beauty is, because he functions out of this state of not knowing. There is a knowledge that does not know, and there is an ignorance that knows. Become ignorant like Socrates and then a totally different quality enters your being: you become a child again, it is a rebirth. Your eyes are full of wonder again, each and everything that surrounds surprises. The bird on the wing, and you are thrilled! The sheer joy of seeing the bird on the wing — and it is as if you are on the wing.
The dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf and the morning sun shining on it and creating a small rainbow around it, and the moment is so overwhelming… the dewdrop slipping off the leaf, just on the verge of meeting with the infinite, disappearing into the lake — and it is as if you start slipping, as if your drop starts slipping into the ocean of God.
In the moment of innocence, not knowing, the difference between the observer and the observed evaporates. You are no more separate from that which you are seeing, you are no more separate from that which you are hearing. [....]
But the critic, he is not there to taste, he is not there to drink — he is there to understand. He is not listening to the music because he is so full of mathematics. He is continuously criticizing, thinking. He is not innocent; he knows too much, hence he will miss the beauty of it. He may arrive at some stupid conclusions, but he will miss the whole moment. And the moment is momentous! [....]
Be encompassed with it. Disappear for a moment with your mind — watching, judging, criticizing, believing, disbelieving, for, against. For a moment be just an openness, and you will know what innocence is. And in that you will know what beauty is.
Beauty is an experience that happens in innocence, the flower that blooms in innocence. Jesus says, “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.”
- Osho, “The Book of Wisdom, #22, Q1”
Intelligence is the fragrance of innocence
Innocence is your very nature. You do not have to become it, you are already it. You are born innocent. Then layers and layers of conditioning are imposed upon your innocence. Your innocence is like a mirror and conditioning is like layers of dust. The mirror has not to be achieved, the mirror is already there -- or rather, here. The mirror is not lost, it is only hidden behind the layers of dust. [....]
The process of becoming innocent is not really a process of becoming, it is a process of discovering your being. It is a discovery, not an achievement. You don't attain to something new, you simply attain to that which you have always been. It is a forgotten language. [....]
Innocence is there, you have simply forgotten it -- you have been made to forget it. Society is cunning. For centuries man has learned that you can survive in this society only if you are cunning; the more cunning you are, the more successful you will be. That's the whole game of politics: be cunning, be more cunning than others. It is a constant struggle and competition as to who can be more cunning. Whosoever is more cunning is going to succeed, is going to be powerful.
After centuries of cunningness man has learned one thing: that to remain innocent is dangerous, you will not be able to survive. Hence parents try to drive their children out of their innocence. Teachers, schools, colleges, universities exist for the simple work of making you more cunning, more clever. Although they call it intelligence it is not intelligence.
Intelligence is not against innocence, remember. Intelligence is the flavor of innocence, intelligence is the fragrance of innocence. Cunningness is against innocence; and cunningness, cleverness are not synonymous with intelligence. But to be intelligent needs a tremendous journey inwards. No schools can help, no colleges, no universities can help. Parents, priests, the society, they are all extrovert; they cannot help you to go inwards. And buddhas are very rare, few and far between. Not everybody is fortunate enough to find a buddha. Only a buddha can help you to be an intelligent person, but you cannot find so many buddhas who want to become primary school teachers and high school teachers and university professors; it is impossible.
So there is a substitute for intelligence. Cunningness is a substitute for intelligence -- a very poor substitute, remember. And not only is it a poor substitute, it is just the opposite of it too. The intelligent person is not cunning; certainly intelligent, but his intelligence keeps his innocence intact. He does not sell it for mundane things. The cunning person is ready to sell his soul for small things. [....]
The society prepares you to be cunning so that you are capable of competing in this struggle for existence, the struggle to survive. It is a cut-throat competition, everybody is after everybody else's throat. People are ready to do anything to succeed, to be famous, to climb the ladder of success, name and fame. They are ready to use you as stepping-stones. Unless you are also cunning you will be simply used, manipulated. Hence the society trains every child to be cunning, and these layers of cunningness are hiding your innocence.
Innocence has not to be achieved, Sonja, it is already there. Hence it is not a question of becoming, it is your being. It has only to be discovered -- or rediscovered. You have to drop all that you have learned from others, and you will immediately be innocent. Hence my antagonism towards all knowledge that is borrowed. Don't quote the Bible, don't quote the Gita. Don't behave like parrots. Don't just go on living on borrowed information. Start seeking and searching for your own intelligence. [....]
Just be as simple as a child. Just be again a child as you were born, as God sent you into this world. In that mirrorlike state you will be able to reflect that which is. Innocence is the door to knowing. Knowledge is the barrier and innocence is the bridge.
- Osho, "The Dhammapada, Vol 12, #8, Q1“
The true innocence happens only after the second birth.
Question : Osho, Is the innocence of small children just ignorance, or has it got any value too?
The innocence of the children is ignorance, it is not true innocence. The true innocence happens only after the second birth. The true innocence happens only after you have reached your very core through awareness; that is the second birth, that is resurrection – you are born anew. The first innocence of a child when it is born is only ignorance, but that ignorance is far more valuable than the knowledge that your so-called learned people are burdened with.
So these things have to be remembered. Real innocence belongs to the Buddhas. They have lost their first childhood in knowledge and then they become aware of what they have lost. They have lost the precious, the essential for the non-essential, so they drop their knowledge. Dropping their knowledge they become innocent again. This is second innocence, second birth. In India we call such a person dwija, twice-born. He is a real brahmin because he has known the Brahma, the absolute. The absolute can be known only in innocence.
So the first, the most important thing is the innocence of the sage. It is like the innocence of the children but only like. The innocence of the children is bound to be corrupted, but the innocence of the sage cannot be corrupted anymore – he has passed through that stage. His innocence has maturity, his innocence has integrity; his innocence is earned – he deserves it.
Small children are innocent; but they have not earned it, it is natural. They are ignorant really, but their ignorance is better than the so-called learning, because the learned person is simply covering his ignorance with words, theories, ideologies, philosophies, dogmas, creeds. He is trying to cover up his ignorance, but just scratch him a little bit and you will find inside nothing but darkness, nothing but ignorance.
- Osho, “Zen: Zest, Zip, Zap and Zing, #2, Q3”
When fear disappears there is innocence
If you have faith that does not prove that there is a God. But your faith can give you a certain integrity, a certain strength. But the faith has to be very innocent. They were not hiding any fear behind it. They had not gone to any church to learn the prayer, they had not asked anybody, "What is God? Where is God?" -- nothing. They were simply innocent people, and out of innocence was their faith.
That faith does not prove that God is; that faith simply proves that innocence is a power. [....]
Innocence gives power, but innocence is destroyed, and this is what I am trying to bring back to you, so that you become innocent again. And to become innocent again you will have to pass through these stages.
You will have to drop this idea of God which helps you to remain unafraid. You will have to pass through fear and accept it as a human reality. There is no need to escape from it. What is needed is to go deep into it, and the deeper you go into your fear, the less you will find it is. When you have touched the rock bottom of fear you will simply laugh, there is nothing to fear. And when fear disappears there is innocence, and that innocence is the summum bonum, the very essence of a religious man.
And that innocence is power. That innocence is the only miracle there is. Out of innocence anything can happen, but you will not be a Christian out of that, and you will not be a Mohammedan out of that. Out of innocence you will become simply an ordinary human being, totally accepting your ordinariness, and living it joyously, thankful to the whole existence -- not to God, because that is an idea given by others to you.
But existence is not an idea. It is there all around you, within and without. When you are utterly innocent, a deep thankfulness -- I will not call it prayer because in prayer you are asking for something, I will call it a deep thankfulness -- a gratitude arises. Not that you are asking for something, but thanking for something that has already been given to you. So much has been given to you. [....]
There is nothing to fear.
-Osho, "From Ignorance to Innocence, #16“
Innocence means your just being a clear mirror
Sannyas is an effort to discover your intrinsic innocence. It is not an effort to gain knowledge. The knowledgeable person is always a stupid person. The knowledgeable starts depending on knowledge, he starts functioning through knowledge. Life goes on changing every moment and knowledge remains static and life is growing. So there comes a gap between knowledge and life. [....]
In fact innocence is needed, not knowledge. Innocence means your just being a clear mirror — it is a state of not-knowing, and your functioning out of that state of not-knowing. Then you don’t have any answers ready-made. Then life is there, a challenge, a continuous challenge, and you are here to respond, so you respond according to the moment. It always fits; there is no gap between your response and the situation, there is a deep harmony. But it is possible only through innocence.
So the really wise man is not knowledgeable, he is innocent. He drops all knowledge and becomes just a mirror. The moment you become just a mirror you are enlightened, because suddenly you see the tremendous beauty of life. Its very truth is revealed to you, all its mysteries are suddenly open to you, all its doors are open, all locks disappear.
- Osho, “Is the Grass Really Greener… ?, #27”
Toist Tantra
Question 1: You have talked much on love, relationships, union, etc. is there a merging between the tao and tantra?
Tantra means technique - and Tao can have no relationship with any technique whatsoever.
Tao is non-methodological, non-technical. Tao means spontaneity. How can spontaneity have a technique? You cannot practise it; if you practise it you miss it. There is no way to cultivate it; a cultivated spontaneity could be anything else but it could not be spontaneity.
Tao means let go. Wherever your energy moves, allow it to move. Don't swim - float with the river.
Swimming is a technique - if you are just flowing with the river what technique is needed? Technique means that you have a direction, you want to reach somewhere. Technique means that you want to impose your will on reality, you want to be someone. somewhere, in some state; you have a desire, you have a projection.
Tao says you are already there, you are already that. There is nowhere to go and nothing else to be, so just relax and let things happen. And whatsoever happens is good - because there is no denial in Tao, no rejection, no repression. It is the greatest rebellious attitude possible. Never has man's intelligence risen higher than in Tao. But there is no way to it. You cannot be guided to it.
Buddha has talked about five ways to reach truth. The first he calls the way of SHEELA, the way of morality, character, virtue. The second he calls the way of knowledge. The third he calls the way of DHYANA, meditation; the fourth he calls the way of devotion; and the fifth he calls ASHEKSHA - that which cannot be taught.
That fifth is Tao. It cannot be taught. It can be learned but it cannot be taught. And when I say that it can be learned, I mean that if you relax, if you allow life to happen to you, if you don't create a barrier, if you are ready to go wherever it leads, you will learn it. It is the most dangerous path because you will not be in control. Your mind cannot manipulate; your mind cannot prepare in any way. You will have to live moment to moment - as the trees live, as the stars live, as the mountains live. You will have to live in the same way, the same natural way. Tao is nature.
So the Indian Tantra cannot have any merger with Tao. The Indian Tantra is very scientific. It is the science of how to transform sexual energy into spiritual energy; how to create the dynamo that changes, transforms, transmutes energy; how to move from the lower to the higher; how to go from the earth to heaven. It is a way from sex to super-consciousness. It is very technological.
Tao has no technique - this is the first thing to be understood. But there is another thing of great importance - that is, Tao has its own tantra. But it is not technique.
There is no meeting possible between the Indian Tantra and the Chinese Tao, no meeting is possible.
They are far away, poles apart, and it is impossible to mix them. If somebody tries to mix them Tao will be destroyed, Tantra will not be destroyed. Always remember whenever you mix a higher standpoint with a lower, the higher is destroyed not the lower. It is always the higher that loses because the higher is delicate, the higher is very, very vulnerable, fragile, like a flower. If you crush a flower with a rock, the rock is not going to be destroyed. The rock may not even come to know that there has been a clash. But the flower will be gone - crushed, destroyed. Tao is the highest possibility and Tantra can destroy it. So remember not to mix them.
But Tao has its own tantra because Tao is a total world view. It has everything that is possible. It is the whole. So there must be something in it for love, for sex there is.
What is Taoist tantra? I have to use the word 'tantra remember, but I am not using it in the Indian sense. What is Taoist tantra? It is spontaneity in sexuality; it is spontaneity in love.
For example, if you read a Tantra manual, an Indian Tantra manual, there is great ritual in it. Every step is very clearly indicated. It is not easy to practise Indian Tantra - you will have to become adept at it. Don't fool around. Don't think that while you are making love to a woman you are practising Tantra. Tantra is difficult. It is a long process. And it takes years to get trained in it.
The greatest training that is involved and the most difficult problem that arises is that Tantra allows a man to make love to a woman only when the man has lost all sexual attraction towards the woman.
There is no sexual attraction at all. That is the whole process. The woman becomes almost a mother to you or a sister to you a goddess. She has to be worshipped. In Tantra ritual the woman has to be worshipped like a goddess. And tor months together one has to practise that worship.
The woman sits naked in front of you on a throne and you worship and you bow down and you pray to her and you create the idea in the deepest core of consciousness that she is just a representative of all womanhood, motherhood. She is a goddess.
Day by day, slowly, slowly, you lose all sexual interest in her. You become auto-hypnotised with your own idea. The day you lose all sexual interest in her body and you can look through and though her and her body is no longer a thrill, her body is not even seen at all, she becomes luminous, she is just a presence only then does the Master allow you to make love to her. Now love will have a totally different quality. There is no sex involved in it, no attraction involved in it, no physicality involved in it. It is absolutely spiritual - a meeting of two souls.
But it is a long process. Many rituals, many prayers,. many YANTRAS, many meditations are needed. After years of training you come to the point where the woman is no longer a woman to you, she has almost become a mother - 'motherhoodness' has arisen. You have projected that motherhoodness on her. You see her breasts but they no longer provoke any sexuality in you, only the idea of a mother. You see her body and you start feeling that you are part of her body just as you were part of your mother. It is recreating the mother. And it is a long process. Tantra is very procedural, ritualistic, and a great experiment in hypnosis, auto-hypnosis.
And it is a great experiment in getting rid of the idea of sex. It is not sexual at all, as is commonly misunderstood. It is a totally different attitude not sexual at all. It is very prayerful. And when you make love to a woman after you have become an adept in Tantra and the Master has allowed you....
It has to depend on the Master's agreement, it does not depend on you. When the Master sees in your eyes that all sex has disappeared, that your body has become almost asexual, he sees that now you are standing before the woman as a small child, unaware of sexuality - you are naked, she is naked but you are not at all interested in sexuality - when the Master confirms it, when he gives you a signal, then you are allowed. It depends on the Master. He has to watch, watch carefully. It takes months, sometimes years, to prepare for it.
Tao has its own tantra. The first thing: Tao never divides into the lower and the higher, that is the beauty of it. The moment you divide reality into the lower and the higher you are getting schizophrenic. The moment you say something is sacred and something is profane you have divided. The moment you say something is material and something is spiritual you have divided, you have split reality. Reality is one. There is neither matter nor spirit. Reality is one. It expresses itself in many forms: on one level as matter, on another level as spiritual. The spiritual is not higher and the material is not lower - they stand on the same level. That is the Taoist attitude. Life is one.
Existence is one. It is a tremendous oneness and there is no evaluation.
The first thing in Tao is to drop duality. Sex is not lower and samadhi is not higher. Samadhi and sex are both expressions of the same energy. There is nothing laudable about samadhi and there is nothing condemnable about sex. The Tao acceptance is total, absolute. There is nothing wrong about the body and there is nothing beautiful about the spirit - they are both beautiful. Devil and God are one in Tao, heaven and hell are one in Tao, good and bad are one in Tao - it is the greatest non-dual understanding. There is no condemnation and no preparation. To prepare for what? One has simply to relax and be.
If you can love a woman spontaneously.... In fact, Tao will say that Tantra has a wrong attitude, because you have to prepare. Preparation means that you are preparing for the future. Tao knows only one time - which is now; and only one place - which is here. Now is the only time and here is the only place. Here is heaven and now is nirvana. So don't prepare.
If in some moment love flows, love takes possession of you, go with it. Don't push the river. Don't try to give it any shape. Don't try to fix it into any ritual. Just go with it. In deep trust, in deep gratitude, go with it. While making love to a woman don't try to prove anything - as they are trying to do in the West. Don't try to prove anything - because when you start trying to prove, your mind has come in. While you are making love to a woman forget all about the fact that you are a man and she is a woman. Let boundaries merge and mix. Don't remain a man otherwise you will miss - because again a dualism comes in: you are the man and she is the woman. Nobody knows why two persons really make love. Many times it happens that the man becomes the woman and the woman becomes the man. Who bothers who is who?
And if you are thinking about it then the mind is there and the mind is the barrier; it does not allow the unison to happen totally. So Tao simply says: go spontaneously, with no ritual, with no idea to prove. And remember, never use sexuality for anything. Tantra uses it as a step towards samadhi.
Tao says: never use anything as a means. Everything is an end unto itself. The moment you start thinking of somewhere to go, something to reach, some result to attain out of it, you are not total, your mind is divided, you are already in the future. There are no means and no ends. Everything simply is an intrinsically beautiful end unto itself.
In Tao this is very basic. Love, eat, go for a morning walk, swim in the river, sit in the sun, watch the stars - but let everything be simple, not for anything else. Sing a song, but not for any result. Look at this tree, but not for any result. Go for a morning walk, but not for health! Don't be a naturopath!
Just go for a walk, it is beautiful. Health is a by-product; you need not worry about it, it happens. Lie down in the sun, enjoy it, but not for anything else. Lie there for its own sake. That is what Tao is.
And in that relaxed attitude life starts pouring into you from everywhere. All doors open, all windows open. Existence flows into you, you flow into existence.
Tao is very simple; therefore, because we are very complex, it is very difficult. Simple things don't appeal to us. Tantra appeals to many people but Tao has not that much appeal. Tao appeals very rarely. If Tao appeals to you, consider yourself to be fortunate. The very possibility of your getting interested in Tao is a great blessing.
When you translate everything in terms of Tao it becomes spontaneity.
-Osho, “Tao The Pathless Path Vol 2, #4”
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