Osho - Ancient Music in the Pines
Chapter 6. Madmen
and Devotees
Question 1:
What's the difference between a madman and a devotee?
Not much. And yet much. Both
are mad but their madness has a totally different quality to it; the center of
madness is different. The madman is mad from the head; the devotee is mad from
the heart.
The madman is mad because of a
failure. His logic failed He could not go on with the head anymore, any longer.
There comes a point for the logical mind where breakdown is a must, because
logic goes well up to a certain limit then suddenly it is no longer real, then
it is no longer true to reality.
Life is illogical. It is wild.
In life, contradictions are not contradictions but complementaries. Life does
not believe in the division of either/or, life believes in both.
The day becomes night, the
night becomes day. They melt and merge. Boundaries are not clear. Everything is
overlapping everything else: you are overlapping into your beloved, your beloved
is overlapping into you. Your child is still a part of you and yet he is
independent. Boundaries are blurred.
Logic makes clear-cut
boundaries. For clarity it dissects life into two, into a duality. Then clarity
is achieved but aliveness is lost. At the cost Of aliveness, logic achieves
clarity.
So if you are a mediocre mind,
you may never go mad. That means you are just lukewarmly logical, and much that
is illogical goes on existing in you side by side. But if you are really
logical, then the ultimate result can be only madness. The more logical you are
the more you will be intolerant of anything illogical. And life is illogical.
So you will become by and by intolerant of life itself; you will become more
and more closed. You will deny life, you will not deny logic. Then finally you
break down - this is the failure of logic.
Almost all the great
philosophers who are logical, go mad. If they don't go mad, they are not great
philosophers. Nietzsche went mad; Bertrand Russell never went mad He is not
such a great philosopher, he is in a way mediocre. He goes on living with his commonsense
- he is a commonsensical philosopher, he does not move to the very extreme.
Nietzsche moved to the very extreme and, of course, then There is the abyss.
Madness is the failure of the
head and in life there are millions of situations where suddenly the head is
irrelevant.
I was reading an anecdote.
A woman telephoned the builder
of her new house to complain about the vibrations that shook the structure when
a train passed by, three streets away.
'Ridiculous!' he told her. 'I
will be along to check it.' 'Just wait until a train comes along,'
said the woman, when the
builder arrived for his inspection. 'Why, it nearly shakes me out of bed. Just
lie down there. You will see.'
The builder had just-stretched
himself out on the bed, when the woman's husband came home.
'What are you doing on my
wife's bed?' the husband demanded.
The terrified builder shook
like a leaf. 'Would you believe I am waiting for a train?' he said.
There are a thousand and one
situations where life comes in its total illogicalness.
Suddenly your logical mind
stops - it cannot function. If you watch life you will find you act illogically
every day; and if you insist too much on logic then by and by you will get
paralyzed, by and by you will be thrown away from life, by and by you will feel
a certain deadness settling in you.
One day or other this situation
has to explode - the division of either/or breaks down.
Division as such is false.
Nothing is divided in life. Only in your head is there division; only in your
head are there clear-cut boundaries. It is as if you have made a small clearing
in a forest - clean, with a boundary wall, with a lawn, with a few rosebushes,
and everything perfectly i., order. But beyond the boundary the forest is there
- waiting. If you don't care about your garden for a few days, the forest will
enter in. If you leave your garden untended, after a while the garden will
disappear - and the forest will be there.
Logic is man-made, like an
English garden - not even like a Zen Japanese garden - clean-cut.
Every day there is a
difficulty... Mukta looks after my garden. She is my gardener. And she goes on
cutting. I go on telling her, 'Don't cut! Let it be like a forest!' But what
can she do? She hides from me that she is cutting, and planning and managing
because she cannot allow the garden to become a forest. It should be in
boundaries.
The logical mind is like a
small garden, man-made, and life is wild forest. Sooner or later you will come
against life and then your mind will boggle, will fall down flat. Stretch your
mind to the very extreme of logic and you will go mad.
It happened at an airport
Moskowitz met his business rival, Levinson, at the airport, and asked him with
an elaborate pretense of casualness, 'And where do-you happen to be going,
Levinson?'
Levinson, just as casually.
responded, 'Chicago.'
'Ah!' said Moskowitz, shaking
his finger triumphantly. 'Now I have caught you in a flat- footed lie. You tell
me Chicago because you want me to think you are going to St. Louis, but I
talked to your partner only this morning, and I happen to know you are going to
Chicago, you liar!'
The logical mind goes on
weaving and spinning its own theories, its own ideas, and tries to make the
reality fit accordingly. The reality should follow your idea - that is what a
logical mind is. The effort is that the reality should be a shadow to your
ideology, but it is not possible. You are trying the impossible. It is
implausible. It cannot happen. Ideology has to follow reality, and when the
situation comes where you have to follow reality, the whole structure of your
mind staggers, the whole structure of your mind simply drops down - it proves
to be a house of playing-cards. A small wind of reality and the palace
disappears. That is madness.
What is the madness of a
devotee? The center of the devotee's madness is his heart; the center of
ordinary madness is the head. The ordinary madness happens from the failure of
the head and the devotee's madness happens from the success of his heart When
logic fails - ordinary madness; when love succeeds - extraordinary madness; the
madness of a devotee.
Love is illogical. Love is
irrational. Love is life. Love comprehends all contradictions in it. Love is
even capable of comprehending its own opposite - hate. Have you not observed
it? You go on hating the same person you love. But love is bigger. It is so big
that even hate can be allowed to have its play. In fact, if you really love,
hate is not a distraction; on the contrary, it gives color, spice. It makes the
whole affair more colorful - - like a rainbow. Even hate is not the opposite
for a loving heart. He can hate and continue loving. Love is so great that even
hate can be allowed to have its own say.
Lovers become intimate enemies.
They go on fighting. In fact, if you ask psychoanalysts, psychiatrists and
psychologists, they will say that when a couple stops fighting, love has also
stopped. When a couple no longer bother even to fight, have become indifferent
to each other, then love has stopped. If you are still fighting with your wife or
your husband, your boyfriend or girlfriend, that simply shows that life is
still running in it, it is still a live wire, still hot. When love is no longer
there and everything is dead, then there is no fight. Of course! For what to
fight? It is meaningless. One settles into a sort of coldness; one settles into
a sort of indifference.
Love is like wild life - hence
Jesus' saying that God is love. What does he mean? He means that if you love
you will know many things which are qualities of God that he comprehends
opposites, that even the Devil is allowed to have his say, that there is no
problem with the opposite, that the enemy is also a friend and deep down
related and connected, that death is not against life, but that death is part
of life and life is part of death.
The whole is bigger than all
the opposites, and it is not just a total of the opposites - it is more than
the total. This is the higher mathematics of the heart. Of course a man of love
will look mad. He will look mad to you because you function from the head and
he functions from the heart; the languages are totally different.
For example, Jesus was
crucified. The enemies were waiting for him to curse them, and they were a
little afraid; the friends were waiting for him to do some miracle, that all
the enemies would fall dead. And what did he do? He did an almost mad thing. He
prayed to God to forgive these people because they didn't know what they were
doing. This is the madness of love. It is unexpected that when you are being
killed you pray that these people should be forgiven because they don't know
what they are doing. They are completely unconscious. Sleepwalkers. Whatsoever
they are doing is not their responsibility because how can you throw
responsibility on somebody who is asleep?
They are unconscious - forgive
them.
This is the miracle that
happened that day but nobody could see that miracle; it was sheer madness.
Love's language is so foreign
to the head. Head and heart are the farthest poles of reality.
There is no greater distance
between any other two points as there is between the head and the heart, reason
and love, logic and life. If a person is mad because of his love, his madness
is not a disease. In fact, he is the only healthy person, he is the only whole
person, he is the only holy person - because through his heart he has again
become bridged with life.
Now he is no longer fighting;
there is no more conflict. He is surrendered, he is in a let- go. He trusts
life, he has faith, and he knows that nothing wrong is going to happen. He's
not afraid. Even in death he will go laughing and singing, ecstatic, because
even in death God is waiting for him. Death also becomes a door. Of course to
the logical mind this man looks mad and he is mad, in a sense, because
whatsoever he is doing is beyond the comprehension of reason. But to me, he is
not mad. Ask Jesus - to him he is not mad.
Ask Buddha - to him he is not
mad. In fact, he's the only sane person, because now he no longer thinks, he
lives; now he is no longer divided, but total; now there is no duality in him -
he is a unity.
That is the meaning of the word
'yoga' - that which unites. That is the meaning of the word 'religion' also -
that which makes you one, that which puts you again together - 'religere'. You
are no longer split.
Otherwise, ordinarily, you are
not one person, you are many persons. You are a crowd.
You don't know what your left
hand is doing and what your right hand is planning to do.
In the morning you don't know
what you are going to do in the evening. You say one thing but you wanted to
say something else, and you will go on saying something else still. You are not
a unity. You are a crowd. There are many persons inside you revolving in a
wheel and each becomes, for a time being, the king. And in that moment, the
king asserts things which he cannot fulfill because by the time the moment to
fulfill comes, he will no longer be a king.
You fall in love with a woman
and you say, 'I will love you forever and forever.' Wait!
What are you saying? Now, at
this moment, a certain part of your personality is on the throne and that part
says, 'I will love you forever and forever.' But just half an hour later you
may repent. And just a few days later, you will completely forget what you had
said.
The woman is not going to
forget it. She will remember. She will remind you again and again about what
you have said - that you would love her forever and forever, and what has
happened to your love? You will feel guilty and you will feel impotent and helpless
because you cannot do anything. Now you know you should not have talked about
the future, but at that moment you could not resist yourself; at that moment it
looked as if you would be loving her forever and forever; at that moment it was
a truth but the part of the mind that asserted it is no longer the emperor. Now
there are other minds. Another part is sitting on the throne and he loves
another woman, he chooses another woman.
Whatsoever you promise, you are
not going to fulfill it.
A man of understanding never
promises because he knows his helplessness. He will say, 'l would like to love
you forever and forever but who knows? I may not be the same the next day.' He
will feel humble; he will not feel confident. Only fools feel confident.
People of understanding
hesitate because they know there is a crowd inside them - they are not one.
That's why it is said in all
the old scriptures that if a good thought comes to you, do it immediately.
because the next moment you may not like to do it at all. And if a bad thought
comes to you, postpone it a little. If anything good arises in you, don't miss
the moment. Do it! If you feel it is good you can do it again tomorrow but do
it right now, don't postpone. But the ordinary mind goes on doing just the
opposite: whatsoever good arises in you, you postpone it for tomorrow, and
whatsoever bad arises in you, you do it immediately. If you are angry, you will
be angry right now, you cannot postpone it. But if you are feeling compassion,
you will say, 'What is the hurry? Tomorrow.' That tomorrow never comes.
Tomorrow is non-existential.
Ordinarily, a man is a crowd;
in fact, we should not use 'the mind' in singular. We should not say that you
have a mind, that is wrong. Only rare persons have a mind. You have minds. You
are poly-psychic. The heart - this is the beautiful thing - the heart is always
one. It does not know the duality; it is not a crowd. It is a unity. The closer
you come to the heart, the one arises and the many disappear, far away. The
heart needs no promise; even without promising, it is going to fulfill.
The mind goes on making
promises but it never fulfills them. In fact, it promises just to create an
illusion because it knows it is not going to fulfill anything. So at least
create an illusion by promising - 'I will love you forever and ever.' The heart
will never say that but it will do it. And when you can do it, what is the
point of saying it? There is no need.
The man of love is mad, mad to
the logical mind - but he is not ill.
In the Western madhouses, there
are many people who are not mad. If they had been in the Eastern countries they
may even have been worshipped. In the West the clarity does not yet exist that
a man can be mad head-oriented or heart-oriented. A heart-oriented madman is
not a madman he is a God's man; or, he is mad in such a different way that he
needs to be worshipped, revered, respected. There is no need to treat him,
there is no need to put him in an asylum there is no need to give him shocks.
But things go to the extreme always.
In the East it has happened
that many mad people have been worshipped - those who were mad from the head.
They were simply crazy - but they were worshipped because we have worshipped
the madman of the heart and it is very difficult for the ordinary common masses
to make the distinction. They almost look alike.
Now in the West the opposite is
happening. People who would have been saints in the past... just think if Jesus
came, was born in America today. Where would he be? Or Saint Francis of Assisi
- where would he be? In some madhouse. Jews treated Jesus very well.
They killed him, but they never
put him in a madhouse. That was more respectful.
But now, in the modern world,
if he came back to somewhere in the West, he would be in a madhouse, Lying down
on some Freudian couch, being given some electric shocks, drugged - because
psychoanalysts say that he was neurotic, his personality was neurotic, he was
mad Of course the things that he said looked mad. He said, 'I am the Son of
God.'
What nonsense! Son of God?
Megalomania! What is he talking about? He is not in his senses. He lives in a
dream. He talks about the kingdom of God. All nonsense. Fairy tales. Good for
children's books, but immature. He chose a better time to come.
Saint Francis of Assisi would
certainly be in a madhouse. talking to trees, saying to the almond tree,
'Sister, how are you?' - if he were here, he would have been caught. What are
you doing? Talking to an almond tree? Sister, sing to me of God', he says to
the almond tree. And not only that, he hears the song that the sister almond
tree sings! Crazy!
Needs treatment. He talks to
the river and to the fish - and he claims that the fish respond to him. He
talks to stones and rocks - is there any need for any more proof that he is
mad?
He is mad but wouldn't you like
to be mad like Saint Francis of Assisi? Just think - the capacity to hear the
almond tree singing, and the heart that can feel brothers and sisters in trees,
the heart that can talk to the rock, the heart that sees God everywhere, all
around, in every form.... It must be a heart of utmost love - utter love
reveals that mystery to you.
But for the logical mind, of
course these things are nonsense.
To me, or to anybody who has
known how to look at life through the heart, these are the only meaningful
things. Become mad, if you can, become mad from the heart.
Now the last thing about this
question. If your head comes to a breakdown, don't be worried. Use this
opportunity of a de-structured state. In that moment, don't be worried that you
are going mad; in that moment, slip into the heart.
Someday, in the future, when
psychology really comes of age, whenever somebody goes mad from the head we
will help him to move towards the heart - because an opportunity opens in that
moment. The breakdown can become a breakthrough. The old structure is gone, now
he is no longer in the clutches of reason, he is free for a moment. The modern
psychology tries to go on adjusting him back to the old structure. All modern
efforts are adjustive: how to make him normal again. The real psychology will
do something else.
The real psychology will use
this opportunity because the old mind has disappeared, there is a gap. Use this
interval and lead him towards another mind - that is, the heart. Lead him
towards another center of his being.
When you drive a car you change
gears. Whenever you change the gear, there comes a moment when the gear moves
through neutral; it has to move through the neutral gear.
Neutral gear means no gear.
From one gear to another, a moment comes when there is no gear. When one mind
has failed, you are in a neutral state. Just now you are again as if you are
born. Use this opportunity and lead the energy away from the old rotten
structure which is falling. Leave the ruin. Move into the heart. Forget reason
and let love be your center, your target. Each breakdown can become a
breakthrough, and each possibility for the failure of the head can become a
success for the heart - the failure of the head can become a success for the
heart.
Question 2: Once at darshan I heard you say
of a visitor that he would be a good sannyasin. What is a good sannyasin?
First, what is a SANNYASIN? A
SANNYASIN is one who has come to understand the futility of so-called worldly
life. A SANNYASIN is one who has understood one thing - that something needs to
be done immediately about his own being. If he goes on drifting in the old way,
he will lose the whole opportunity of this life. A SANNYASIN is one who has
become alert that up to now he has lived wrongly, has moved in wrong
directions. has been too concerned with things and not concerned with himself,
has been too concerned with worldly prestige and power and has not been
concerned about who he is. A SANNYASIN is one who is turning towards himself,
PARABVRUTTI. A SANNYASIN is a miracle - the energy is moving back towards
oneself.
Ordinarily, the energy is
moving away from you - towards things, targets, in the world.
The energy is moving away from
you, hence you feel empty. The energy goes away, never comes back; you go on
throwing away energy. By and by you feel dissipated, frustrated. Nothing comes
back. By and by you start to feel empty. The energy is just oozing out every
day - and then comes death. Death is nothing else but that you are exhausted
and spent. The greatest miracle in life is to understand this, and to turn the
energy towards home. It is a turning-in. This turning-in, PARABVRUTTI, is
SANNYAS.
It is not that you leave the
world. You live in the world - there is no need to leave anything, or go
anywhere else. You live in the world, but in a totally different way. Now you
live in the world but you remain centered in yourself; your energy goes on
returning to yourself.
You are no longer out-going:
you have become in-going. Of course you become a pool of energy, a reservoir,
and energy is delight, sheer delight. Just energy there, overflowing, and you
are in delight, and you can share, and you can give in love. This is the
difference.
If you put your energy into
greed, it never comes back; if you put your energy into love, it comes back a
thousand-fold. If you put your energy into anger, it never comes back. It
leaves you empty, exhausted, spent. If you use your energy in compassion, it
comes back a thousand-fold.
So now I will tell you what a
good SANNYASIN is. I don't mean a moral or immoral SANNYASIN. My word 'good'
has nothing to do with morality. It is something to do with what Buddha calls
AES DHAMMO SANANTANO, what Buddha calls the eternal law of life.
A good man is an understanding
man. A good man is alert, aware - that's all. Awareness is the only value for
me - all else is meaningless. Awareness is the only value for me. So when I say
a good SANNYASIN, I mean a SANNYASIN who is aware. Of course, when you are
aware, you behave according to the law, the fundamental law. When you are
unaware, you go on destroying yourself - you go on being suicidal.
If you behave according to the
fundamental law, you will be enriched tremendously.
Your life will become richer
and richer every moment. You will become a king. You may remain a beggar in the
outside world, but you will become a king, a pinnacle of inner richness. What
Jesus calls the kingdom of God will be within you. You will become a king of
the kingdom that is within you. But more awareness is needed.
So don't misunderstand me. When
I say a good SANNYASIN I don't use the word in any moralistic sense. I use it
in a more fundamental sense, because to me, morality is just a by-product of
awareness, and immorality is a shadow of unawareness. I am not concerned with
shadows and by-products; I am concerned with the fundamental, with the
essential. Be aware and you will be good; be unaware and you will be bad.
I have heard a small anecdote.
An old farmer was watching his
young son. Luke, lighting the wick of the hurricane lamp prior to departing for
the evening.
'What is the lantern for?' he
asked.
Said his son casually, 'I am
off courting Dad, don't worry, I will pay for the oil.'
'Dang me!' said the father,
'When I was a courting, I never took me no lamp along, son.'
'That figures,' came the reply.
'Look what you got!'
If you don't take the lamp of
awareness with you, you are going to create a hell around you. Light your lamp
wherever you go - courting, not courting, that is not the point.
Wherever you go, whatsoever you
do, always do it in the inner light, with awareness.
And don't be worried about
moralities - about concepts, about what is good and what is bad. Good follows
your inner light just like a shadow. You take care of the inner light.
That's what meditation is all
about - to become more alert. Live the same life, just change your alertness -
make it more intense. Eat the same food, walk the same path, live in the same
house, be with the same woman and the children, but be totally different from
your inside. Be alert! Walk the same path, but with awareness. If you become
aware, suddenly the path is no more the same, because you are no more the same.
If you are aware, the same food is not the same, because you are not the same,
the same woman is not the same, because you are not the same. Everything
changes with your inner change.
If somebody changes his within,
the without changes totally. My definition of the world is this - you must be
living in a deep inner darkness, hence the world. If you light your inner lamp,
suddenly the world disappears, and there is only God. The world and the God are
not two things but two perceptions of the same energy. If you are unaware, the
energy appears to you to be as the world, the SANSARA; if you are alert, the
same energy appears as God. The whole thing depends on your inner awareness or
unawareness. That is the only change, the only transformation, the only
revolution, that has to be made.
Question 3: I feel sick with cowardice.
There must be a desire not to
be a coward - that desire creates the problem. If you are a coward, you are a
coward. Accept it. What can you do about it? Whatsoever you do will create more
problems, more complexities.
And who is not a coward? When
life is constantly in danger of death, how is it possible not to be a coward? k
is impossible! When any moment you can die, and life can be taken away from
you, how is it possible, in face of such danger, to be brave?. You can pretend,
you can manage to show that you are brave - but deep down you are going to
remain a coward. It is natural. Just look at the tininess of human beings: so
tiny, and existence is so vast. We are not even like drops fighting against
such an ocean. How is it possible not to be a coward?
Try to understand it. Accept
it. It is natural. Don't create a goal against it because that goal is coming
out of your cowardice. That goal is not going to help you. At the most you can
become very tense and pretend that you are not a coward. You can move to the
opposite extreme just to prove to the world and to yourself that you are not a
coward.
That's what your generals and
your great leaders are doing - just trying to prove to the world that they are
not cowards. And because of their efforts, the whole world has suffered
tremendously. Please, don't try any foolish thing like that. Just accept. It is
helplessness. One has to accept it. Once you accept it, and you start
understanding it, you will see that by and by it disappears. It is not that you
become brave - but one day you simply find that through acceptance it
disappears.
There is no fight; it
disappears. There is no resistance; you accept it and it disappears. It is not
that you become brave, you simply become more understanding. Bravery is not a
goal, but you have been taught from your very childhood, 'Be brave!' so you go
on trying to be brave. That creates much anxiety and tension. You are trembling
everywhere inside - and on the outside you are like a stone statue. Divided.
This has created much misery in
you. The goals that have been taught to you from your childhood are foolish,
are simply not based on reality. It is as if you say to a small leaf on a tree,
'When strong winds come,. don't shake, don't waver, don't tremble - that is
cowardice.' But what can a small leaf do? When the strong wind comes, it
shakes; the whole tree shakes. But trees are not so foolish. They won't listen
to you - they go on doing their thing.
Have you watched two dogs
fighting? They don't start fighting immediately. First they move in a mock
fight; both start barking. That is just a game to gauge, to judge, who is more
strong. They are not going to fight immediately because that is foolish,
stupid; that is done only by human beings. First they will try to bark at each
other, jump at each other, show their totality - the one will show: 'I am
this,' and the other will show: 'I am this.' Then immediately they judge - that
judgment needs nobody else to convince them.
Immediately one feels that he
is weaker, and he puts his tail down and moves. 'This is finished. What is the
point of fighting? I am weaker and you are stronger and the stronger is going
to win! The point is lost.' It is not that he is a coward - he is simply wise.
I don't call this cowardness.
Human beings will stick - even
if you feel that you are weak. The more you feel that you are weak, the more
you will be afraid to leave. People will say you are a coward, so you must
fight.... and you will be beaten badly and unnecessarily hurt. There is no
point. It is a simple calculation - and the stronger one doesn't go and show
the other dogs that he has won. No, the thing is simply dropped. He also knows
that he is stronger, so what is the point? He doesn't go on advertising that he
has won. No, the fight is dropped, he forgets all about it.
But in the human situation the
whole thing has taken a very wrong shape, because you have been taught wrong
goals. Each child should be taught to be true to life. If there is fear, then
be afraid. Why hide it? Why pretend that you are not afraid? If you want to
cry, cry. Why be afraid of tears? But we have been taught not to cry,
particularly men. With small children the mother will say, 'Don't be a sissy.
Don't start crying. That is only for girls.' And the boy becomes hard. Look, men
cannot cry. They have missed one of the most beautiful things in life. Nature
has not made any difference between man and woman; man has as many tear-glands
as woman, so the thing is proved - there is no difference. Tears are needed.
They are cleansing. But how to cry? What will people say?
They will say, 'You, and
crying? Your wife has died and you are crying? Be a man. Be brave. Bear it.
Don't cry.'
But you understand? If you
don't cry, by and by your smile will be corrupted, because everything is joined
together. If you cannot cry, you cannot laugh; if you don't allow your tears to
flow naturally, you will not be able to allow your smiles to flow naturally.
Everything will become
unnatural, everything will become strained, everything will become a forced thing,
you will move almost in a diseased way and you will never be at ease with
yourself. That is what has happened, and now you are miserable.
Life consists of flowing. If
you are a coward, be a coward. Be honestly a coward. And I tell you there is
nobody else who is not a coward. And it is good that people are not that way;
otherwise, even while they are so helpless, they would feel so egoistic. If
they were not cowards they would be almost dead stones - they would not be
alive - just egos, frozen. Don't be bothered. Accept it. If it is there, it is
there - a fact of life. Try to understand it And don't listen to others; you
are still being manipulated by others.
I was reading an anecdote.
Mistress Jones pursued her
small husband through the crowds at the zoo brandishing her umbrella and
emitting cries of menace. The frightened Mr. Jones, noticing the lock on the
lions' cage had not quite caught, wrenched it off, flew into the cage, slammed
the door shut again, pushed the astonished lion hard against the door, and
peered over its shoulder.
His frustrated wife shook her
umbrella at him and yelled furiously, 'Come out of there, you coward!'
This man a coward?
But each husband is a coward in
the eyes of the wife. In others' eyes, you are a coward.
Don't trust the opinion of
others too much. if you feel yourself to be a coward, close your eyes, meditate
on it. Ninety-nine per cent is others' opinion - the wife, brandishing her
umbrella, 'Come out, you coward!' Ninety-nine per cent is others' opinion -
drop it; one per cent is reality - accept it; and don't create any antagonistic
goal. Accept it and then you will see that cowardice is no longer cowardice.
Rejected, it becomes cowardice - the very word 'cowardice' is a condemnation -
accepted, it becomes humbleness, helplessness. That's how it is. We have to be
humble, we are not the whole. We are the parts of a tremendously vast whole -
very tiny parts, atomic parts, small leaves on a big tree.
It is good to tremble
sometimes. Nothing wrong in it. It helps you to shake off the dust.
You become again fresh.
My whole point is: accept life
as it is and don't try to change it into something else. Don't try to change
your violence into non-violence; don't try to change your cowardice into
bravery; don't try to change your sex into celibacy; don't create the opposite.
Rather, try to understand the fact of violence and by and by you will become
non-violent.
Understand the fact of
cowardice and cowardice will disappear. Understand the fact of sex and you will
find a new quality arising in it which goes beyond it. But always move through
the fact, never against it.
Question 4: My father is obsessed with
genealogy. Is there anything to such pursuits?
Must be, otherwise why should
your father be obsessed? He may have taken a wrong route, but there must be
something in it. Even when people go astray, they go astray for a certain
reason - although they may not be aware of it.
For example, let me tell you an
anecdote first.
Young Willie, aged eight, came
to his father one morning and said, 'Daddy, where did I come from?'
Willie's father felt a sinking
sensation in his stomach for he knew he was now up against it. He was a modern
parent and realized a question like that deserved a full and frank answer. He
found a quiet spot and for the next half hour, he carefully indoctrinated
Willie into what are euphemistically called the facts of life, managing to be
quite explicit.
Willie listened with fascinated
absorption, and when it was over, the father said, 'Well, Willie, does that
answer your question?'
'No,' said Willie, 'it does
not. Johnny Brown came from Cincinnatti, where did I come from?'
If your father is interested in
genealogy he has misunderstood his inquiry. This is a natural question in
everybody's being: from where do we come? From where? From what source? Now, if
you get into genealogy, you are not getting anywhere. The basic question is
religious; it has nothing to do with genealogy. The basic question is: who is
the ultimate father, or ultimate mother? Now this is pointless. I have a
father, and my father had a father, and of course this goes on and on and you
can go on searching and you can make a big tree of your family, but it is
pointless because the question remains the same - who is the first?
Searching into genealogy, you
cannot come to the first. Always the question will remain - - from whom? I can
move a hundred generations back, or a thousand generations back, but the
question remains the same; it is not solved. From where? From where? From what
source has life arisen?
Your father has missed; he has
misinterpreted a religious inquiry. He has been thinking that it is a question
of genealogy. It is not.
This question, 'From where do I
come?' has to be asked because unless I know that, it is impossible to know who
I am.
There are two ways to know it.
Either you ask, 'From where do I come?' That is the way of the Christian, the
Mohammedan and the Judaic religion. If you know from where you come, what the
ultimate source is, what God is, then you will know who you are. Or, the Indian
religions have a different way of solving it - and a better and more scientific
way.
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism -
they say it is difficult to say from where you come.
There is more possibility that
you may be lost in thinking and in philosophical doctrines.
The better question is, 'Who am
l?' If you know this, you will know from where you come. So they say forget all
about God. They are not worried about who created the world; they are worried
about, 'Who am l?' In a way that is more scientific, because if I can
understand the quality of my being. that will immediately give me the key to
understand the whole and what it is. If I can understand myself... Because the
source must be existing in some way within me still. The tree goes on still
existing in the seed. If you can understand the seed, you will be able to know
the tree; in the fruit the whole tree exists.
If we can understand
ourselves.... Of course this is the closest approach possible because I am
closer to me than anything else. Just close your eyes and you reach into
yourself.
The only problem is how to drop
the thoughts - then suddenly you start sinking into your being. From there is
the door to the whole, to the source.
When you go back home, tell
your father that genealogy is not going to help. He must have some religious
inquiry within him which he has misunderstood. Once he is made aware of It, his
inquiry will be on the right lines.
It is happening in the West
because religion is no longer an accepted inquiry; it is a rejected inquiry. So
people go on seeking religious inquiries through vicarious ways. You cannot
accept directly that you are seeking God - people will think you are mad! 'It
is foolish. What are you talking about? You are not a contemporary then. God is
dead, have you not heard? What are you doing?' But the desire arises to know
the source, and you cannot accept it in religious ways because religious ways
are no longer accepted by the modern mind. So you have to search for it in a
vicarious way. Then you start asking about genealogy.
Religion is a valid inquiry;
whether society accepts it or rejects it, it doesn't matter. Man is a religious
animal and is going to remain that way. Religion is something natural. To ask
from where you come is relevant; to ask, 'Who am l?' is going to remain
relevant always. But the modern mind has created a climate of atheism so you
cannot ask such questions. If you ask, people laugh. If you talk about such
things, people feel bored If you start inquiring in these ways, people think
you are slipping out of your sanity. Religion is no longer a welcome inquiry.
Tell your father. And of
course, genealogy will remain an obsession because this is not the right
inquiry; but once his consciousness shifts to the religious dimension he will
be released from the obsession - and then something is possible. Something of
tremendous import is possible. He wants to know who the real father is, who has
fathered existence, or, who is still mothering existence?.
The last question: Listen to it very
carefully. It is very important.
Question 5: Osho, how do you manage it - to
have always the right anecdote at the right moment?
Let me answer you by an
anecdote.
A king, passing through a small
town, saw what he took to be indications of amazing marksmanship. On trees,
barns and fences there were numbers of bull's-eyes, each with a bullet-hole in
the exact center. He could not believe his eyes. It was superb marksmanship,
almost a miracle of achievement. He himself was a good marksman, and he had
known many great marksmen in his life, but never anything like this. He asked
to meet the expert shot. It turned out to be a madman.
'This is sensational! How in
the world do you do it?' he asked the madman. 'I myself am a good shot, but
nothing compared to your skill and art. Please tell me.'
'Easy as pie!' said the madman
and laughed uproariously. 'I shoot first and draw the circles in later!'
Dig?! I choose the anecdotes
first, and then draw the circles! I am just like that madman.
There are other people who use
anecdotes to illustrate some theoretical point. I do just the opposite. I use
theoretical points to illustrate the anecdotes.