Monthly Archives: December 2008

Question : WHY DO YOU LIVE LIKE A KING?
Osho : Why not? I am an old Jew! You know Jews – if you ask them a question, they answer it with another question.

There is a famous story about a king. He had many Jews in his court because they were rich people, but he was very annoyed by their habit. Whenever he asked anything, they would answer it with another question. He became so tired, so irritated that he asked his Grand Vizier, ’What to do about these people? They cannot be thrown out of the court, but they annoy me very much. Whenever I ask something they always answer with another question.’

The Vizier said, ’It will be good if we ask the rabbi. Call the rabbi. He is a wise old man, he will help us and he will be able to explain to us what is the cause of this Jewish habit.’

So the rabbi was called and the king asked the rabbi, ’Why do you Jews always answer a question with another question?’ And the rabbi said, ’Why not?’
You ask me, ’Why do you live like a king?’

There are four possibilities after you become enlightened. The first possibility Nanak and Marcus Aurelius followed. They were born as kings; after they became enlightened they remained kings. The second possibility Jesus and Kabir followed. They were born as beggars, after they became enlightened they remained beggars.

The third possibility was followed by Mahavir and the Buddha: they were born as kings; when they became enlightened they remained beggars.

Then, I thought, for a change… I was born as a beggar; I decided to live as a king. That is the fourth possibility and there is no other, so I am finishing the last. Somebody had to do it, otherwise history would remain incomplete.

One Zen Master was dying. Just before he breathed his last he opened his eyes and asked his disciples, ’Please help me to find an alternative way to die.’
They asked, ’What kind of question is this?’

He said, ’Should I die lying down or sitting or standing? Have you ever heard of anybody dying sitting?’
They said, ’Yes, we have heard. Many people, particularly Buddhist monks – they sit in a SIDDHASAN in the full lotus posture and die. We have heard of many dying in a sitting posture.’ ’Have you ever heard,’ the Master asked, ’of anybody dying standing?’

They said, ’It is very rare, but we have heard one story that once a Master died standing.’ Then he said, ’Then no other alternative is left. I will die standing on my head.’
And he died – standing on his head. Somebody has to fulfil it. All alternatives have to be tried.

Question : WHY IS LOVE SO ESSENTIAL FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH?
Osho : Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity – just like man/woman, life/death, darkness/light, summer/winter, outer/ inner, yin/yang, the body and the soul, the creation and the creator. Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity, the last polarity, at which transcendence happens.

Love needs two. It is a relationship, it is outgoing, it is energy moving outwards. There is an object: the beloved. The object becomes more important than yourself. Your joy is in the object. If your beloved is happy, you are happy; you become part of the object. There is a kind of dependence, and the other is needed. Without the other you will feel lonely.

Awareness is just being with yourself in utter aloneness, just being alert. It is not a relationship, the other is not needed at all. It is not outgoing, it is ingoing. Love is the movement of the light out of your being. Awareness is the reverse movement, the backward movement of the light to the source again, returning to the source. This is what Jesus calls repentance – not in the sense of repentance, but in the sense of returning to the source.

Patanjali calls it PRATYAHARA, coming back home, Mahavir calls it PRATIKRAMAN, coming back to oneself; the circle is complete. THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER IS based, totally based, on this backward movement of your energy. But the backward movement is possible only if you have moved forward. You have to go into love, you have to relate in order to come to yourself. It looks paradoxical.

The child has to get lost into the world to become a child again. The innocence has to go into all the turmoil of cunningness and calculation to become really innocent again. A child is innocent, but his innocence is that of ignorance. A saint is also innocent, but his innocence is not of ignorance but of experience, of ripeness, of maturity. He is again innocent, but that again has great importance – he cannot be distracted from his innocence anymore.

The child is bound to get distracted: every Adam has to leave the Garden of Eden, the world of innocence. Every Adam has to go into the world, into the mud of it, because only there will you mature, will you ripen. Only there will you learn, only there will you see in contrast the beauty of innocence, will you understand the splendour of innocence.

The day you have learned the beauty of innocence, you have become aware of it, you will have come back home. The Adam cannot become Christ if he does not leave paradise; he will remain a child. Adam means outward movement, Christ means inward movement. Adam means love, Christ means awareness. The circle is complete. The difference between Adam and Christ is only that of direction.

Adam is going extrovertedly, and the same person, when he turns back and becomes introverted, is Christ. Adam is the potential Christ, Christ is the actualized Adam. Love is very essential. You have to lose yourself to gain yourself. Love is the only possibility of losing yourself totally. When you are lost totally, then you will be able to remember what you have done.

It is like a fish which has always lived in the ocean. It will never become aware of the ocean and the benediction of it. It has to be caught in a net, a fisherman has to come to take it out, throw it on the shore. Only on the shore, in the hot sun, will it remember for the first time. Although it lived for years in the ocean, it was oblivious, completely oblivious, of the ocean. Now the thirst, the heat, makes it mindful of the ocean.

A great longing arises to go back to the ocean. It makes every effort to jump back into the ocean. That is the state of a seeker: thirsty to be back at the original source. And if this fish can enter the ocean again… can’t you imagine the celebration! And the fish has lived in the ocean forever but there was no celebration. Now there is the possibility of celebration. Now it will feel so delighted, so blessed.

Love is a must for spiritual growth. And, moreover, love functions as a mirror. It is very difficult to know yourself unless you have looked at your face in the eyes of someone who loves you. Just as you have to look into the mirror to see your physical face, you have to look in the mirror of love to see your spiritual face. Love is a spiritual mirror. It nourishes you, it integrates you, it makes you ready for the inner journey, it reminds you of your original face.

In moments of deep love there are glimpses of the original face, although those glimpses are coming as reflections. Just as on a full moon night you see the moon reflected in the lake, in the silent lake, so love functions as a lake. The moon reflected in the lake is the beginning of the search for the real moon. If you have never seen the moon reflected in the lake you may never search for the real moon.

You will go again and again into the lake to search for the moon because in the beginning you will think, ’This is where the real moon is, somewhere deep down at the bottom of the lake.’ You
will dive again and again and you will come up empty-handed; you will not find the moon there. Then one day it will dawn on you that maybe this moon is just a reflection.

That is a great insight. Then you can look upwards. Then where is the moon if this is a reflection? If it is a reflection you have to look in the opposite direction. The reflection was there, deep in the lake – the real must be somewhere above the lake. For the first time you look upwards and the journey has started. Love gives you glimpses of meditation, reflections of the moon in the lake – although they are reflections, not true. So love can never satisfy you.

In fact, love will make you more and more dissatisfied, discontented.
Love will make you more and more aware of what is possible, but it will not deliver the goods. It will frustrate you; and only in deep frustration – the possibility of turning back to your own being. Only lovers know the joy of meditation. Those who have never loved and have never been frustrated in love, those who have never dived into the lake of love in search of the moon and are never frustrated, will never look up to the real moon in the sky; they will never become aware of it.

The person who loves is bound to become religious sooner or later. But the person who does not love – the politician, for example, who cannot love any person, he loves only power – will never become religious. Or the person who is obsessed with money, who loves only money, who knows only one love – love of money, will never become religious.

It will be very difficult for him for so many reasons. Money can be possessed; you can have money and you can possess it. It is easy to possess money, it is difficult to possess a beloved – impossible, in fact. You will try to possess, but how can you possess a living person? The living person will resist in every way, will fight to the last. Nobody wants to lose their freedom.

Love is not as valuable as freedom is. Love is a great value, but not higher than freedom. So one would like to be loving, but one would not like to be imprisoned by love. Hence, sooner or later you become frustrated. You try to possess, and the more you try to possess, the more impossible love becomes and the more the other starts going away from you. The less you possess, the closer you feel to the other. If you don’t possess at all, if there is freedom flowing between the lovers, there is great love.

Question : Beloved Osho, You’ve said meditation is a flowering. And for us, the perfume of the flower is gratitude. Is there anything we can do for you?
Osho : Yes. Meditation, compassion and gratitude. Whenever you are meditative, you feel blissful; whenever you are in compassion, you feel ecstatic. And then gratitude arises — not towards anyone in particular, gratitude just arises. It is not towards me or towards Jesus, or Zarathustra or Buddha, it is simply gratitude. You feel so grateful just for being here, just for being alive, just for being able to be meditative, just for being able to be in compassion. You feel simply grateful. That gratefulness is not towards anybody, it is towards the whole.

If you feel grateful towards me it is a gratitude of the mind. If you meditate and if you flower in compassion you will feel simply grateful, not grateful towards me. Then there is no “towards” — you feel simply grateful towards all. And when you feel grateful towards all, that is really gratefulness towards me, never before it. When it is a choice you choose me; then your master becomes a point, not the whole.

That’s what is happening everywhere. Disciples get fixed with the master and masters help them to be fixed. That’s not good, it is ugly. When you really flower then your perfume is not addressed to anybody; when you really flower the perfume goes in all directions. It simply moves in all directions, and whosoever passes near you is filled with your fragrance, he carries your fragrance. And if nobody passes you then on that silent, lonely path your fragrance goes on spreading — but it is not addressed.

Remember, the mind is always addressed; being is never addressed. The mind is always moving towards something; being is simply moving towards all. It is a movement without any goal. A goal exists because of motive: you move towards something because there is desire. When there is no desire how can you move? Movement is there but no motivation.

Then you move in all directions, then you overflow. Then your master is everywhere; then I am everywhere. And only when this point comes are you free from the master also. Then you are freed of all relationship, you are freed of all presence, of all bondage. And if a master cannot free you from himself he is not a master at all.

So you need not do anything for me; you do something for you. Meditation, compassion — that is doing for me. Then the presence will come, and not thought by the mind. Right now you think and you feel: What shall we do? Then it is the mind. How to pay the master? He has done so much for you, what should you do? This is the mind thinking in terms of giving and taking. No, this mind won’t help.

One thing you can do for me: drop this mind, allow your being to flower; then you will be fragrant. Then in all dimensions and directions the whole will be happy. You will be a bliss and your gratitude will not be narrow. It will not be towards a point, it will be moving all over, everywhere. Only then do you achieve prayer. This gratitude is prayer.

When you go in a temple and do a prayer, it is not prayer; but when, after compassion, gratitude arises, the whole existence becomes the temple. Whatsoever you touch it becomes a prayer; whatsoever you do it becomes prayerful. You cannot be otherwise. Deeply rooted, anchored in meditation, deeply flowing into compassion, you cannot be otherwise. You become prayer, you become gratitude.

But remember, the mind is always addressed. It has a goal, a desire to achieve. Being is unaddressed; it has no goal, it has nothing to achieve. The kingdom of being is already achieved, the emperor is already there on the throne. You move because movement is life, but don’t move towards any goal, because when there is no goal, there is no tension. Then movement is beautiful, graceful.

Osho on Buddhas work, don’t miss Buddhahood

Osho : I have been working with many, many people, and sometimes they turn when the right moment was going to be; exactly before that moment they turn away. And the mind is cunning enough; it can philosophize, it can say why you have turned away. Exactly at the moment when something was going to happen, you can turn away.

There is more possibility for you to turn away from that moment than from any other moment; it is unfortunate but it happens. You wait and wait and wait, and then the moment is nearing where the evaporating point can be reached, and suddenly you turn away. To resist that turning is very difficult. It is just like death reaching nearer, nearer, nearer, and seeing the abyss you turn away and run as fast as you can.

Remain alert. This misfortune happens to seekers; it can happen to you. Buddha passed through a village many times in his forty years of traveling. One man used to come; he would listen for a few minutes then get up and go away. And this had become a habit; he never listened to Buddha for the whole time Buddha was speaking. He would come, that was certain, and whenever Buddha would come to the town he would wait for that man. He would come, that was certain.

He would sit and for a few minutes he would listen, then, respectfully bowing down to Buddha, he would go away.
Ananda once asked that man, “Why do you do this?”

The man said, “Sometimes this is the peak hour for my business, but I must come just to pay my respects; that’s why I come. But my shop is open and customers are there, and they will not wait. Enlightenment can wait; next time I will hear.” It happened again and again.

The day Buddha died he was near the village, and before his death he said to Ananda, “That man has not come. This is exceptional — he never missed. He always missed in a sense but he never missed. He has always come, now he has not come.”

Then Buddha asked his disciples, “Do you have anything to ask — because soon I will enter into the final samadhi, the final ecstasy, and then I will not be able to come back and answer you.”
They started weeping and crying but there was no question. And Ananda said, “We have asked everything, you have answered everything, and there is nothing. Our minds are blank just thinking that you are going to disappear.”

Buddha asked thrice, again and again. There was no question so he went behind the tree and closed his eyes, just to dissolve into the infinite, to leave the body, and then suddenly the man came. He started fighting with the monks and said, “I must see him. This is the last time; I will not be able to see him again. For forty years I have been missing and I have a question to ask. I have never been able to ask it before because sometimes there was a marriage in my family, sometimes business was at a peak, sometimes I was ill or my wife was ill, and sometimes there were relatives staying. I always missed but now don’t prevent me.”

The disciples said, “It is not possible; now he is dissolving.”
Buddha came out from his ecstasy, from his final samadhi. He came in front of the tree and he said, “Don’t prevent that man. He may have been foolish, he may have missed because of his ignorance, but I cannot be hard on him. I am still alive so let him come. No one should say that Buddha was alive and a man who had come begging was sent back.” Buddha said, “What have you come to ask?”

The man had forgotten the question. He said, “When I came, I knew, but now I can’t remember. Next time I see you I will bring the question.” … And there was going to be no next time.
Buddha died that day, and that man must be wandering somewhere on this or some other earth, seeking a man who can answer his question. That man missed Buddha continuously for forty years.

You can miss me — always remember that possibility. But it will be because of you, not because of me; I am always ready. Whenever you are ready I will hit you, but a deep surrender is needed; before that nothing can be done. You have to die, die as you are, so that which you really are can be born out of you. You have to die as an appearance so that the real can be born. You have to die on the periphery, so that the center evolves and comes out in its luminousness, in its full perfection. All hits are to destroy the seed so that the tree is born. Anything more?

Osho : Meera is a launching place for your pilgrimage. Her scripture is the scripture of love. Perhaps calling it scripture is not right. Take Narada’s BHAKTI SUTRAS — sutras of devotion — that is scripture. There one finds reasoning, method, fixed precepts. It is a system of devotion. Meera herself IS devotion. You won’t find systematic argument. Fixed logic is not found there. There lightning has struck the heart.

In Meera, found nowhere else, is a natural expression of love. There have been other devotees, but they all pale before Meera; they become the background. Meera’s star is a very bright, shining star.

Come, let us go toward this star. If just a few drops of Meera’s juice rain on your life, flowers will bloom in your desert. If in your heart just a few tears make rain clouds like Meera’s rain clouds, and in your heart a melody begins playing as it played to Meera, it is enough. One drop will color you and make you new.

So don’t listen to Meera logically, intellectually. Meera has nothing to do with logic and intellect. Listen to Meera with feeling, with devotion. Look with the eye of trust. Push aside logic, leave it to crawl along the bank. For a little while, let yourself go completely mad with Meera. This is the world of the mad. This is the world of lovers. Only then can you understand, otherwise you will miss.

First, a few things about Meera. Meera’s love for Krishna did not begin with Meera. Such a rare expression of love cannot begin just like that. The story goes back. This Meera is one of the GOPIS — devotees — who was with Krishna. Meera herself has declared it, but the scholars can’t accept it, as there is no historical proof for it.

I accept what Meera says. I am not interested in measuring true and false. To me it is pointless whether it is history or not. Meera’s statement — my agreement; when Meera herself says it, the matter is finished. The question does not arise of someone else raising further doubts about it. And those who raise doubts like this, they won’t ever be able to understand Meera.

Meera says, “I was Lalita. I danced with Krishna in Vrindavan, I sang with Krishna. This love is ancient.” Meera insists, “this love is not new.” And it entered Meera’s life in such a way that it is clear from the very beginning that the pundits were wrong and Meera was right.

Meera was little, some four or five years old, when a SADHU was a guest at her house. When this monk got up in the morning, taking out his idol — a statue of Krishna hidden away in his bag — to set it up to worship, Meera went completely mad.

DEJA VU happened. A memory from a previous existence came. That statue was such that picture after picture began opening. That statue became a catalyst — and once again the story began. It shocked her. Krishna’s form returned to her memory. Again that dark face, those wide eyes, that crown of peacock feathers, the flute-playing Krishna — Meera went back thousands of years in her memory.

She started to cry. She began begging the sadhu for the statue. But the sadhu also had great affection for his idol. He refused to give it; he traveled on.

A whole day passed. She ate no food, and drank no water. From her eyes tears flowed — on and on she cried. Her family was alarmed, now what can be done? The sadhu has gone, where can he be found? And will he give it up? Very unlikely.

And this statue of Krishna was certainly very lovely — the rest of the family felt it too. They had seen many idols, but in this one there was something alive, there was something alert, the aura of this statue was something more.

Certainly someone had carved it with love, not just for trade. Someone had carved it with feeling. Someone had put his total prayer, his full worship into it; or someone who had once seen Krishna had carved it. But the statue was such that Meera was gone, she simply forgot this world. For her the idol must be brought back to stay, if not she will die. This is the beginning of VIRAH — deep longing for God — at the age of four.

That night the sadhu saw a dream. Far away in the next village he slept. A dream in the night — and Krishna was standing there. He said, “Return the statue to whom it belongs. You have kept it for many years, this was a guardianship, but it is not yours. Now don’t carry it on unnecessarily. You go back and give the statue to that girl. It is hers, give it back. It is hers, your caretaking is over now. You have arrived where you were to deliver it, now the matter is finished.” The idol is for the one whose heart contains love for it. Who else?

The sadhu was scared. Krishna had never shown himself to him before. For years he had been praying and worshipping to this same idol — flowers were offered, bells were rung. Krishna had never appeared. He became very frightened. He fled back in the middle of the night. Arriving at midnight he woke everyone up and said, “You must forgive me, I have committed a great wrong.” He fell at the feet of that little girl, gave her the statue and went back.

This event, happening at the age of four or five, reopened her vision. Again the love flowed, again the journey began. Thus a deep relationship with Krishna was started again by this Meera in this lifetime.

This small, accidental event, happening when she was four or five years old… and a revolution happened. Meera remained ecstatic, as if she’d drunk liquor. By the time Meera was thirty-two or thirty-three years old, all those who had been important in her life until then had died. Everyone that her affection went out to, that she had loved, they all died.

Those who have written books about Meera, they all say, “unfortunately.” I can’t say that. I will say, “most fortunately,” because for me there is no such feeling toward death that it is necessarily some form of curse. It all depends on you. Meera used it rightly. Wherever love was torn out, each and every vessel of love gone, she offered this love of hers up to God.

The last stage was staying with her father. Her mother died, her husband died, her father died. There were five deaths passing in a continuum. All her attachments in the world were broken.
She made good use of it. She turned broken worldly attachments into detachment towards the world. And the love that became freed from the world, she offered up to the feet of God. She submerged herself in the passion-song for Krishna.

And these deaths did one more fortunate task — she was shown one thing, that everything in this universe is momentary. If the beloved is to be sought, seek in the eternal. Here nothing is yours. Don’t go astray here, don’t lead yourself astray. Here everything touched will go away. Here death, and death only, increases. This is a graveyard. Don’t get any idea of dwelling here. No one has ever remained here.

All that she’d seen with her own eyes… Thirty-three years old is not very old. She was young. So many deaths happened in her youth that the thorn of death showed her totally, clearly, that life is momentary. And then her mind turned away from all this. Turning away from this one can turn towards the divine.

First Meera danced only at home, before her Krishna statue. Then love began to rise like a flood, and the house could not contain it. Then she danced in the village temples, in the sadhu’s SATSANGS. Then love started rushing in such a flood that she was no more conscious. She drowned, she became absorbed, she became filled with Krishna.

Naturally, as she was a lady of the royal household, of a respected family, trouble came to the family. The family always becomes troubled. A thousand kinds of rumors began to spread in the community, because the matter went beyond the tradition.

You can imagine — Rajasthan of five hundred years ago — women didn’t come out from behind their veils; their faces were never seen in public. And in the royal household, even more difficult. And she began dancing in the streets, she began dancing in the midst of the common people. Even though the dance was for God, to her relatives dance was still dance — there was no difference for them. And those who had been the closest to her were all gone.

Her brother-in-law was on the throne. Wherever Meera sings that the king sent poison, that the king sent a snake in a basket, that the king had thorns scattered in her bed, it indicates her husband’s younger brother. Her husband had passed away.

Her brother-in-law was Vikramajit Singh. He was an angry youth, an ill-natured youth. And this was too much to hear… Meera’s fame was insufferable to him. Meera was so famous, people began coming from far away. Ordinary people came for her darshan; saints, monks, respectable people came too. Hearing the news of Meera they came from afar. The fragrance began to spread. The perfume was like the musk deer; everyone whose nostrils got a whiff of musk had to come.

This is a very surprising thing. From every part of the country people came, but the blind family members couldn’t see. Those people coming became the cause of more difficulty for the family because Meera’s fame was a shock to their egos. The king on his throne thought, “Someone in my own family higher than me? This is unbearable.”

Then he found a thousand excuses, and all the excuses logical — fault can never be found in them: “She is mixing with the commonfolk, with her veil aside. She is dancing in the streets; sometimes while dancing she doesn’t pay attention to her clothes. This is unbecoming. It is not proper for a lady of the royal household.”

But consider the stories: poison was sent and in Krishna’s name Meera drank it; and it is said that the poison became nectar. It must have become! It’s bound to. With so much love, so much welcoming — if someone drinks even poison it must turn into divine nectar. And if in anger, in violence, in hate, in enmity you drink ambrosia it too will become poison.

In these events that have taken place in the lives of enlightened ones, I look for demonstration of this psychological truth. Meera receives the poison as nectar; then it becomes nectar. How you accept the world is how the world becomes. This world is created from your acceptance. This world is the extension of your vision.

It became difficult for Meera to remain in her village, so she left Rajasthan. She went to Vrindavan. “I’ll go to my beloved’s town,” she thought. She went to Krishna’s village, but the same troubles started up. Because he was not there now, Krishna’s village was under the yoke of pundits — brahmin scholar-priests.

There is a lovely episode. When Meera arrived at Vrindavan’s most famous temple, an attempt was made to stop her at the door, because entry to the temple was forbidden to women. The high priest of the temple had never seen women. Meera was a woman, so arrangements were made to stop her.

But those people who were standing by the door to stop her, they were struck dumb. When Meera came dancing, holding her EKTARA in her hand, playing music; and a crowd of devotees behind her, spreading wine in all directions, and all drunk — in that drunkenness those who stood guard were also stunned. They forgot they were meant to stop her until Meera had entered inside.

The breeze was as one wave — it went right in and reached the inner sanctum. The priest freaked out. He had been worshipping Krishna; the tray fell from his hands. He had not seen a woman for years. Women were not admitted to that temple. How had this woman come inside here?

Now think a little… the guards at the door became immersed in feeling, but the priest could not dive in! No, the priests are the most blind people in the world. And to find a more unintelligent person than a scholar is difficult. The guards too were drowned in this juice. This drunken woman, this ecstatic Meera came, came as a wave — they too forgot for a moment, forgot completely what their job was. They remembered only when Meera had gone past.

It was a thunderbolt. Once the EKTARA was playing inside and the crowd had gone in, then they became alert to what had happened. But the pundit did not plunge in. Meera came dancing in front of Krishna, but the pundit was not immersed. He said, “Hey woman, do you understand that women are not permitted in this temple?”

Meera listened. Meera spoke, “I had thought that besides Krishna no other man existed. Are you also a man? I had understood Krishna was the only man and the rest of the world were his beloveds, that all were celebrating with him. So you, too, are a man? I hadn’t thought that there were two. So you are in competition?”

He was shaken. The pundit didn’t understand how to answer now. Scholars have answers to fixed questions, but this question had never been raised before. No one had asked it before Meera, no one had ever asked, “Does there exist some other man? I have never heard of this. You are saying very strange things. Where did you get such arrogance? Krishna is the one man, the rest are all his beloveds.”

But troubles were beginning, after this event. Meera was unable to stay in Vrindavan. We have always given ill treatment to enlightened people. After death we worship them; living we misuse them. Meera had to leave Vrindavan. She went to Dvarika.

Years later the political situation changed in Rajasthan; the kingship changed and the youngest son of King Sanga ascended the throne, Udaysingh Mevar. He was King Sanga’s son and the father of King Pratap. Udaysingh had great feeling for Meera. He sent innumerable messengers to Meera to bring her back: “This is our disgrace. This is Rajasthan’s disgrace that Meera wanders from village to village, moving here and there. This stain will always remain on us. Let her come back. Bring her back. We ask forgiveness for our mistakes. That which has happened in the past is gone.”

People went, pundits were sent, priests were sent to explain and convince, but Meera always gave the explanation, “Now where to come or go? Where should I go now, giving up this temple of my life’s love?” She was ecstatic in the Ranchhordasji temple.

Still Udaysingh tried very hard. He sent a group of one hundred men and said, “Bring her back no matter what. If she doesn’t come, give her a threat. Tell her you’ll fast sitting at the door of the same temple.” And they gave the threat. They insisted, “You must come, if not then we’ll die right here.”

Then Meera said, “This again; if I am to go, then I will go and ask my love. Without his giving permission, I cannot go. So I’ll ask Ranchhordasji.” She went inside and the story is very lovely, very surprising, very significant. She went inside and it is said she never came out again. She disappeared into Krishna’s statue.

This too couldn’t be historical, but it should be, because if Meera cannot merge into Krishna’s statue, then who can? And she had dissolved Krishna so deeply into herself, couldn’t Krishna at least let her be merged into himself? If not then the whole foundation of devotion will be broken. Then the trust of the devotee will be broken. Meera has dissolved Krishna so deeply into herself, then Krishna too has a responsibility.

Be aware, don’t take this as a fact and sit thinking over it. This is truth and truth is very different from fact. Truth is far above facts. Just what is there in facts? Not worth two cents. Fact is not the limit of truth. Fact is that which man’s small intelligence can understand. It is a fragment of truth; truth is vast.

If you ask me, I say it is so. Is has to be. If not, the devotee’s trust is wrong. Meera must have said, “Now what’s your feeling, shall I go now? Where will I go? Either come with me or take me into you.” Ultimately that which you love, you become.
Love with care and understanding. Make your friendships with awareness. Because this friendship is no ordinary matter. Meera’s friendship was with Krishna, and if finally she merged into his image then to me this seems to be completely right. It must be so. It is just so.

Osho on Bhuribai, Osho Enlightened disciple Bhuribai

Osho : Bhuribai is very closely connected with me. I have come to know thousands of men, thousands of women, but Bhuribai was unique among them. Bhuribai’s mahaparinirvana — her death attaining the highest liberation — happened just recently. Count her with Meera, Rabiya, Sahajo, Daya — she is qualified to be among these few selected women.

But as she was illiterate, perhaps her name won’t ever become known. She was a villager, she belonged to the country people of Rajasthan. But her genius was unique; without knowing scripture she knew the truth.

It was my first camp. Bhuribai was a participant in it. Later she also participated in other camps. Not for meditation, because she had attained meditation. No, she just enjoyed being near me. She asked no question, I gave no answer. She had nothing to ask, there was no need to answer. But she used to come, bringing a fresh breeze along with her.

She became inwardly connected to me in the very first camp. It happened. It wasn’t said, it wasn’t heard. The real thing happened! She attended the first lecture… the words and events of the camp that Bhuribai participated in are collected in a book called The Path of Self-Realization. It was the first camp; only fifty people participated.

It was in Muchala Mahavir, an isolated uninhabited ruin in far Rajasthan. Kalidas Bhatiya, a High Court advocate, was with Bhuribai. He served her. He had left all: law practice, law court. He washed Bhuribai’s clothes, he massaged her feet. Bhuribai was aged, some seventy years old.
Bhuribai had come, and Kalidas Bhatiya and ten or fifteen of her devotees came.

A few people recognized her. She listened to my talk, but when the time to sit in meditation came, she went to her room. Kalidas Bhatiya was surprised, as they had come for meditation. He ran over there and asked Bhuribai, “You listened so attentively to the talk; now when the time to do it has come, why did you leave?” Then Bhuribai said, “You go, you go! I understood it.”
Kalidas was very surprised. If she has understood, then why doesn’t she meditate?

He came and asked me, “What’s the matter, what’s going on? Bhuribai says she understands, so why doesn’t she meditate? And when I asked her she said, ‘You go, ask Baapji himself” — Bhuribai was seventy years old, but still she called me Baapji, father — “‘You go, ask Baapji.’ So I have come to you,” Kalidas said. “She doesn’t say anything, she smiles. And when I started to go, she added, ‘You don’t understand a thing. I understood it!”‘

Then I said, “She is right, because I explained meditation — it is non-doing. And you went and
told Bhuribai to come and do meditation. She will just laugh — doing meditation? How to do it, when it is non-doing? I explained also that meditation is just becoming quiet, so she must have thought it’s easier to be quiet in her room than in this crowd. She understood well.

And the truth is she doesn’t need to meditate. She knows silence. Although she doesn’t call it meditation, because meditation has become a scholarly word. She’s a simple direct village woman, she says, chup! — silence! “

When she returned home after the camp, she asked someone to write this sutra on the wall of the hut:

Silence the means, silence the end, in silence, silence permeates.
Silence, the knowing of all knowing: understand it, you become silence.

Silence is the means, silence is the end, in silence only silence permeates. If you would understand, if you want to understand, then only one thing is worth understanding — silence. The moment you know it, you become silent. There is nothing else to do: Silence, the knowing of all knowing.

Her disciples told me, “She doesn’t listen to us. If you tell Bai, she’ll accept what you say. She’ll never refuse you, she’ll do what you say. You tell her to have her life’s experience written down — she can’t write because she’s unschooled. Still, whatever she has known, have it written down. Now she’s old, the time for her to depart is coming now. Have it written down; it will be helpful for people coming later.”

I asked, “Bai, why don’t you have it written down?”
Then she replied, “Baapji, if you say so, it is good. When I come to the next camp, you yourself can release it. I’ll bring it written down.”

At the next camp her disciples waited eagerly, with great excitement. She had put the book in a chest and had it sealed. She had a lock put on it and brought the key. Her disciples lifted the chest on their heads and brought it to me. They asked me to open it. I opened it and took out a booklet, a tiny little booklet of some ten or fifteen pages; and tiny — about three inches long by two inches wide. And black pages without any white!

I said, “Bhuribai, you have written well. Other people write, but they blacken the page only a little bit. You wrote so there’s no white left at all.” She had written and written and written.

She said, “Only you can understand. They just don’t get it. I told them, ‘Look. Other people write. They write a little — they are educated, they can write only a little. I am unschooled, so I wrote on and on, wrote out the whole thing. I didn’t leave any space.’ And how to have someone else write it? So I just went on writing, went on marking and marking and marking — made the whole book totally black! Now you present it.”

And I did present it. Her disciples were very surprised.
I said, “This is real scripture. This is the scripture of scriptures. The Sufis have a book, it is a blank book. They call it The Book of the Books. But its pages are white. Bhuribai’s book has gone beyond this. Its pages are black.”

Bhuribai never used to say anything. When someone used to come and ask her, “What should I do?” she would just make the gesture of touching her finger to her lips — “Just remain silent. nothing else needs to be done.”

Her love was amazing. She had her own way, unique! She doesn’t have to return to this world. She has gone forever. In silence, silence permeates. She has dissolved. The river has diffused into the ocean. She didn’t do anything, she just remained silent. And whoever went to her house she served them. She served them in every way — and silently, quietly.
She was an amazing woman.

Osho on Jealousy, ugliness of jealousy

Question : You speak a lot about the ugliness of Jealousy. Yes, it is quite ugly, but any suggestions to us sufferers of the disease who aren’t Enlightened on how to diminish it?
Osho : First, diminishing it is not going to help. You can diminish it to such proportions that it will almost become invisible, but that is not going to help. Diminishing simply means that you are throwing it into the unconscious and it goes into your basement of being more and more deeply. It becomes invisible. You may not be able to see it, but it will go on working from the back, it will go on pulling your strings from the back. It will become more subtle.

Please don’t try to diminish it. The first thing to remember: rather than diminish it, magnify it so you can see the whole of it. That is the whole process of all the groups going on around here — Gestalt, Encounter, Psychodrama. The whole process is that whatsoever the problem is, please don’t diminish it but magnify it. Bring it totally as it is — even exaggerate it so that you can see every detail of it. Down the centuries in the past, jealousy, anger, sadness, this and that, all have been repressed. The effort was to diminish it.

No, a seed is a diminished tree, but a seed is tremendously powerful. A seed can at any time again produce a tree. The right situation, the right season… and the tree will again sprout. You can diminish your jealousy, it can become just a seed, and you will not be able to see it the tree has disappeared, but it is there.

Diminishing is not the right process. That’s what you have been doing, that’s what you have done to your life: you have diminished everything. And one thing more. When you diminish jealousy, your love will be diminished alongside, because your love and jealousy are so much entangled with each other. If you diminish your sadness, your happiness will be diminished, because your happiness and sadness are so much together. If you diminish your hate, your love will disappear — that’s what has happened. You have been taught not to hate and the total result is that you have become incapable of love.

No, please don’t diminish anything. That is not the way. Rather, magnify, exaggerate, bring it to its total blossoming and then see it — every detail of it, every minute detail of it. In that very awareness, in that very seeing, you will become capable of transcending it and then there will be no need to do anything about it.

The second thing: you say ‘You speak a lot about the ugliness of jealousy. Yes, it is ugly…’. No, you don’t know. You are simply repeating what I have been saying. If you know it is quite ugly, in that very knowing it will disappear. You don’t know. You have listened to me, you have listened to Jesus, you have listened to Buddha and you have gathered opinions.

You don’t know. It is not your own feel that jealousy is ugly. If it is your own feel, why should you carry it? It is not an easy thing, it takes a lot of investment. To be jealous is a very difficult thing: it needs a lot of effort on your part, a lot of involvement. It is so destructive of your own self that if it is ugly and you have known the ugliness of it, you cannot carry it for a single moment. But listening to me you become knowledgeable.

I have heard…
‘You can’t come in here’ the worried mother warned ‘my son is sick.’
‘I want to catch your son’s measles’ the man said ‘because if I kissed the nurse she’d get it. She would kiss the doctor and he’d get it. The doctor would kiss my wife and she’d get it. My wife would kiss the landlord and that’s the guy I’m after.’

It is a great investment, a great effort and a very complex phenomenon. And finally, it may destroy. It may not destroy others — it certainly destroys you; it is suicidal. Not only that it is ugly, it is poisonous; it is suicidal, it is killing yourself every day, slowly, slowly. See the fact of it. Don’t just become knowledgeable. What I say will not become an experience for you unless YOU experience it. And what is the way to experience it? The way is to bring it in front of you. It is hiding behind you.

Don’t just become knowledgeable. What I say will not become an experience for you unless YOU experience it. And what is the way to experience it? The way is to bring it in front of you. It is hiding behind you.

Don’t repress it, express it. Sit in your room, close the doors, bring your jealousy into focus. Watch it, see it, let it take as strong a flame as possible. Let it become a strong flame, burn into it and see what it is. And don’t from the very beginning say that this is ugly, because that very idea that this is ugly will repress it, will not allow it total expression.

No opinions! Just try to see the existential effect of what jealousy is, the existential fact. No interpretations, no ideologies! Forget Buddhas and work, forget me. Just let the jealousy be there. Look into it, look deeply into it and so do with anger, so do with sadness, hatred, possessiveness. And by and by you will see that just by seeing through things you start getting a transcendental feeling that you are JUst a witness; the identity is broken. The identity is broken only when you encounter something within you.

Question : Why has there never been a single Woman Enlightened Master?
Osho : A woman cannot be a Master — it is not possible. When a woman arrives she becomes a Mistress, not a Master. The fulfilment of a woman is love. The flowering of a woman is love. Mastery is not the goal of the feminine mind; they don’t become Masters, they become Mistresses. To be a Master is basically a male effort.

Awareness is the way of man, love is the way Or woman. On the path of awareness it is possible to teach; one can become a Master. On the path of love, how can you teach love? You can flower, you can bloom in love, but how can you teach it? Yes, if somebody wants to learn from you, he will learn it, but you will not be a Master.

And such women have existed: Rabiya, Meera, Mallibai, Magdalen, Teresa. Such women have existed: Sahajo, Daya, Lalla. Many women have existed, but they were not Masters. They were so surrendered to God that they became Mistresses.

Meera says ‘I am a mistress to you. My Lord’ — a mistress to Krishna, to God himself. She sings the song of the glory of her Lord, she dances. If somebody can catch something from her, it is overflowing; but she cannot be a teacher. She is surrendered, her surrender is absolute. Yes, if you are in her company, you will learn what surrender is… but you will have to learn, she will not teach. A woman cannot be a teacher.

To teach, a certain different quality of energy is needed. Let me say it in this way, this is my experience: it is very difficult for a man to become a disciple, very difficult for a man to become a disciple. Even if he becomes, he becomes reluctantly. Surrender is difficult. How to surrender the will? Even if he surrenders, he only surrenders conditionally, in order to become a Master one day. He becomes a disciple in order to become a Master.

It is difficult for a man to surrender; it is very simple for a woman to surrender. It is very simple for a woman to become a disciple, it is very difficult for a woman to become a Master. Even after she has arrived, she remains surrendered. And for the man, even when he has not arrived, he remains deep down unsurrendered. On the surface he will show surrender, but deep down somewhere the ego persists.

A man can become a good Master. A woman can become a good disciple because to become a disciple means to become a receiver, to be receptive, to become a womb. To become a Master means to become a giver.

The same phenomenon continues… as it is there on the biological level, it remains on the spiritual level. Biologically, a woman is ready to receive the sperm from the man she loves. The man cannot become a mother, he can only become a father. He can trigger the process: the woman will become the mother, she will carry the child in her womb for nine months, she will nourish the child with her blood and her being, she will be carrying the pregnancy. The same happens on the spiritual level too.

When a woman comes to a Master she is immediately ready to surrender. If sometimes it happens otherwise — sometimes there are women who are very reluctant to surrender that simply shows they have lost contact with their womanhood. They don’t know who they are, they have become distracted from their centre. They don’t know how to surrender because they don’t know how to be a woman. If you know how to be a woman, if you are a woman, surrender is so simple, it comes so easily.

All the great disciples in the world were women. Buddha had thousands of disciples, but the proportion has always been the same: three women, one man. So was the proportion with Mahavir. He had forty thousand sannyasins: ten thousand men, thirty thousand women. And so was the case with Jesus.

The really devoted people around him were not the men but the women. When he was crucified, all the men escaped, there was not a single man. All those so-called ‘apostles’ had all disappeared, but the women were there. Three women were there: they had no fear, they were ready to sacrifice themselves.

When Jesus was taken down from the cross, it was not by men — those disciples had gone far away, and one or two were there but they were hiding in the crowd women took down the body. And it is very significant that when Jesus appeared after three days, resurrected, he appeared first to Mary Magdalen, not to a man.

This is very significant. Why? What about those twelve apostles? Why to Mary Magdalen? And she immediately recognised him, and she rushed to him and she said ‘So, My Lord, you are still alive!’ And when Jesus appeared to the disciples, male disciples, they would not recognise him, they thought ‘It seems tricky. How can this man come back?’

It is said that when he appeared before two disciples, male disciples, he walked with them for hours and they would not recognise him. And they continued talking about Jesus and Jesus was walking by their side. They were a little puzzled about the appearance of this man — he looked like Jesus but how could he be? ‘Just appearance? — one should not be deceived by appearance alone.’ For two hours they walked together.

When they went to an inn, all three sat there to eat their dinner and when Jesus broke his bread, THEN they recognised. Very materialistic mind. Suddenly they saw… because Jesus’ every act, his every gesture, was his, authentically his. Now they recognised because he was breaking the bread in the same way that they had seen Jesus break bread for years — then they recognised. But for two hours, the presence was not recognised. Magdalen recognised immediately.

When she went to tell the male disciples that Jesus was resurrected, they laughed. They said ‘Woman, you are hallucinating.’ And they laughed and they said ‘This is how women always are — imaginative, dreaming, romantic. Now look at this foolish woman. Jesus is dead. We have seen him die on the cross with our own eyes.’ But she cried and she said ‘Listen to me. I have seen him.’ But they would not listen.

A woman can be a perfect disciple, and this is how it should be. Woman is receptive, an opening, a womb. They have never been Masters in the sense that men have been Masters — like Mahavir, Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. No, they have never been Masters like that. But there have never been disciples like women; no man has ever been able to equal them as far as disciplehood is concerned.

And let me tell you this, that as far as this division of male and female is concerned, the female mind is more blessed. Because the real thing is to receive the truth, the real thing is not to give it that is secondary. And a woman is always more total than a man. Whenever she receives the truth, she becomes luminous: her whole body, her whole being shows it; she carries an aura.

Have you not seen a woman who is pregnant, how beautiful she becomes? Her face glows, she is carrying a new life within her. And this is nothing compared to a woman who really becomes a disciple. She is carrying God himself within her. Her glory is infinite. So don’t be worried why women don’t become Masters. There is no need. If you can become disciples, that is natural and you will always remain true to nature.

Question : Please explain the difference between Rationalisation and ‘Bullshit’.
Osho : ‘Bullshit’ is a far better word than ‘rationalisation’, but they mean the same. ‘Rationalisation’ is a clinical word — a word to be used by the professor, ‘bullshit’ is more alive. ‘Rationalisation’ is bloodless, ‘bullshit’ is very young, alive and kicking. But the meaning is the same, they are not different things.

The henpecked husband and his wordy wife were walking down the country road having one of their arguments in the usual way. She was winning. Suddenly she turned and saw a bull charging down the road. There was no time to warn her husband so she jumped into a hedge. The bull caught the man on its horns and sent him spinning fifty feet into the air. He came down in a ditch. When he finally managed to crawl out, he saw his wife standing on the road.
‘Maria’ he said ‘if you hit me like that again you’ll really make me lose my temper.’

Now this is bullshit. If you ask a psychoanalyst, he will call it a rationalisation. The culture society was organising a group to be comprised strictly of virgins, when a young lady carrying a baby appeared. ‘But, madam’ protested the president ‘that is evidence that you are not eligible for this society. Why do you think you will be able to join?’

‘I was only foolin’ around when this happened’ she explained. ‘So I thought I could get in as one of those foolish virgins.’

This is bullshit. ‘Rationalisation’ is a philosophical term. ‘Bullshit’ comes from the ordinary man, from the masses, people who live on the earth, with the earth, whose hands are muddy. The word ‘bullshit’ is also muddy as it is being used by people who are working, living the ordinary life. It does not come from the ivory towers of a university.

But remember, it is more authentic, it says much more than ‘rationalisation’. And always remember this, that words that are coined by professors are always anaemic. They are dead words — clinical, but do not say much; rather than saying, they hide. Let me say it in this way, the very word ‘rationalisation’ is a rationalisation: it is being used to avoid the word bullshit’.