Monthly Archives: November 2009

Osho – You should find a place which enhances meditation. For example, sitting under a tree will help, rather than going and sitting in front of a movie house or going to the railway station and sitting on the platform; going to nature, to the mountains, to the trees, to the rivers where Tao is still flowing, vibrating, pulsating, streaming all around.

Trees are in constant meditation. Silent, unconscious, is that meditation. I’m not saying to become a tree; you have to become a buddha! But Buddha has one thing in common with the tree: he’s as green as a tree, as full of juice as a tree, as celebrating as a tree, of course with a difference — he is conscious, and the tree is unconscious. The tree is unconsciously in Tao, a Buddha is consciously in Tao. And that is a great difference, the difference between the earth and the sky.

But if you sit by the side of a tree surrounded by beautiful birds singing, or a peacock dancing, or just a river flowing, and the sound of the running water, or by the side of a waterfall, and the great music of it…

Find a place where nature has not yet been disturbed, polluted. If you cannot find such a place then just close your doors and sit in your own room. If it is possible have a special room for meditation in your house. Just a small corner will do, but especially for meditation. Why especially? — because every kind of act creates its own vibration.

If you simply meditate in that place, that place becomes meditative. Every day you meditate it absorbs your vibrations when you are in meditation. Next day when you come, those vibrations start falling back on you. They help, they reciprocate, they respond.

That’s the idea behind temples and churches and mosques; the idea is beautiful. The idea is that it may not be possible for everybody to have a special room for prayer or meditation, but we can have a special place for the whole village — a temple surrounded by trees on the bank of a river where crowds don’t gather, where mundane affairs are not done. When one wants to meditate one can go to the temple. And everybody knows that he is in the temple, he is not to be disturbed.

A sacred place is nothing but a right space for meditation and right conditions. If you are feeling very angry, that is not the time to meditate: it will be going against the flow. If you are feeling very greedy this is not the time to meditate, you will not find it easy.

But there are moments when you are easily available to meditation: the sun is rising and you have seen the sun rising, and suddenly all is silent within you, you are not yet part of the marketplace — this is the moment to meditate. You have been feeling good, healthy, you have not been fighting with anybody today — this is the time to meditate.

A friend has come and you are full of love — this is the time to meditate. You are with your woman and you both are feeling tremendously happy — sit together and meditate, and you will find the greatest joy of your life happening if you can meditate with your beloved, with your friend.

Find the right conditions, and they are always available. There is not a single man who cannot find right conditions. In twenty-four hours’ time many moments come which can be transformed into meditation very easily, because in those moments you are naturally going inwards. The night is full of stars: lie down on the ground, look at the stars, feel in tune, and then meditate.

Sometimes it is good to go for a holiday into the mountains — but don’t take your radio with you, otherwise you are taking the whole nonsense with you. And when you go to the mountains don’t give your address and your phone number to anybody, otherwise there is no need to go anywhere. When you go to the mountains forget all about the world for a few days. That is the meaning of a holiday: it has to be holy, only then is it a holiday. If it is not holy, if it is not in tune with the sacred, it is not a holiday. People carry their world with them.

Once I went to the Himalayas with a few friends, and then I had to ask them to leave me because they had brought their transistor sets and their newspapers and magazines, and the novels that they were reading. And they were constantly talking, talking about things that they had always been talking about. So I told them, “Why have you come to the Himalayas? You were saying these things at your home perfectly well, and again you are talking the same things, the same gossipping, the same rumors.”

And whenever they would go with me to some beautiful spot they would take their cameras, they would take pictures. I told them, “You have come here to see. You have not brought your camera to see the Himalayas!”

But they said, “We shall make beautiful albums, and later on we will see what beautiful places we had visited.” And right there they were not there, they were just clicking their cameras. This stupidity has to be left behind.

And it is good once in a while to go to the mountains. And I am not saying to start living there; that is not good, because then you become addicted to the mountains and you become afraid of coming back to the world. The holiday has to be just a holiday: then come back into the world and bring all the peace and the silence and the experience of the sacred with you. Bring it with you, make an effort so that it remains with you in the marketplace.

These suggestions are for the beginners. When a person has really become a meditator, he can meditate sitting before a picture house, he can meditate on the railway platform.

For fifteen years I was continuously travelling around the country, continuously travelling — day in, day out, day in, day out, year in, year out — always on the train, on the plane, in the car. That makes no difference. Once you have become really ROOTED in your being, nothing makes a difference. But this is not for the beginner.

When the tree has become rooted, let winds come and let rains come and let clouds thunder; it is all good. It gives integrity to the tree. But when the tree is small, tender, then even a small child is dangerous enough or just a cow passing by — such a holy animal — but that is enough to destroy it.

Source – from Osho Book “The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2″

Question – What is the difference between Surrender and Blind Faith or Belief?

Osho – MANY THINGS HAVE TO BE UNDERSTOOD. First, the difference between faith and belief, and second, the difference between surrender and faith. Belief is always blind and cannot be otherwise. Belief, as such, is blind. No belief is possible if you can see, because belief means you don’t know and still you believe. If you know, there is no need of belief. Something you know, you know. There is no need to believe in it. The need for belief comes only when you don’t know. Belief is part of ignorance.

I am here. If you know it, there is no need to believe in it Belief is unnecessary; knowledge needs no belief. If you believe in something it means you don’t know and yet you think you know.

Someone says he believes in God. It means he has not known God yet. That’s why he believes. But the belief creates such an attitude within him that he begins to feel that he knows.
Someone asked Shri Aurobindo, “Do you believe in God?”
He said, “No.”

The man was bewildered. He couldn’t conceive, he couldn’t imagine, that Aurobindo would say no to the question. He said, “What are you saying? Are you an atheist?”
Aurobindo still said, “No.”

The man said, “Why are you creating a puzzle? You say you don’t believe in God and then when I ask if you are an atheist you again say no. What do you mean? You are contradicting yourself.”

Shri Aurobindo said, “Wait a little. You aren’t allowing me to say anything more than no. As soon as I say no, you start asking other things. Wait a little. I was saying that I don’t believe in God because I know him. Because I know him I don’t believe in him. He is. This is not a belief. This is my knowledge, my knowing.”

Knowledge comes from seeing, and belief is blind. Belief, as such, is blind. Even to say ‘a blind belief is unnecessary, because belief means blind. It is just a repetition. Then what is faith? Faith is also blind, but in a different sense. Faith is blind in a different sense because it has its own way of seeing. It is not seeing through reason; it is seeing through the heart.

Knowledge is based on reason. Belief is also based on reason. Knowledge and belief are both in the head. Knowledge has eyes and belief is blind, but both belong to the head, to the intellect. Belief is intellectual. Faith is emotional, intuitive, of the heart. It has its own eyes, but those eyes are not of reason; they are like the eyes of love. People say that love is blind. It is, because it doesn’t have rational eyes. But it has its own eyes, and better ones. The heart has its own reasons and they are better than rational reasons. Faith is trust; it is not belief. Faith is trust, deep love, trusting love.

And the difference. Belief is always in some idea, ideology. Faith is always personal. It is not in some idea but in some person. You can say, “I believe in God” — God is an idea. You cannot say, “I believe in Jesus”; you can only say, “I have faith in Jesus.” It is a personal love affair; it is a deep trust. Faith means faith in someone. Belief means belief in something. Faith is a deep, personal relationship. It has its own eyes, eyes of the heart.

There are basic differences. Reason is analysis, reason is argument, reason is an intellectual process. The heart synthesizes. It is not analytical, it is not argumentative. It is intuitive. What is intuition? When you fall in love with someone, what happens? Can you give any reasons why you have fallen in love with a particular person? Why? Why is Majnu in love with Laila?

It is reported that because of the anguish of Majnu, the king of the country became very worried. Majnu was weeping, crying, moving from street to street looking for Laila, his beloved. Laila’s father had moved from the city because of Majnu. He was not willing for them to be together; he was against it. Even the king heard about the love affair, and the weeping and crying and anguish of Majnu.

He is reported to have called Majnu to the palace. He said, “You are stupid. I have seen your Laila. She is just an ordinary girl. Why are you making a fool of yourself? Look at these girls” — he had called twelve beautiful girls, the most beautiful in the city. He said to Majnu, “Choose any one of them. Laila is nothing compared to any of these girls.”

Majnu said, “But how can you see Laila? To see Laila you need Majnu’s eyes. You cannot see her. You must have missed her, because Laila is incomparable. There has never been a woman like her and never will be. But I understand you. Laila can be seen only through Majnu’s eyes. You cannot see her. That is why she may have looked ordinary to you — because you don’t have my eyes.”

This is intuitive, of the heart. When you fall in love with someone, you don’t have any rational grounds. That’s why we call it ‘falling’ — falling from the head. No one says that someone has risen in love with someone. ‘Fallen’ — because we live in the head and the heart is below. When someone is in love he has fallen from the head, he has gone mad.

Why do you fall in love? What are the reasons? No mathematics is involved, no logic. You need not be an Aristotle to fall in love. Just to be Majnu is enough. When you fall in love what has happened? You have felt something. You have felt something so deeply that your total personality is involved in it, not only your head. Your body, your heart, your soul, everything is involved in it — your totality. This involvement is not something that can be calculated by you. It has happened to you. It is a happening; it is not a doing on your part.

Faith is just like love, with one difference. In love, you are both on an equal level, on the same level. Faith is love with a person who is higher than you. It is love with reverence — deeper than love, higher than love, but love is there. Those who gathered around Buddha were in love, in deep love with the man. Not only in love. Reverence was also there. Love plus reverence is equal to faith.

Faith is something that one should not miss. Belief is just ordinary. It is good not to get involved in beliefs because they make you a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. They make you divided; they make the whole earth a conflict. Beliefs create fight, struggle, wars. Belief divides.

It is good not to have beliefs. But to have faith is a deep experience. Faith will not divide you with anyone; it will unite you with someone. Belief will not unite you with anyone; it will simply divide you with everyone. Ideas, ideology, is divisive. Faith is unitive.

Have faith. That means: be ready to fall in love with someone, with deep reverence. And then, surrender. What is surrender? To surrender is to be ready for faith. Surrender means to be yielding, to allow faith to happen. It means to be receptive, to be unguarded, to be vulnerable, open.

If you come in contact with a Buddha, with a master, yield to him. Don’t resist him, because you are resisting yourself, you are fighting against yourself. If you resist a master you are not allowing him to work; you are not helping him to help you. You are creating problems, unnecessary anxieties, unnecessary barriers. You already have too much nonsense. Don’t create more barriers. The master will have to do much work upon you as you are, even if you have surrendered. If you are nonsurrendering, you are creating unnecessary troubles and it will become impossible to help you. You are working against yourself.

Don’t be against yourself — that is what is meant by surrender. Yield, allow, cooperate, so that something can be done and you can be transformed. The master, the guru, is a person with whom you are in deep love and faith and reverence. It is not just a relationship; it is a deep creativity. He can create you, he can transform you, he can give you a new birth.

But then, you will have to be ready to pass through many things. Many unknown paths will have to be travelled, many unknown doors will have to be passed, many unknown locks will have to be opened. If you are not in a deep surrender, you will not move into this unknown territory; you will resist. You need a deep trust so that when the master moves into the unknown you can follow him like a shadow.
Surrender means a deep yes-attitude to the master — never say no. If you say no, you have taken yourself in your own hands. If you say yes, you are in his hands.

I will tell you one anecdote: There was a great master, a Sufi master. A disciple came to him. This disciple became very famous later on. The disciple’s name was Bayazid.

Bayazid came to his master. The master looked into his eyes and said, “Remain silent.” He had not even uttered a single word; the disciple had not said anything, he had not even been introduced. This was the first thing the master said. He looked into the eyes of Bayazid, the young man, and said, “Remain silent.”

Bayazid thought, “He may be occupied. I will wait.” But this waiting lasted for twelve years. How could Bayazid speak when the master said to remain silent? So he remained with his master for twelve years, not speaking a single word. Many came and went in these twelve years, crowds came and went. Bayazid was there, just waiting, waiting. It was a long, long wait — twelve years. And because the master had said, “Don’t speak. Remain silent,” of course he would not speak to anyone else either. He was totally silent.

By and by, thoughts dropped. If you don’t use them, they drop. By using them, you give them energy and fuel. Finally, thinking stopped. After twelve years of no speaking, no talking, just waiting, the mind dropped. Suddenly one day….

The first time Bayazid had come, the master had looked into his eyes. After twelve years, he again looked info Bayazid’s eyes and said, “Now there is no need to speak” — as if this was the second sentence, connected with the first; as if there had been no twelve years of waiting in between and he was still speaking: “Remain silent. Now there is no need to speak.” But there was a gap of twelve years between these two sentences!

Bayazid laughed. The master said, “Now, you can go and teach others. You are ready. You have become a master in your own right.”
People asked the old master again and again, “How did this happen? This young man was not doing anything and now you say he has become a master in his own right. He was just waiting here, wasting time. He looks stupid, dull. He has not even uttered a single sentence; he may be dumb. He goes on sitting and sitting; he’s just lazy. What are you saying? How can it be that he has become a master in his own right when he has not practiced anything?”

The master said, “But he need not practice anything. He didn’t need to. He simply surrendered, and I could work.” He said, “Then there was no need on his part to do anything else. A total yes was enough on his part. Then I entered him and worked. For these twelve years I have been working. He was simply allowing.”

This is what surrender means. Allow. Relax your ego. Then, much is possible. Otherwise, you go on destroying yourself, doing many things against yourself.

Source – from Osho Book “The New Alchemy: To Turn You on”

Question – Osho, Should Childten be told all the facts of Life, Irrespective of their age?

Osho – Govinddas, IT HAS always been a problem down the ages — what to tell children and what not to tell. Parents have been very much concerned. In the past the strategy was not to tell about the facts of life, to avoid it as far as possible, because people were very much afraid about the facts of life.

The very phrase ‘facts of life’ is a euphemism; it simply hides a simple thing. Not to say anything about sex, even to avoid the word ’sex’ they have made this metaphor, ‘facts of life’. What facts of life? — it is just not to say anything about sex.

The whole past of humanity has lived with that deception, but the children discover sooner or later. And in fact they discover sooner than later, and they discover in a very wrong way. Because no right person is ready to tell them, they have to do their work on their own. They collect, they become peeping Toms — and you are responsible for reducing them to peeping Toms. They collect from all wrong sources, from ugly people. They will carry those wrong notions their whole lives, and you are the cause of it. Their whole sex life may be affected by that wrong information that they have gathered.

Now there is as much wrong information prevalent in the world about sex as is possible. Even in this twentieth century people are living with immense ignorance about sex, even people who you would think should know better. Even your doctor does not really know what sex is, does not know its complexity. He should know, but even doctors live very superstitiously; they also know things from the marketplace. In no medical college is sex taught as a separate subject — such an immense, powerful subject and yet nothing is taught about it.

Yes, the physiology of sex is known by the physician, but the physiology is not all; there are deeper layers: there is psychology, there is spirituality. There is a psychology to sex and there is a spirituality to sex; the physiology is only the surface. Much research has been done there, and in this century we know more than ever before, but the knowledge is not becoming prevalent.

People are afraid, because their parents were afraid and that fear has become infectious. And you are afraid, Govinddas, and you don’t want to tell your children about it. You have to tell your children about it, you owe it to them. And you have to be truthful. Don’t shirk from truth — in the long run truth always pays — and don’t lie.

“Mom, do we get our food from God?”
“Yes, we do, Barbara.”

“And at Christmas time does Santa bring all our presents?”
“That’s right.”

“And on my birthday the good fairy brings presents?”
“Hmm… ”

“And did the stork bring little brother?”
“True.”
“Then what the heck does Pop hang around here for?”

It is better to be truthful! But I am not saying to jump upon your children and start being truthful whether they want it or not. Now that is happening — the other extreme — particularly in the West, because the psychologists go on saying that the truth has to be told. People go on telling the truth whether the children are enquiring about it or not. That too is wrong. Wait! If the child enquires, be truthful; if he does not enquire there is no need, he is not interested yet.

At the dinner table the old man almost choked when his little eight-year-old boy asked, “Daddy, where do I come from?”

Reddening, Pop said, “Well, I guess the time has come for you and I to have a man-to-man talk. After dinner I will tell you about the birds and the bees.”

The kid said, “What birds and bees? Little Frankie down the block told me he came from Chicago. All I want to know is where I come from!”

So wait a little. They themselves will ask, you are not to be in such a hurry. And remember, whatsoever is the case, be truthful, howsoever hard it seems to you. It will be hard for you because truth was not told to you by your parents; for centuries it has not been told. Everybody gathers it from rumors, nobody ever tells it to his own children. People feel embarrassed, afraid that the children may discover. Drop all these fears, and don’t try in any way to deceive the children. It can be dangerous.

The six-year-old Luigino comes back from school where he has learned three new words without knowing their meaning, so he asks his mother, “Mom, what do prick, puss and balls mean?”

The mother, extremely embarrassed, answers, “Well, dear, prick means cheese, puss means chair, and balls mean boots.”

After a few days the grandmother, a pious, prudish country lady, visits her daughter and nephew. She rings the bell and Luigino opens the door. The old woman hugs the child and Luigino, proud of his new vocabulary, says, “Granny, you must be tired. Sit down on this puss.” The woman almost faints, but Luigino goes on without hesitating. “And if you are hungry eat this piece of prick.”

Shocked and horrified the grandmother finally asks, “Luigino, where is your mum?”
“Ah, she is in the room polishing daddy’s balls!”

Source – from Osho Book “The Guest”

Question – Bhagwan, What is Objective Art? Is Creativity somehow related with Meditation?

Osho : Art can be divided into two parts. Ninety-nine percent of art is subjective art. Only one percent is objective art. The ninety-nine percent subjective art has no relationship with meditation. Only one percent objective art is based on meditation. The subjective art means you are pouring down your subjectivity on the canvas, your dreams, your imaginations, your fantasies, your dreams. It is a projection of your psychology in the same way it will be in poetry, in music, in all dimensions of creativity. You are not concerned with the person who is going to see your painting. You are not concerned what will happen to him when he sees your painting; that is not your concern at all. Your art is simply a kind of vomiting. It will help you, just the way vomiting helps. It takes the nausea off, it makes you cleaner, makes you feel healthier. But you have not considered what is going to happen to the person who is going to see your vomit. He will become nauseous. He may start feeling sick.

Look at the paintings of Picasso. He is a great painter, but just a subjective artist. Looking at his paintings, you will start feeling sick, dizzy, something going berserk in your mind. You cannot go on looking at Picasso’s painting long enough. You would like to get away, because the painting has not come from a silent being. It has come from a chaos. It is a by product of a nightmare. But ninety-nine percent art belongs to that category.

Objective art is just the opposite. The man has nothing to throw, he is utterly empty, absolutely clean. Out of this silence, out of this emptiness, arises love, compassion, and out of this silence a possibility for creativity. This silence, this love, this compassion, these are the qualities of meditation.

Meditation brings you to your very center, and your center is not only your center, it is the center of the whole existence. Only on the periphery we are different. As we start moving towards the center, we are one. We are part of eternity, a tremendously luminous experience of ecstasy which is beyond words, something that you can be but very difficult to express it. But a great desire arises in you to share it, because all other people around you are groping for exactly such experiences. And you have it. You know the path.

And these people are searching everywhere except within themselves — where it is. You would like to shout in their ears. You would like to shake them and tell them, that “Open your eyes! Where are you going? Wherever you go, you go away from yourself. Come home back, and come as deep into yourself as possible.”

This desire to share becomes creativity. Somebody can dance. There have been mystics — for example, Jalaluddin Rumi — whose teaching was not in words, whose teaching was in dance. He will dance. His disciples will be sitting by his side, and he will tell them, that “Anybody who feels like joining me can join. It is a question of feeling. If you don’t feel like, it is up to you. You can simply sit and see.” But when you see a man like Jalaluddin Rumi dancing, something dormant in you becomes active. In spite of yourself you find you have joined the dance. You are already dancing before you become aware that you have joined it.

Even this experience is of tremendous value, that you have been pulled like a magnetic force. It has not been your mind decision, you have not weighed for pro and for against, to join or not to join, no. Just the beauty of Rumi’s dance, his spreading energy, has taken possession of you. You are being touched. This dance is objective art.
And if you can continue — and slowly you will become more and more unembarrassed, more and more capable — soon you will forget the whole world. A moment comes, the dancer disappears and only the dance remains. And then there is a meeting with the Master, the synchronicity I have been talking about again and again in different ways from different directions. They are not two. The ice has melted. Slowly, slowly other disciples will be joining.

A famous story is about Jalaluddin Rumi. He was living in a forest monastery with five hundred disciples. Few visitors who were passing by the road just out of curiosity, that “What this fellow Jalaluddin Rumi is doing here? We have heard five hundred people are living with him, but what they go on doing inside this monastery?” They went it. They saw. They could not believe. Five hundred people dancing madly. Nobody even took any note of them. They remained there for at time being, and then they thought that these people are mad. “Returning, we will see what happens. Perhaps we can find them sitting and then we can talk about, ‘What you are doing?’ This time they seem to be completely mad.”

Next time when they were coming back after few months, they again went into the monastery. The five hundred people were there. Nobody was dancing, all were sitting like statutes, with closed eyes. There was a eternal silence. It was even more frightening to those people. Dancing at least there was some activity. Now what has happened to these people? They have gone, seems to be, completely mad. Dancing in the hot sun in the desert for days — this is the result. But they thought, that “When we are coming again for the next trip, we will see what happens.”

Next trip they came, there was only Jalaluddin Rumi. The five hundred has gone. They were very much puzzled: “What has happened? All those people are dead?” That’s what they could logically think. “First they were dancing madly, then they were sitting like statues as if not breathing at all. Perhaps they have all died. This old guy is dangerous! But now at least we can talk something to him.” They reached to him and asked him, “What has happened to five hundred people who used to dance here and then sit?”

Jalaluddin said, “The work is over. They have learned what they have come to learn. Now they have gone to teach others. Are you interested?” They said, “No. We are going for a business trip.”

Jalaluddin said, “You can go for a business trip later on, but this is far
more important.” They said, “Just, please, forgive us. Not this time, because that dance in the hot sun — we cannot manage.”

Jalaluddin said, “You need not be worried. It manages itself. You don’t have to manage it.” They said, “Before we leave, we want to ask, they what happens? Why they were sitting like statutes?”

Jalaluddin said, “When the dancer has disappeared, who is going to dance? There is a momentum — the dance continues for awhile — then that, too, stops. Then comes a period when one is utterly silent, just sitting, doing nothing. But the bliss of it is incomparable. So whenever you can find time, if I am alive you are always welcome.”
There are in India statutes which you have just to sit silently and meditate upon. Just look at those statutes. They have been made by meditators in such a way, in such a proportion, that just looking at the statue, the figure, the proportion, the beauty….

Everything is very calculated to create a similar kind of state within you. And just sitting silently with a statue of Buddha or Mahavira, you will find a strange feeling which you cannot find in sitting by the side of any Western sculpture. All Western sculpture is sexual. You see the Roman sculpture: beautiful, but something in you creates sexuality. It hits your sexual center. It does not give you an uplift.

In the East the situation is totally different. Statutes are carved, but before a sculptor starts carving statues he learns meditation. before he starts playing on the flute he learns meditation. Before he starts writing poetry he learns meditation. Meditation is absolute necessity for any art, then the art will be objective. Then just reading few lines of a haiku, a Japanese form of a small poem — only three lines, perhaps three words — if you silently read it, you will be surprised. It is far more explosive that any dynamite. It simply opens up doors in your being.

Basho’s small haiku I have on the pond near my house. I love it so much, I wanted it to be there. So every time, coming and going…. One of the persons I have loved. Nothing much in it. “An ancient pond….” It is not an ordinary poetry. It is very pictorial. Just visualize: “An ancient pond. A frog jumps in….” You almost see the ancient pond! You almost hear the frog, the sound of its jump: “Plop.”
And then everything is silent. The ancient pond is there, the frog has jumped in, the sound of his jumping in has created more silence than before. Just reading it is not like any other poetry that you go on reading — another poetry, another poetry.

No, just you read it and sit silently. Visualize it. Close your eyes. See the ancient pond. See the frog. See it jumping in. See the ripples on the water. See the sound, hear the sound. And hear the silence that follows. This is objective art.

Basho must have written it in a very meditative mood, sitting by the side of an ancient pond, watching a frog. And the frog jumps in. And suddenly Basho becomes aware of the miracle that sound is deepening the silence. The silence is more than it was before. This is objective art. By ‘objective’ it means the person is not simply trying to get rid of his sickness, garbage, of which he is so full of wants somehow to throw it out.

I used to know a principle. I was only a student in his college, but we became very friendly, because so many complaints were coming against me to him, that finally he thought, “This boy seems to be unique. Every day some professor comes with a complaint, and whenever I call the boy, I always find he is right. This is such a strange thing: that all my professors prove wrong and he is always right. I cannot say that you have done anything wrong.”
We become friendly, I told him, “Whether they send me or not, I will be coming at least once every day!”

He said, “I enjoy your coming, so you can come, whether they send you or not. If they send, good, if they don’t send you, you come on your own. And now we are not going to discuss for what you have done and for what they have sent you. Because I can see, we can discuss far better things. And I love your insight into things.”
So I started going to the principle and then I became aware of one thing, that whenever I will go to him, he will take his earplugs off. I said, “What are you doing?”

He said, “You know, my whole life I have been tortured by all kinds of complaints, finally I decided not to hear anything. Everything is right! So I just keep earplugs. They go on saying; then I go on nodding. And they feel happy and I feel happy. But with you I really want to talk, so I have to take (them out), but don’t tell it to anybody else.”
I said, “This is really a great device. Everybody should use it. It prevents other people pouring their garbage in your mind. And everybody is so interested in pouring his garbage in your mind.”

That I have heard — I told the principle the story, that’s why I remember it — that a thief was caught. And the man, in whose house he was stealing, came to the court and asked the judge to forgive the thief. The judge said, “This is strange. He was trying to steal in your house. Why you want him to be released?”

He said, “In fact, he would have stolen and he would have left, but I was awake, and you know, I am a poet. So I told him, ‘Sit down and listen to my poetry, otherwise I will give you to the police.’ So out of fear he sat down. He returned everything; he said, ‘You take everything, but please don’t tell me your poetry, I am a poor thief and I don’t understand poetry.’”

The poet said, “It does not matter, whether you understand or not. I am enjoying telling it. And if you are going to create trouble, I am going to phone the police. The whole night this poor man has been listening to my poetry; he has suffered enough. And then he was caught by the police. Just release him. And I hope that once in a while he should come and visit me. And no need to catch hold of any thief, because I am capable enough to catch hold of thieves and make them listen to my poetry. I write the poetry with so much effort, and nobody is there to listen to me. So only once in a while I get some audience. And this man was really very attentive. He seems to be a lover of poetry.”

People are ready to throw their garbage, their advice, their wisdom, their knowledge, everybody is ready to catch hold of you and put something in your mind. You are already too much burdened. Subjective art burdens you more. Objective art unburdens you. Subjective art should be part of psychiatric hospitals only. People suffering from mental sicknesses should be allowed painting, poetry, sculpture, anything they want. And it is going to help, it is therapeutic. It will make them healthy.

Now it is being used by few psychotherapists. Carl Gustav Jung has used painting to heal many patients, but that painting should not be allowed to be sold in the art galleries to reach to people, because if they see it, something sick is bound to radiate from it.

Subjective art is good for the artist but not for the one who looks at it, who sees it, who listens it, who reads it. It is harmful to him. And objective art is only one percent, for the simple reason because very few people have been meditating. And out of those very few people, only few expressed their silence into artistic forms.

But my idea is that as your commune matures, as you are finished with your necessary things, your houses, your roads — and they too can be very artistic, they can be expression of your meditation — as you are finished with utilitarian things, I have the idea that the university should be teaching you with meditation, painting, dancing, singing, music, sculpture, poetry, every possible thing.

This commune should become a commune of creators. Unless you are a creator, you will never find real blissfulness. It is only by creating, that you become part of the great creativity of the universe. But to be a creator, meditation is a basic necessity. Without it you can paint, but that painting has to burnt, it has not to be shown to others. It was good, it helped you unburden, but please, don’t burden anybody else, don’t present it to your friend, they are not your enemies. Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art.
Okay, Pratima?

Source – from Osho Book “The Last Testament, Volume3″

Question – I believed I was Uncreative. What else can be Creativity besides dancing and painting and how to find out what my creativity is?

Osho – CREATIVITY has nothing to do with any activity in particular — with painting, poetry, dancing, singing. It has nothing to do with anything in particular. Anything can be creative — you bring that quality to the activity. Activity itself is neither creative nor uncreative. You can paint in an uncreative way. You can sing in an uncreative way. You can clean the floor in a creative way. You can cook in a creative way.

Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach — how you look at things. So the first thing to be remembered: don’t confine creativity to anything in particular. A man is creative — and if he is creative, whatsoever he does, even if he walks, you can see in his walking there is creativity. Even if he sits silently and does nothing, even non-doing will be a creative act. Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree doing nothing is the greatest creator the world has ever known.

Once you understand it — that it is you, the person, who is creative or uncreative — then this problem disappears. Not everybody can be a painter — and there is no need also. If everybody is a painter the world will be very ugly; it will be difficult to live. And not everybody can be a dancer, and there is no need. But everybody can be creative.
Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing it is not purely economical, then it is creative. If you have something growing out of it within you, if it gives you growth, it is spiritual, it is creative, it is divine.

You become more divine as you become more creative. all the religions of the world have said: God is the Creator. I don’t know whether He is the Creator or not, but one thing I know: the more creative you become, the more godly you become. When your creativity comes to a climax, when your whole life becomes creative, you live in God. So He must be the Creator because people who have been creative have been closest to Him.

Love what you do. Be meditative while you are doing it — whatsoever it is! irrelevant of the fact of what it is. Have you seen Paras cleaning this floor of Chuang Tzu auditorium? Then you will know: cleaning can become creative. With what love! Almost singing and dancing inside. If you clean the floor with such love, you have done an invisible painting. You lived that moment in such delight that it has given you some inner growth. You cannot be the same after a creative act.

Creativity means loving whatsoever you do — enjoying, celebrating it, as a gift of God! Maybe nobody comes to know about it. Who is going to praise Paras for cleaning this floor? History will not take any account of it; newspapers will not publish her name and pictures — but that is irrelevant. She enjoyed it. The value is intrinsic.

So if you are looking for fame and then you think you are creative — if you become famous like Picasso, then you are creative — then you will miss. Then you are, in fact, not creative at all: you are a politician, ambitious. If fame happens, good. If it doesn’t happen, good. It should not be the consideration. The consideration should be that you are enjoying whatsoever you are doing. It is your love-affair.

If your act is your love-affair, then it becomes creative. Small things become great by the touch of love and delight. The questioner asks: “I believed I was uncreative.” If you believe in that way, you will become uncreative — because belief is not just belief. It opens doors; it closes doors. If you have a wrong belief, then that will hang around you as a closed door. If you believe that you are uncreative, you will become uncreative — because that belief will obstruct, continuously negate, all possibilities of flowing. It will not allow your energy to flow because you will continuously say: “I am uncreative.”

This has been taught to everybody. Very few people are accepted as creative: A few painters, a few poets — one in a million. This is foolish! Every human being is a born creator. Watch children and you will see: all children are creative. By and by, we destroy their creativity. By and by, we force wrong beliefs on them. By and by, we distract them. By and by, we make them more and more economical and political and ambitious.

When ambition enters, creativity disappears — because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, ‘When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?’ When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future — and a creative person is always in the present.

We destroy creativity. Nobody is born uncreative, but we make ninety-nine percent of people uncreative. But just throwing the responsibility on the society is not going to help — you have to take your life in your own hands. You have to drop wrong conditionings. You have to drop wrong, hypnotic auto-suggestions that have been given to you in your childhood. Drop them! Purify yourself of all conditionings… and suddenly you will see you are creative.

To be and to be creative are synonymous. It is impossible to be and not to be creative. But that impossible thing has happened, that ugly phenomenon has happened, because all your creative sources have been plugged, blocked, destroyed, and your whole energy has been forced into some activity that the society thinks is going to pay.
Our whole attitude about life is money-oriented. And money is one of the most uncreative things one can become interested in.

Our whole approach is power-oriented and power is destructive, not creative. A man who is after money will become destructive, because money has to be robbed, exploited; it has to be taken away from many people, only then can you have it. Power simply means you have to make many people impotent, you have to destroy them — only then will you be powerful, can you be powerful.

Remember: these are destructive acts. A creative act enhances the beauty of the world; it gives something to the world, it never takes anything from it. A creative person comes into the world, enhances the beauty of the world — a song here, a painting there. He makes the world dance better, enjoy better, love better, meditate better. When he leaves this world, he leaves a better world behind him. Nobody may know him; somebody may know him — that is not the point. But he leaves the world a better world, tremendously fulfilled because his life has been of some intrinsic value.

Money, power, prestige, are uncreative; not only uncreative, but destructive activities. Beware of them! And if you beware of them you can become creative very easily. I am not saying that your creativity is going to give you power, prestige, money. No, I cannot promise you any rose-gardens. It may give you trouble. It may force you to live a poor man’s life. All that I can promise you is that deep inside you will be the richest man possible; deep inside you will be fulfilled; deep inside you will be full of joy and celebration. You will be continuously receiving more and more blessings from God. Your life will be a life of benediction.

But it is possible that outwardly you may not be famous, you may not have money, you may not succeed in the so-called world. But to succeed in this so-called world is to fail deeply, is to fail in the inside world. And what are you going to do with the whole world at your feet if you have lost your own self? What will you do if you possess the whole world and you don’t possess yourself? A creative person possesses his own being; he is a master.

That’s why in the East we have been calling sannyasins ’swamis’. ‘Swami’ means a master. Beggars have been called swamis — masters. Emperors we have known, but they proved in the final account, in the final conclusion of their lives, that they were beggars. A man who is after money and power and prestige is a beggar, because he continuously begs. He has nothing to give to the world.

Be a giver. Share whatsoever you can! And remember, I am not making any distinction between. small things and great things. If you can smile whole-heartedly, hold somebody’s hand and smile, then it is a creative act, a great creative act. Just embrace somebody to your heart and you are creative. Just look with loving eyes at somebody… just a loving look can change the whole world of a person. Be creative. Don’t be worried about what you are doing — one has to do many things — but do everything creatively, with devotion. Then your work becomes worship. Then whatsoever you do is a prayer. And whatsoever you do is an offering at the altar.

Drop this belief that you are uncreative. I know how this belief is created: you may not have been a gold medalist in the university; you may not have been top in your class; your painting may not have won appreciation; when you play on your flute, neighbors report to the police. Maybe — but just because of these things, don’t get the wrong belief that you are uncreative. That may be because you are imitating others.

People have a very limited idea of what being creative is — playing the guitar or the flute or writing poetry — so people go on writing rubbish in the name of poetry. You have to find out what you can do and what you cannot do. Everybody cannot do everything! You have to search and find your destiny. You have to grope in the dark, I know. It is not very clear-cut what your destiny is — but that’s how life is. And it is good that one has to search for it — in the very search, something grows.

If God were to give a chart of your life to you when you were entering into the world — this will be your life: you are going to become a guitarist — then your life would be mechanical. Only a machine can be predicted, not a man. Man is unpredictable. Man is always an opening… a potentiality for a thousand and one things. Many doors open and many alternatives are always present at each step — and you have to choose, you have to feel. But if you love your life you will be able to find.

If you DON’T love your life and you love something else, then there is a problem. If you love money and you want to be creative, you cannot become creative. The very ambition for money is going to destroy your creativity. If you want fame, then forget about creativity. Fame comes easier if you are destructive. Fame comes easier to an Adolf Hitler; fame comes easier to a Henry Ford. Fame is easier if you are competitive, violently competitive. If you can kill and destroy people, fame comes easier.

The whole history is the history of murderers. If you become a murderer, fame will be very easy. You can become a prime minister; you can become a president — but these are all masks. Behind them you will find very violent people, terribly violent people hiding, smiling. Those smiles are political, diplomatic. If the mask slips, you will always see Genghis Khan, Timur Leng, Nadir Shah, Napoleon, Alexander, Hitler, hiding behind.

If you want fame, don’t talk about creativity. I am not saying that fame never comes to a creative person, but very rarely it comes, very rarely. It is more like an accident, and it takes much time. Almost always it happens that by the time fame comes to a creative person, he is gone — it is always posthumous; it is very delayed.

Jesus was not famous in his day. If there were no Bible, there would have been no record of him. The record belongs to his four disciples; nobody else has ever mentioned him, whether he existed or not. He was not famous. He was not successful. Can you think of a greater failure than Jesus? But, by and by, he became more and more significant; by and by, people recognized him. It takes time.

The greater a person is, the more time it takes for people to recognize him — because when a great person is born, there are no criteria to judge him by, there are no maps to find him with. He has to create his own values; by the time he has created the values, he is gone. It takes thousands of years for a creative person to be recognized, and then too it is not certain. There have been many creative people who have never been recognized. It is accidental for a creative person to be successful. For an uncreative, destructive person it is more certain.

So if you are seeking something else in the name of creativity, then drop the idea of being creative. At least consciously, deliberately, do whatsoever you want to do. Never hide behind masks. If you really want to be creative, then there is no question of money, success, prestige, respectability — then you enjoy your activity; then each act has an intrinsic value. You dance because you like dancing; you dance because you delight in it. If somebody appreciates, good, you feel grateful. If nobody appreciates, it is none of your business to be worried about it. You danced, you enjoyed — you are already fulfilled.

But this belief of being uncreative can be dangerous — drop it! Nobody is uncreative — not even trees, not even rocks. People who have known trees and loved trees, know that each tree creates its own space, each rock creates its own space. It is like nobody else’s space. If you become sensitive, if you become capable of understanding, through empathy, you will be tremendously benefited. You will see each tree is creative in its own way; no other tree is like that — each tree is unique; each tree has individuality, each rock has individuality. Trees are not just trees — they are people. Rocks are not just rocks — they are people. Go and sit by the side of a rock — watch it lovingly, touch it lovingly, feel it lovingly.

It is said about a Zen master that he was able to pull very big rocks, remove very big rocks — and he was a very fragile man. It was almost impossible looking at his physiology! Stronger men, very much stronger than him, were unable to pull those rocks, and he would simply pull them very easily.

He was asked what his trick was. He said, “There is no trick — I love the rock so the rock helps. First I say to her, ‘Now my prestige is in your hands, and these people have come to watch. Now help me, cooperate with me.’ Mm? — then I simply hold the rock lovingly… and wait for the hint. When the rock gives me the hint — it is a shudder, my whole spine starts vibrating — when the rock gives me the hint that she is ready, then I move. You move against the rock; that’s why so much energy is needed. I move with the rock, I flow with the rock. In fact, it is wrong to say that I remove it — I am simply there. The rock removes itself.”

One great Zen master was a carpenter, and whenever he made tables, chairs, somehow they had some ineffable quality in them, a tremendous magnetism. He was asked, “How do you make them?”
He said, “I don’t make them. I simply go to the forest: the basic thing is to enquire of the forest, of trees, which tree is ready to become a chair.”

Now these things look absurd — because we don’t know, we don’t know the language. For three days he would remain in the forest. He would sit under one tree, under another tree, and he would talk to trees — and he was a mad man! But a tree is to be judged by its fruit, and this master has also to be judged by his creation. A few of his chairs still survive in China — they still carry a magnetism. You will just be simply attracted; you will not know what is pulling you. After a thousand years! — something tremendously beautiful.

He said, “I go and I say that I am in search of a tree who wants to become a chair. I ask the trees if they are willing; not only willing: cooperating with me, ready to go with me — only then. Sometimes it happens that no tree is ready to become a chair — I come empty-handed.”

It happened: The Emperor of China asked him to make him a stand for his books. And he went and after three days he said, “Wait — no tree is ready to come to the palace.”

After three months the Emperor again enquired. The carpenter said, “I have been going continuously. I am persuading. Wait — one tree seems to be leaning a little bit.”
Then he persuaded one tree. He said, “The whole art is there! — when the tree comes of its own accord. Then she is simply asking the help of the carpenter.”

You can go and ask Asheesh — he has a feel for wood, and wood also has a feel for him. If you are loving you will see that the whole existence has individuality. Don’t pull and push things. Watch, communicate; take their help — and much energy will be preserved.
Even trees are creative, rocks are creative. You are man: the very culmination of this existence. You are at the top — you are conscious.

Never think with wrong beliefs, and never be attached to wrong beliefs, that you are uncreative. Maybe your father said to you that you are uncreative, your colleagues said to you that you are uncreative. Maybe you were searching in wrong directions, in directions in which you are not creative, but there must be a direction in which you are creative. Seek and search and remain available, and go on groping — unless you find it.

Each man comes into this world with a specific destiny — he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally — you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The Whole intends to do something through you.

Source – from Osho Book “A sudden clash of Thunder”

Question – Why are the boys in the muslim heaven so much more nauseating than the golden apsaras without any perspiration, of the hindu paradise? Your condemnation of homosexuality, not only in this lecture, doesn’t seem very compassionate.

Osho – Truth is never compassionate or is always compassionate. It depends on you, how you look at it. One thing is certain: truth is truth — compassionate or not. This has to be understood.

Homosexuality has grown out of a male-dominated world. Homosexuality is a disease because of male domination; it is not a natural phenomenon. And there is every possibility that homosexuality is going to grow more and more — the possibility that even states and governments and religions will start preaching homosexuality. Within fifty years, you will see it happening. Just as governments are now preaching birth control, abortion, they will preach homosexuality — because the population is impossible, and homosexuality is going to be one of the ways to prevent new people coming to the earth.

Sooner or later, each government of the world is going to allow homosexual marriages — men marrying men, women marrying women. This is going to happen. Already, many more people are moving into homosexuality. The disease has come out of male domination. Just as I said the other day, all the cultures that have come out of the Judaic tradition are homosexual: Mohammedan, Christian, Jewish. The reason is, Judaism is one of the most male-oriented communities — it had to be. They have suffered so much; they have been wanderers, for centuries they had no nation, nowhere to live. Of course, the man became more and more powerful — he had to protect the woman, the children — and the society became more and more centered around the man. Only a relaxed society, when things are going beautifully and there is plenty of food and there is no war, becomes heterosexual. Otherwise, when there is war, continuous struggle, the society leans towards male domination.

In the East, homosexuality has never been a problem. In fact, it has existed only in rare cases. Particularly in India, homosexuality has not been a problem at all. It has been so exceptional, it has not even been discussed. The reason? — the country has lived in tremendous peace, well-being, satisfied. Wars have been there, but India has not fought any war on its own. Somebody came — India was always ready to be conquered; it has not bothered much. Those who came were homosexuals — because the army has to be basically male, and all armies become homosexual. Armies — because only men are there — where are they going to put their love, the energy? They are forced to go homosexual.

So any country that has been continuously in war becomes homosexual. Or, male-oriented communities — for example, monasteries: Buddhist monasteries, Jaina monasteries, Catholic monasteries, all became the breeding grounds of homosexuality because only men were allowed. It has not been researched well, but if one goes deep into it, it will be found always that whenever men will be alone together, homosexuality is bound to be there.

Now the same thing is happening in the world of women also, because the women’s lib movement is the first thing in the world up to now where women are meeting with women and basically women oriented groups are being created. Lesbianism is happening. When women are together and against men, where are they going to put their love? The man is the enemy: they have to love women.

Homosexuality and lesbianism both are growing; these are simple facts. A few things to be understood: I am not saying anything against homosexuality — because I know there are many homosexuals around here. If you are not interested in any higher possibilities, homosexuality is as good as heterosexuality. There is no problem in it. If it is only a question of sexual release, homosexuality is as good as heterosexuality. But if you are interested in higher growth, then you will be in trouble.

Each child born is masturbatory, because the child first learns to love himself. That is the only natural way. He knows nobody else, he plays with his own body. each child born is naturally masturbatory: that is his first love. The second stage of his growth is, he becomes homosexual — naturally so. He has loved himself: if he is a boy, certainly he starts loving other boys — his love is spreading. Girls are very far away, a totally different kind of animal. He loves himself — it is easier for him to love other boys. A girl loves herself — it is easier for her to love other girls; the boys are a world apart. This is the second step, NATURAL step: masturbatory, then homosexuality.

Then the third thing, the third wave, is when you start loving the other — the opposite. Man and woman are polarities, and when polarities meet, only then is there challenge. Yes, there is conflict — and that conflict is the challenge. A homosexual love affair can be more convenient, true, because there is not much conflict. Both are alike: they understand each other, they know each other’s ways and each other’s mind. There is no polarity — and if there is no polarity of course there is no conflict, but there is no growth either. With polarity, conflict arises, challenge — to penetrate and know the other, to understand the ways of the other. And it is part of spiritual growth that a man should come to know the woman and the woman should come to know the man.

Why do I say it is part of spiritual growth? Just the other day, I was saying that at the last moment, at the sixth chakra — AJNA chakra — one has to come to a tremendous meeting of the man and the woman. You are also divided inside into two: man and woman. If you cannot meet with the outer woman, it will be very difficult for you to make space for the inner woman. If you cannot love the other on the outside, it will be impossible for you to create a loving space for the other inside you. A man is not only man, he is man-woman together. He is born out of a man and a woman — fifty-fifty percent he is, and so is a woman. and the ultimate inner meeting, the union, the inner alchemy, is possible only if you have learned the ways in the outside world.

When a man falls in love with a woman he is learning something. When a man falls in love with a man he is not learning anything. When a woman falls in love with a man she is learning something — something of the unknown, something of the opposite, something of the quite other. Man and woman in love, means the right hemisphere in love with the left hemisphere.

So if you are interested in spiritual growth then you have to grow from homosexuality towards heterosexuality. If you are not interested in spiritual growth then there is nothing wrong. You can remain — heterosexual or homosexual, it is all the same. I think I have made it clear. If you are not interested in spiritual growth, then there is no problem. I am not against homosexuality, I am not against anything. It is your life — you have to decide; who am I? I am simply stating a fact that ultimately, inside your being, a meeting is going to happen: be prepared for that meeting. And the outer love with the other prepares you.

The more you understand the woman and the man outside you, the more you will have an understanding of the inner polarity. And one day, at the sixth center of your being — what yoga calls AJNA chakra, and yesterday I called “superconsciousness” — there you will feel that your understanding of the woman and the man helps you tremendously. There, intuition and logic meet, imagination and will meet, initiative and reception meet. You will find it easy. You have learned the ways from the outside world — now you can use them for your inner alchemy.

So let me repeat it. There are many homosexuals here, lesbians too, and that’s natural because there are so many Jews here. And in a way there is some relationship why they are here, why they are attracted towards me; there is some reason in it. Homosexuals, lesbians, they are always inventive people… in fact, they have invented homosexuality. They are always revolutionary people, they are never orthodox. They have discovered a new way in their sexual life. Mm? — they have improved upon nature, they have moved away from nature. They are inventive people, they are not traditional. Hence, more and more homosexuals will be coming to me, because whatsoever I am saying is so untraditional, only very revolutionary minds can come to me. But then there is going to be trouble too. You become attracted towards me because my teachings are so untraditional, so rebellious; you become attracted. My teachings are rebellious, my teachings are unorthodox, but I cannot support any lie. I cannot say to you that your homosexuality is as it should be. I cannot support it… and if you are really revolutionary, try to find out a way.

Go into nature and see. Animals become homosexual only when they are put in a strange situation, otherwise not. In a zoo, animals become homosexual, but never in nature — rarely. In nature they always turn to be heterosexual. In a zoo, they can turn homosexual because they cannot find the female, or the female cannot find the male. That’s an unnatural condition, an artificial condition.

Man also turns homosexual when he is in an unnatural situation. It is not natural — and that is why so many people are turning all over the world, because the whole human situation is very unnatural today; it has never been so unnatural. Everything is artificial. We have gone far away from nature in every other way, so we are going far away from nature in sexuality also. Everything is interlinked and connected. You live in an artificial house, you live with artificial mechanisms, you live in an artificial world — the asphalt roads, technology — everything is artificial. Naturally, your sexual energies will start becoming artificial too.

Man is living in a zoo; it is not a human society, because it is not natural. Hence, sexuality is becoming more and more perverted, finding perverted ways — and I can understand it. The more man has become intelligent, he wants to find new ways: and homosexuality is a new way — so contrary to nature; an invention, a discovery that you can relate man-to-man or woman-to-woman.

There are people who are even more revolutionary. They are relating to false toys. You can make a woman, a plastic woman, and make love to her. That is even more revolutionary — and more convenient too. any moment you can pack her back in your bag, and you can carry her anywhere you want. Homosexuality is more convenient than heterosexuality because the language is the same. But convenience is not the goal: growth is the goal. Growth always happens through inconvenience. Growth always happens through pain, challenge.

If you are interested in spiritual growth, move towards heterosexuality. If you are not interested in that, then there is no problem. If you want to go beyond, if you really want to search your innermost being, the inner space, then heterosexuality will be helpful. Just as I said to you: first stage is masturbatory, second stage is homosexual, third stage is heterosexual, fourth stage is asexual — that is the state of BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy. And only when you have achieved to the fourth stage will you be able to penetrate to the uttermost core of your being — otherwise not.

A masturbatory person remains childish, a homosexual person remains juvenile, a heterosexual person remains animal. These stages have to be passed. Don’t get stuck anywhere. And I am not condemning, remember always; I have no condemnation for anything. Sometimes homosexuals come to me and they say, “But Beloved Master, we feel it is good.” I say, “Okay. If you feel good, it is your life. Who I am to condemn it, and for what? Why should I condemn it? It is your life; if you decide to live it in this way, good. Live it with all my blessings.” But I feel sorry, deep down — sorry because their growth will be hindered, sorry because they will not know what great possibilities they were carrying within themselves.

Sex is not an ordinary thing. It is one of the most substantial parts of your being. One should not be so unalert about it. It is the foundation of your being: you are born through sex, you live through sex; your birth is through sex, your youth is through sex, your love is through sex, and your death is going to happen through sex. Your whole life is a sexual affair. One should be very very alert and watchful of what one is going to do with one’s sex energy.

Source – from Osho Book “The Divine Melody”

Question – Beloved Master, How can I be myself?
Osho – That should be the easiest thing in the world, but it is not. To be oneself one need not do anything; one already is. How can you be otherwise? How can you be anybody else? But I can understand the problem. The problem arises because the society corrupts everybody. The society up to now has been a great corruption. It corrupts the mind, the being. It enforces things on you and you lose contact with yourself. It tries to make something else out of you than that which you were meant to be. It puts you off your center. It drags you away from yourself. It teaches you to be like a Christ or to be like a Buddha or to be like this and that; it never says to you to be yourself. It never allows you freedom to be. It enforces foreign outside images on your mind.

Then the problem arises. You can pretend at the most, and when you pretend you are never satisfied. You always want to be yourself — that is natural — and the society does not allow it. It wants you to be somebody else. It wants you to be phoney. It does not want you to be real, because real people are dangerous people, real people are rebellious people. Real people cannot be controlled so easily, real people cannot be regimented. Real people will live their reality in their own way — they will do their thing; they won’t bother about other things. You cannot sacrifice them. In the name of religion, in the name of the state, nation, race, you cannot sacrifice them. It is impossible to seduce them for any sacrifice. Real people are always for their own happiness. Their happiness is ultimate: they are not ready to sacrifice it for anything else. That’s the problem.

So the society distracts every child: it teaches the child to be somebody else. And by and by the child learns the ways of pretension, hypocrisy. And one day — this is the irony — the same society starts talking to you in this way, starts saying to you: What has happened to you? Why are you not happy? Why do you look miserable? Why are you sad? And then come the priests. First they corrupt you, the distract you from the path of happiness — because there is only one happiness possible and that is to be yourself — then they come and say to you: Why are you unhappy? Why are you miserable? And then they teach you ways to be happy. First they make you ill and then they sell medicines. It is a great conspiracy.

I have heard…
A little old Jewish lady sits down on a plane next to a big Norwegian. She keeps staring and staring at him. Finally she turns to him and says, “Pardon me, are you Jewish?”
He replies, “No.”
A few minutes go by, and she looks at him again and asks, “You can tell me — you are Jewish, aren’t you?”
He answers, “Definitely not.”
She keeps studying him and says again, “I can tell you are Jewish.”
In order to get her to stop annoying him the gentleman replies, “Okay, I’m Jewish.”
She looks at him and shakes her head back and forth, and says, “You don’t look it.”

That’s how things are. You as me, “How can I be myself?” Just drop the pretensions, just drop this urge to be somebody else, just drop this desire to look like Christ, Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, to look like your neighbor. Drop competition and drop comparison and you will be yourself. Comparison is the poison. You are always thinking in terms of how the other is doing. He has got a big house and a big car and you are miserable. He has got a beautiful woman and you are miserable. And he is climbing up on the staircase of power and politics and you are miserable. Compare, and you will imitate. If you compare yourself with the rich people, you will start running in the same direction. If you compare yourself with the learned people, you will start accumulating knowledge. If you compare yourself with the so-called saints, you will start accumulating virtue — and you will be imitative. And to be imitative is to miss the whole opportunity to be oneself.

Drop comparison. You are unique. Nobody else is like you, nobody else has ever been like you, and nobody else is ever going to be like you. You are simply unique — and when I am saying you are unique, I am not saying you are better than others, remember. I am simply saying they are also unique. To be unique is an ordinary quality of every being. To be unique is not a comparison, to be unique is as natural as breathing. Everybody is breathing and everybody is unique. While you are alive, you are unique. Only corpses are all alike; alive persons are unique. They are never similar — they cannot be. Life never follows any repetitive course. God never repeats: he goes on singing a new song every day, he paints something new every day.

Respect your uniqueness, and drop comparison. Comparison is the culprit. Once you compare, you are on the track. Don’t compare with anybody — he is not you, you are not he. You are going to be yourself, he is going to be himself: let him be, and you relax into your being. Start enjoying whatsoever you are. Delight in the moments that are available to you. Comparison brings future, comparison brings ambition, and comparison brings violence. You start fighting, struggling, you become hostile.

Life is not something like a commodity. Happiness is not something like a commodity, that if others have it, you cannot — “how can you have it, if others have happiness?” — happiness is not a commodity at all. You can have as much as you want. It simply depends on you. Nobody is competitive about it, nobody is a competitor to you. Just as the garden is beautiful — you can look and appreciate, somebody else can look and appreciate. Because somebody else is appreciating the garden and saying it is beautiful, you are not hindered; he is not exploiting you. The garden is not less because he has appreciated it; because he is enthralled by its beauty the garden is not less. In fact, the garden is more so — because he has appreciated it he has added a new dimension to the garden.

People who are happy are in fact adding some quality to existence — just by being happy they are creating vibes of happiness. You can appreciate this world more and more if more and more people are happy. Don’t think in terms of competition. It is not that if they are happy how can you be happy? — you have to jump on them and snatch happiness away, you have to compete. Remember, if people are unhappy it will be very difficult for you to be happy. Happiness is available to everybody — whosoever opens his heart, happiness is always available. This happiness I call God.

It is not that somebody has achieved; it is not like a political post — one person has become the president of a country, now everybody cannot become the president, true. But one person has become enlightened: that does not hinder anybody else from becoming enlightened — in fact, it helps. Because Buddha became enlightened it has become easier for you to become enlightened. Because Christ became enlightened it has become easier for you to become enlightened. Somebody has walked on the path: footprints are there, he has left subtle hints for you; you can go more easily, in deeper confidence, with less hesitation. The whole earth can become enlightened, each single being can become enlightened. But everybody cannot become a president. This country has six hundred million people — only one person can become the president. Of course it is a competitive thing. But all six hundred million people can become enlightened — that’s not a problem.

All that is divine is noncompetitive — and your being is divine. So just sort it out. The society has muddled your head; it has taught you the competitive way of life. Religion is a noncompetitive way of life. Society is ambition, religion is nonambitious. And when you are nonambitious, only then can you be yourself. This is simple.

Source – from Osho Book “The Divine Melody”

Question – Beloved Osho, Why do I always Compromise?

Osho – One compromises because one is not certain about one’s truth, one is not certain about one’s own experience. The moment you have experienced something, it is impossible to compromise. There is no possibility at all. You compromise only because your idea is only a mind thing, a borrowed thought. You don’t know whether it is right or wrong, so even if half proves to be right, it is not a bad bargain.

There is an ancient story in Egypt. Two women came to the court of the king with a small child. They contended — both of them — that, “The child belongs to me, he is my child.” And each woman was persistent — “The child is mine.”
The king had to decide, and it was very difficult — how to decide? The husbands of both women had died in war, in the service of the king.
Finally he asked his master, an old wise man. The master came and he said, “It is very simple. Bring the child.”

The child was brought to the master, who asked the king to cut him in two, and give half to each woman. “What is the problem? They both say the child is theirs. There being no other evidence, no witness, justice demands that the child should be divided into two.”
The king was shocked. He said, “What are you saying?”
But before the king could say anything more, the master drew the king’s sword out of its sheath. And one woman ran forward and said, “No! Give the child to the other; he is not mine.”

The master gave the child to the woman who had run forward and said he was not hers. The king said, “What is happening? I don’t understand. The woman is saying the child is not hers.”
The master said, “Only the mother couldn’t stand to see the child cut in two. The other woman is withstanding it perfectly well, without any difficulty — if the child is cut in two, it is cut, there is no harm, it is not her child. She is ready to compromise, even if half a dead child is given to her. But the other woman is not ready to compromise — either the whole child or no child.”

When you have a truth, you are almost like a mother — you have given birth to an experience. Either you would like to have it total, or you would not like to have it at all. But you cannot be ready to cut it in two, because any living experience cut in two becomes dead. All compromises are dead.

Nobody in the whole history of man who has known anything about truth has ever compromised. Rather, he has been ready to die for it. It happened with al-Hillaj Mansoor. His master Junnaid loved him very much — he was a man worthy to be loved — and he tried to persuade him for years, “In your room you can shout Ana’l hag — `I am God’ — but don’t do that in the streets. You know that the people are fanatic, I also know the fact.”

But al-Hillaj said, “You only know the fact. I have experienced it. You have compromised with the society, you are a respected teacher. I don’t want any respectability, but I will not hide my truth. Truth is like fire, you cannot hide it. I have to shout it from the housetops.”

And in a Mohammedan country — where fanaticism is the rule, not the exception — he was immediately caught, and brought before the caliph because “This is against our religion; there is only one God, and he is in the heavens. You are just a mortal being. Even Mohammed has not said, `I am God.’ He simply says, `I am the messenger of God.’ And you are saying that you are God. Are you mad? Either stop it, or death is the only punishment for it.”

Al-Hillaj said, “Death is accepted, but I cannot compromise on this point. It is my experience, I am god. And I say you are also god — but your god is asleep and my god is awake.”

Junnaid again came into the jail to persuade him, “This is foolish. You are such a beautiful young man, with a great future. You can become a great teacher. I know that what you are saying is right, but can’t you compromise?”

Al-Hillaj said, “With all honor I want to say to you, you don’t know. That’s why you have compromised. You have heard — I have seen. You have read — I have been. Death does not matter, but compromise is simply out of the question.”

And the day he was crucified, thousands of people came to throw stones, to condemn him. Junnaid also came; he loved him, he was his student, and he knew that he had immense possibilities of growth. And he had understood perfectly well that he himself was only knowledgeable, and al-Hillaj had experienced.

But this is how compromise works. Everybody was throwing stones — not to throw a stone was to risk that people may think, “This man is in favor of al-Hillaj.” So he brought a roseflower so that when so many people in the crowd are throwing stones he could throw the roseflower; people will see that he has thrown something, but who knows that he has thrown the roseflower?

The mind of compromise… nobody should suspect that he has not thrown a stone. So he is compromising on two grounds: one with the people, that he has thrown a stone… and he is compromising with al-Hillaj also. Because al-Hillaj must be looking out for Junnaid, to see whether he has come or not, and it would be very cowardly not to go.
al-Hillaj was smiling when stones were showering on him, hurting him, and blood was flowing all over the body. But when the roseflower of Junnaid hit him, he started crying. Tears came to his eyes.

Somebody asked, “What happened? So many stones and you continued to smile, and somebody has thrown a roseflower and tears have come to your eyes.”
al-Hillaj said, “Yes, because the people who are throwing stones don’t know me. And the person who has thrown the roseflower knows me, knows my truth. But he is a coward, and I am ashamed that I have been a student of this man. Stones don’t matter. But this roseflower has hit me hard.”

Compromise simply means you are on uncertain ground. Rather than compromising, find grounding, roots, individuality. Find a sincerity of feeling, the support of your heart. Then whatever the consequence, it does not matter. The man who knows, knows perfectly well that no harm is possible. You can kill him, but you cannot harm him.

And the man who does not know is always trembling, always worried. In that worrying and trembling, that anguish, he goes on compromising with everybody — just to be safe, not to be harmed. But what are you trying to save? You don’t have anything to save. Those who have something to save don’t compromise.

A man like Socrates is given an opportunity by the judges, that if he leaves Athens… he can live outside of Athens and in this way he can avoid the death penalty. Anybody would suggest that “This is a simple compromise, you can just live outside the boundary lines of Athens” — because in those days in Greece there were only city-states; every city was a state. Just outside the boundary you were outside the state. He could have lived almost in the suburbs.

But men like Socrates are impossible. He said, “I would rather die than escape. And anyway, I am old. How long I am going to live? And if the most cultured city of these days cannot tolerate me, who is going to tolerate me? It is better to die in Athens than anywhere else — at least I have the consolation that I am being killed by the most cultured people.”

The judges were really trying hard somehow to save him, because he had not committed any crime. It was just that the mob wanted him to be killed — he was corrupting the youth. Now, anybody who brings new thoughts to the world can be blamed because he is corrupting the youth — because he is bound to be against the old ideas, he is bound to fight against the old. You can call it corruption: “He is corrupting our tradition, our religion, our culture.”

The judges said, “We have another suggestion: you can live in Athens, but stop talking about truth.”

Socrates says, “You are asking me to do the impossible. I will speak about truth and truth alone until my last breath. Do you want me to start speaking lies? Do you want me not to speak at all? — that too is a lie, because I know the truth and I am not speaking it, and the lie is spreading in people’s minds. No, I will be here, and I will speak the truth. It is up to you — you can kill me. But no compromise on any ground.”

Try to find your individuality, your integrity, and make the effort of not compromising. Because the more you compromise, the less you are an individual. You are only a cog in the wheel, just a part in the vast mechanism, just a small part of the mob — not an individual in your own beauty, in your own right. I am absolutely against compromise. Death is far more beautiful than a life of compromise.

Source – from Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”

Osho – I am unable to give you the truth. If anyone says he is capable of giving it to you, you can be certain he has begun by giving you an untruth. No one has the capacity to give the truth. This is no comment on the capacity of the giver, it only shows that truth is a living thing. It is not an inanimate object that can be given or taken away. It is a living experience one must obtain by oneself.

Dead objects can be transferred from one person to another, but not experiences. Can I transfer to you the love, the experience of love that I have had? Can I give you the beauty and the music I have encountered? How I wish I could give you the joy I have experienced in such an extraordinary way in this ordinary-looking body of mine! But there is not way to do so. I feel restless and tormented about it but I can do nothing. This is such helplessness!

A friend of mine was born blind. How I wished I could transfer my sight to him but it wasn’t possible. Perhaps one day it may be possible because eyes are parts of the body and may be capable of being transplanted. But the sight that sees the truth can never be transferred no matter how strongly one might wish it. It belongs to the soul, not to the body.

Whatever is achieved in the world of the self is only achieved through self-effort. In the world of the soul, no debt, no borrowing, no depending on others is possible. Nobody can walk there on borrowed legs. There is no refuge there apart from one’s self. To attain to truth you must be your own refuge. This is the inescapable condition.

It is because of this that I said I am incapable of giving you the truth. Only words can be communicated, words that are lifeless and dead – and the truth always remains behind. And this communication of words is not real communicating at all. That which is alive – their meaning, their soul, the experience that is their essence – does not go with them. They are like empty cartridges, like bullets without gunpowder. They are like dead bodies, corpses. They can only be a burden to you; they can never liberate you. With words you only carry the corpse of truth. There is no heartbeat of truth in a corpse.

As I said, truth cannot be given. But I can be of some assistance in helping you set down this load you are carrying on your back. It is a burden you have been carrying for ages and it has become very heavy, unbearable. You must be freed from this burden of words. Just as a traveler becomes covered with dust while walking along the road it is natural that the dust of words and thoughts gathers on one during the journey through life. But you have to brush this dust off.

Words are dead things; they are not the truth. Nobody’s words are the truth. Do not collect them. Collecting them is harmful. The pilgrimage to truth cannot be made carrying this weight. Just as a climber must lay down his pack before scaling a mountain to seek the heights, one who has embarked on the journey to truth had better lay down the burden of words. Only a consciousness free of words is able to attain the lofty heights of truth.

I teach only one kind of non-possessiveness, the non-possession of words and thought. Their dead weight is making your journey very difficult. Chuang Tzu has said, ”The net is for catching fish. Catch the fish and throw away the net.” But we are such bad fishermen that we have become entangled in the nets and have forgotten about the fish. Look on your heads. You are carrying boats on your heads nad you have forgotten you are to sail in them.

Words are symbols. They are sign-pointers. They themselves are not the truth. Understand the significance of the signs and then throw them away. Collecting signs is no different from collecting corpses.
Words are like fingers pointing to the moon. A man who concentrates all his attention on the fingers misses the moon. The fingers serve their purpose if they lead you away from them. But on the contrary, they draw you to themselves, then they become not only useless but truly harmful.

Haven’t the words you have learned about truth become a source of misfortune to you already? Have they not separated you from one another, man from man? Aren’t all the stupidities and cruelties perpetrated in the name of religion because of words? Aren’t all those sects known as the various religions just based on the differences of words?

Truth is one and can only be one, but words are many, just like the moon is one while the fingers pointing to her may be a thousand and one. Those who have held on to one or more of the countless words that point to the truth are responsible for the many religious sects. These religions have not arisen from truth but from words. Truth is one. Religion too is one. Those who discard words attain to this religion alone and to this truth alone. It is without equal.

Therefore I don’t want to add to your burden of words by more talk. You are already breaking down under this heavy load of words. I see clearly that your necks are bent under their weight.

Those who have known the truth do not open their mouths at all. Their lips are sealed. Not a word is to be heard from them. Aren’t they saying enough this way? Aren’t they suggesting that truth lies in silence, that silence itself is truth? But we are unable to understand their language.

We cannot understand anything without words. Our understanding is limited to words and so they speak to us through the medium of words. They tell us in words about that which cannot be communicated in words. It is their compassion that leads them to attempt this impossible feat, and because of our ignorance we try to catch hold of their every word. Words coupled with ignorance form a sect – and once again we are deprived of truth and true religion is as distant from us as ever.

You must rise above words. Only then will you know what is behind the words. Words only fill our memories. Knowledge does not come from them. And please don’t mistake memory for knowledge. Know once and for all that memory is nothing more than a record of the past. It is learning, not knowledge.

Source – from Osho Book “The Perfect Way”, 6 June 1964 am