Question – Do all enlightened masters sound as egoistic as you do?

Osho – It is bound to be so. They sound egoistic because they cannot be humble in the sense you understand humility. Try to understand. It is a delicate point. Whatsoever you call humbleness is a function of the ego. It is a modified ego. The enlightened person has no ego so he cannot have a modified ego. He cannot be humble. In the sense you can understand it, he cannot be humble.

Otherwise Krishna would not be able to say to Arjuna: “Leave all, and come to my feet. I am the God who created the whole existence. SARVA DHARMAN PARITYAJYA MAMEKAM SHARANAM VRAJA. Come to my feet.” What egoism! Jesus would not be able to say: “I am the door, I am the way, I am the truth.” “I and my Father in heaven are one.” “Those who follow me will be saved… only those who follow me will be saved.” And when Buddha attained to Buddhahood, he declared to the skies, to the heavens: “I have attained the unattainable!”

They sound very egoistic. First, they cannot be humble in the sense you understand humbleness. Your humbleness is a modified, polished, cultured ego. But then why do they sound egoistic?

They are not humble and you know only two qualities, two ways of being: humble or egoistic. They are not humble — then they must be egoistic. You have only tWo categories. And egoism is easy for you to understand, it is your language.
When you say’I', you mean one thing; when I say’I', I mean something else. But when I say’I', you will understand it in your way, not in my way. When Krishna said to Arjuna, “Come to my feet!” what did he mean? Of course you would understand your meaning if you said to somebody, “Come to my feet!” The same must be Krishna’s meaning. No, that is not his meaning. He has no’I’ left, he has no’my’ left.

But he has to use your language. And you understand it in your own way. So all enlightened masters sound egoistic because you are egoistic. You will understand their humbleness only when your ego disappears. Otherwise it won’t allow you. The only way to understand those who have awakened is to become awake.

Continuously I go on observing: I say something; you understand something else. But that’s natural. How can you understand my meaning? When I say something, the word goes to you not my meaning. My meaning remains in my heart. Then the word goes within you and you color it, you give it a meaning. That meaning is yours.

They sound egoistic, but they are not. Because if they are, then the enlightenment has not happened yet. The enlightenment happens only when the ego has disappeared. The ego is the darkness of the soul, the ego is the imprisonment of the soul, the’I’ is the barrier to the ultimate.

A Buddha is an emptiness and when he says, “I have attained to the unattainable,” he is simply saying that the emptiness has realized its emptiness, nothing else. But how to translate it into your terms? He is simply saying that the emptiness has realized its emptiness, but he has to say, “I have attained to the unattainable.”

When Krishna says, “Come to my feet! ” he is saying, “Here, look! The emptiness is standing before you. Dissolve into it! ” But that won’t be direct. He has to use Arjuna’s language. He says, “Come to my feet.” If Arjuna is ready and willing to surrender, if he trusts and surrenders, when he touches the feet of Krishna he will touch emptiness. Only then will there be a realization of what Krishna was saying. There are no feet, no Krishna — just a tremendous quality of emptiness. The temple of God is emptiness. Touching Krishna’s feet he will bow down to emptiness and the emptiness will pour down into him. But that will be possible only when he trusts.

Yes, many times I must be sounding very egoistic to you. But don’t be deceived, because if you cling to the idea that I am egoistic, you will never be able to let go, to surrender, and then your ego will go on. Then there is no need to be here with me because then the whole point is lost. You are wasting your time.

There is only one way to be here with me: if you want to surrender. Otherwise go away, find somebody somewhere else to whom you find it easy to surrender, because unless you surrender you will not come to know who you are. And without knowing yourself, you will not be able to know what has happened to a man whom we called enlightened. Only through your own experience will things become clear to you.

Yes, it sounds egoistic. Now there are two ways. If you think that it not only sounds egoistic, it is — then go away from me. The sooner you go the better, because all the time that you are here will be wasted. Or, if you think it simply sounds egoistic but it is not so, then surrender. Then don’t wait because sometimes waiting too long can become habitual, you can get addicted to it. Then you can go on waiting and waiting and waiting.

And I will not be waiting here for long. A little while more and I will be gone. Then you will repent, then you will suffer, then you will be sad, but then it will be of no use. It will be easy for you to touch my feet when I am gone because then there is no surrender. You can go and touch the feet of a statue: the statue is dead; there is no surrender. When you touch the feet of an alive man — alive just like you, in the body just like you — then the problem comes. The ego resists.

So either believe in your ego or believe in me. These are the only two alternatives. Up to now you have believed in your ego. What have you attained? I open another alternative for you. Try it….

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 2″

Osho – I have been in love with Heraclitus for many lives. In fact, Heraclitus is the only Greek I have ever been in love with — except, of course, Mukta, Seema and Neeta!

Heraclitus is really beautiful. Had he been born in India, or in the East, he would have been known as a buddha. But in Greek history, Greek philosophy, he was a stranger, an outsider. He is known in Greece not as an enlightened person but as Heraclitus the Obscure, Heraclitus the Dark, Heraclitus the Riddling. And the father of Greek philosophy and of Western thought, Aristotle, thought that he was no philosopher at all.

Aristotle said, “At the most he is a poet,” but that too was difficult for him to concede. So later on he said in other works, “There must be some defect in Heraclitus’ character, something wrong biologically; that’s why he talks in such obscure ways, and talks in paradoxes.” Aristotle thought that he was a little eccentric, a little mad — and Aristotle dominates the whole West. If Heraclitus had been accepted, the whole history of the West would have been totally different. But he was not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.

Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East: millions would have profited, millions would have found the way through him. But for Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn’t belong to them. That’s why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by he has been forgotten.

At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak, a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing — if you live for seventy years, then your total bio-physical system will change ten times. And if you can use those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move in meditation.

For example, at fourteen for the first time sex becomes important. The body goes through a biochemical change, and if at that moment you can be introduced into the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move because the body is not fixed, the old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come in — there is a gap. At the age of twenty-one, again deep changes happen, because every seven years the body completely renovates itself: all the old cells drop and the new cells come in. At the age of thirty-five again it happens, and this goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles — and there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid. If you want some new dimension to enter into your life, that is precisely the moment.

In the same way exactly it happens also in the history of humanity as a whole. Every twenty-five centuries there comes a peak — and if you can use that moment, you can easily become enlightened. It will not be so easy in other times because at that peak the river itself is flowing in that direction; everything is fluid, nothing is fixed.

Twenty-five centuries ago there were born in India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira the Jaina; in China, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu; in Iran, Zarathustra; and in Greece, Heraclitus. They are the peaks. Never before were such peaks attained, or if they were attained they are not part of history, because history starts with Jesus.

You don’t know what happened these twenty-five centuries ago. Again the moment is coming, we are again in a fluid state: the old is meaningless, the past doesn’t have any significance for you, the future is uncertain — the gap is here. And again humanity will achieve a peak, the same peak as there was in Heraclitus’ time. And if you are a little aware, you can use this moment — you can simply drop out of the wheel of life. When things are liquid, transformation is easy. When things are fixed, then transformation is difficult.

You are fortunate that you are born in an age when things are again in a state of liquidity. Nothing is certain, all old codes and commandments have become useless. New patterns have not settled in. They will settle soon; man cannot remain forever unsettled, because when you are unsettled there is insecurity. Things will settle again, this moment will not last for ever; it is only for a few years. If you can use it, you can reach a peak which will be very, very difficult to reach in other times. If you miss it, the moment is missed for twenty-five centuries again.

Remember this: life moves in a cycle, everything moves in a cycle. The child is born, then comes the age of youth, then old age, then death. It moves just as seasons move: summer comes, then rains follow, then comes winter, and it goes on in a circle. The same happens in the dimension of consciousness: every twenty-five centuries the circle is complete and before the new circle starts there is a gap you can escape through; the door is open for a few years.

Heraclitus is a really rare flowering, one of the most highly penetrating souls, one of those souls who become like Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. Try to understand him. It is difficult; that’s why he is called Heraclitus the Obscure. He is not obscure. To understand him is difficult; to understand him you will need a different type of being — that is the problem. So it is easy to categorize him as obscure and then forget him.

There are two types of people. If you want to understand Aristotle you don’t need any change in your being, you simply need some information. A school can provide some information about logic, philosophy; you can collect some intellectual understanding and you can understand Aristotle. You need not change to understand him, you need only a few more additions to your knowledge. The being remains the same, you remain the same. You need not have a different plane of consciousness; that is not the requirement.

Aristotle is clear. If you want to understand him, a little effort is enough; anybody of average mind and intelligence will understand him. But to understand Heraclitus is going to be rough terrain, difficult, because whatsoever you collect as knowledge will not be of much help; just a very, very cultivated head won’t be of any help. You will need a different quality of being — and that is difficult — you will need a transformation. Hence, he is called obscure. He is NOT obscure! You are below the level of being where he can be understood. When you reach that level of being, suddenly all darkness around him disappears. He is one of the most luminous beings; he is not obscure, he is not dark — it is you who are blind. Remember this always, because if you say he is dark you are throwing the responsibility on him, you are trying to escape from a transformation that is possible through encountering him. Don’t say that he is dark. Say, “We are blind,” or, “Our eyes are closed.”

The sun is there: you can stand in front of the sun with closed eyes and you can say the sun is dark. And sometimes it also happens that you can stand with open eyes before the sun, but the light is so much that your eyes temporarily go blind. The light is too much to bear, it is unbearable; suddenly, darkness. Eyes are open, the sun is there, but the sun is too much for your eyes so you feel darkness. And that is the case — Heraclitus is not dark. Either you are blind, or your eyes are closed, or there is also the third possibility: when you look at Heraclitus, he is such a luminous being that your eyes simply lose the capacity to see. He is unbearable, the light is too much for you. You are not accustomed to such light so you will need to make a few arrangements before you can understand Heraclitus. And when he is talking he looks as if he is riddling, he looks as if he is enjoying riddles, because he talks in paradoxes.

All those who have known always talk in paradoxes. There is something to it — they are not riddling, they are very simple. But what can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, what can they do? Just to avoid paradoxes you can create neat and clean theories, but they will be false, they will not be true to life. Aristotle is very neat, clean; he looks like a man-managed garden. Heraclitus looks like riddles — he is a wild forest.

With Aristotle there is no trouble; he has avoided the paradox, he has made a neat and clean doctrine — it appeals. You will be scared to face Heraclitus because he opens the door of life, and life is paradoxical. Buddha is paradoxical, Lao Tzu is paradoxical; all those who have known are bound to be paradoxical. What can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, they have to be true to life. And life is not logical. It is a logos, but it is not logic. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos — but it is not logic.

Source – Osho Book “The Hidden Harmony”

Osho – Dipankara is an ancient Buddha. Gautama Buddha, in his past life when he was not enlightened, had gone to Dipankara. He wanted to be accepted as a disciple, but Dipankara laughed and he said, “There is nothing to be learned.” Truth cannot be learned. Yes, something has to be understood, but nothing has to be learned. Truth has to be recognized. It is already there in your being, it has to be uncovered. But there is nothing to learn.

Truth is not new, truth is your very being. You have to become aware. Not that you have to become more knowledgeable, in fact the more knowledgeable you are the less aware you will be. The more you think you know the more you will be covered with ignorance. Knowledge is ignorance. The knowledgeable person is covered with dark clouds of memory, information, scripture, philosophy.

Dipankara said to Gautama, “You need not think in terms of learning. Truth is already in you. Truth cannot be transferred.” Not only this, but when Gautama touched the feet of Dipankara, Dipankara bowed down and touched the feet of Gautama. Gautama was not enlightened in those days. He was very puzzled, embarrassed too.

There was a great assembly of monks; nobody could understand what was happening, what was going on. Dipankara had never done that to anybody else. And Gautama said, “What have you done? Why have you touched my feet? I am a sinner, an ignorant person. To touch your feet is right, but you touching my feet is absurd. Have you gone mad?”

And Dipankara laughed again and he said, “No, Gautama. You are puzzled because you don’t know your future. I am not mad. I can see it happening — you will be a Buddha soon. Just to honor that fact I have touched your feet. And moreover, for one who is enlightened all are enlightened. It is only a question of time. It doesn’t matter much. I have become enlightened today, you will become enlightened tomorrow, somebody else will become enlightened the day after tomorrow — it doesn’t matter. Enlightenment is going to happen to everybody, to every being. You can go on delaying it, that is up to you. The moment you stop delaying, the moment you stop postponing, it is there. It has always been waiting for you to recognize it.”

It is one of the most beautiful stories — that Dipankara touched the feet of Gautama. And Gautama was an unknown man. After centuries, nearly three thousand years afterwards, Gautama became enlightened. The first thing that he did was he bowed down to Dipankara. Then there was no Dipankara, but he bowed down and he laughed and he said, “Now I understand why you touched my feet. Now I can touch everybody’s feet. Now I know that the whole existence is going to be enlightened.”

Enlightenment is a natural happening. If we don’t hinder it, it is bound to happen. It is not that you have to achieve it, all that you have to do is not to hinder it. You hinder it in a thousand and one ways. You don’t allow it to happen. When it starts to happen you become frightened. When it takes possession of you, you cannot give that much possession — you shrink back, you withdraw. You come back in your tiny cell of the ego. There you feel protected, defended, secure.

Enlightenment is the open sky of insecurity. It is vastness, it is uncharted ocean. The journey is from one unknown to another unknown. There is nothing that can be known. Knowledge, the very idea of knowledge, is part of human stupidity. Life is such a mystery it cannot be known. And if it cannot be known how can it be taught? And if it cannot be taught, what is the point of being a master and a disciple?

Just a few days ago there was a question: “Why have you declared yourself to be the Blessed One?’ It is a drama. I have decided to play the part of the Blessed One and you have decided to play the part of disciples — but it is a drama. The day you will become aware you will know, there is no master and no disciple. The day you will understand, you will know that it was a dream — but a dream which can help you to come out of all your other dreams, a thorn which can help to pull out your thorns from your flesh, it can be instrumental — but a thorn all the same. A poison which can help you to drop your other poisons — but a poison all the same. Use it as a raft. That’s why I say it is a drama.

Your being a disciple and my being a master is a drama. Play it as beautifully as possible. To you it is a reality, I know. To me it is a drama. From your side it is a great reality, from my side it is a game. One day you will also understand that it is a game. That day will be the day of your enlightenment.

Dipankara was simply saying to Gautama, when he touched his feet, that this is just a game. You touch my feet or I touch your feet — it makes no difference. We are all enlightened, we are all gods. Not that I am god and you are not god — ALL is divine. Trees are gods, so are animals, so is everything, even rocks!

God is fast asleep in the rocks. He has become a little alert in the trees, a little more alert in the animals, a little more alert in you. In a Buddha he has come perfectly to absolute alertness. But the difference is not of quality, the difference is only of quantity. And if you are this much aware, you can become that much aware too.

Source – Osho Book “The Diamond Sutra”

Question – Beloved Osho, Why have all the great masters come from the East?

Osho – Because humanity has yet not been total. The East is introvert, the West is extrovert. Man is split, mind is schizophrenic. That’s why all the great masters have come from the East and all the great scientists have come from the West. The West has developed science and has completely forgotten about the inner soul; is concerned with matter, but has become oblivious of the inner subjectivity. The whole focus is on the object. Hence all the great scientists are born in the West.

The East has become too much concerned with the inner soul and has forgotten objectivity, matter, the world. Great religious masters developed out of this, but this is not a good situation, this should not be so. Man should become one. Man should not be allowed to be lopsided anymore. Man should be a fluidity, neither extrovert nor introvert. Man should be capable of being both together. The inner and the outer, if balanced, give the greatest ecstatic experience.

The person who is neither leaning towards the inner too much nor towards the outer too much is the person of equilibrium. He will be a scientist and a mystic together. That is something that will happen, that is something that is going to happen. We are preparing the field for it. I would like to see a man who is neither Eastern nor Western, because to be Eastern as against Western is ugly. To be Western as against Eastern is again ugly. The whole earth belongs to us and we belong to the whole earth. A man should be just man, a man should be just human — total, whole. And out of that wholeness will arise a new kind of health.

The East has suffered, the West has suffered. The East has suffered; you can see it all around — the poverty, the starvation. The West has suffered, you can see inside the Western mind — tension, anxiety, anguish. The West is very poor inwardly, the East is very poor outwardly. Poverty is bad. Whether it is inner or outer makes no difference, poverty should not be allowed. Man should be rich, inner, outer, both. Man should have all-dimensional richness.

Just think of a man who is an Albert Einstein and a Gautam Buddha both. Just meditate on that possibility — that IS possible. In fact if Albert Einstein had lived a little longer, he would have turned into a mystic. He had started thinking about the inner, he was becoming interested in the inner mystery. How long can you remain interested in the outer mystery? If you are really interested in mystery then sooner or later you will stumble upon the inner too. My concept is of a world which is neither Eastern nor Western, neither inner nor outer, neither extrovert nor introvert — which is balanced, which is whole.

But this has not been the case in the past. That’s why your question is relevant. You ask: “Why have all the great masters come from the East?” Because the East has been obsessed with the inner as against the outer. Naturally, when down the centuries you have been obsessed with the inner, you will create a Buddha, a Nagarjuna, a Shankara, a Kabir. It is natural.

If you are obsessed with the outer as against the inner, you will create an Albert Einstein, an Eddington, an Edison, that’s natural. But this is not good for the totality of human beings. Something is missing. The man who has inner growth and has not grown outwardly remains juvenile in the outside, remains stupid outside. And the same is the case with the man who has grown much, who has become mature, very mature, as far as mathematics goes and physics goes and chemistry goes, but who inside has not been even born yet, who is still in the womb.

This is my message to you: drop these hemispheres — East and West — and drop these hemispheres of inner and outer. Become fluid. Let movement, flow, be your very life. Remain available to the outer and to the inner both. That’s why I teach love and meditation. Love is the passage to go out, meditation is the passage to go in. And a man who is in love AND meditative is beyond schizophrenia, is beyond all kinds of split. He has become one, he is integrated. In fact, he has soul.

Source – Osho Book “The Diamond Sutra”

Osho – Rumi does not mean anything, it is a name of a place; because he came from Rum he was called Rumi. His message is love, and he belongs to the highest categories of the Buddhas. He was the man who inverted a new method of meditation, whirling.

There have been hundreds of devices; Rumi has also contributed one special device. He became enlightened not by sitting silently like a Buddha, he became enlightened by dancing. And his dance is a special and of dance. You turn round and round, as if you are just a wheel moving faster and faster; you are both the axle and the wheel. Small children enjoy it very much. Almost all over the world parents have to stop their children from doing it because they are afraid they may get dizzy, but they don’t know that the children are enjoying something very special.

When a small child goes on whirling he loses the sense of being a body, he starts hovering above his body, he can see his own body turning — and that is the miracle of the method. But we are stopped by our parents very early.

Jalaluddin introduced that method. He himself became enlightened by thirty-six hours of continuous whirling; day in, day out he went on and on. He was riding on a cloud, he could not stop till he fell down. But when he opened his eyes and got up he was a totally new man, the old was gone. People had gathered to watch him, thousands of people — he was a well-known mystic. What had happened to him? dad he gone crazy or something. And he had told his disciples that he should not be disturbed.

For thirty-six hours he danced and danced. The dancer disappeared in the dance, there was only dance and no dancer — the ego died. And he could see his own body from the higher plane dancing somewhere on the earth. He became a watcher on the hill, the body was in the deep dark valley. And that’s how he introduced the method to his disciples. His message was love and dance. Love the whole existence so you can dance, and dance to abandon so that you can love.

Source – Osho Book “I Am Not As Thunk As You Drink I Am”

Osho – Sahajo is the name of one of the most important woman mystics of India. There have been very few women mystics in the whole history of man for the simple reason that man never allowed them to discover themselves.

Humanity up to now has lived in a very ugly way. Half of humanity, the feminine half, has been reduced to a thing. Women have not been allowed to discover their being; in fact, many cultures have believed that the woman has got no soul to discover. What is there to discover? — she is just a body to be used by man. And that is the ugly part of the biblical story — that God made woman for man’s use because he was alone, feeling lonely. The story is anti-feminine, it is male chauvinistic.

God makes Adam for his own self, but because Adam feels lonely, God makes a woman — but in a different way. He just takes a rib out of Adam’s body and creates a woman. So the woman is just to be a part of man’s life. She cannot be herself; she is only a rib, a bone, to be used as a means.

All the religions have supported this ugly nonsense, this idiotic idea. That’s why I say the real religion, a religion which makes everybody capable of discovering God, has yet to be born. Hence, only a few women — their names can be counted on one’s fingers — have attained to the ultimate peak. Sahajo is one of them.

In India we have known only five women who can be compared to Buddha, Christ, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu and Nanak. One is Meera, whose name is well known all over the world. The second is Lalla — she was born in Kashmir, and Kashmir has tremendous respect for the woman. In Kashmir there is a saying that they know only two names: Allah and Lalla. Allah means God, and Lalla means the woman Lalla. The third name is Sahajo; the fourth name is Daya — another contemporary of Sahajo and a friend of Sahajo. And the fifth name is Mallibai, one of the tirthankaras of the Jainas, one of the most important masters.

Literally, the meaning of Sahajo is spontaneity — and that was her teaching; hence the name was given to her by her master. Live spontaneously, moment to moment. This moment is all. The past has to be dropped, forgotten, because it is no more, and the future has not to be worried about because it is not yet. Then all that is left is this beautiful moment. Rejoice in this moment, live in this moment totally and this moment becomes the door to God.

Jesus says to his disciples, “Look at the lilies in the field — they are far more beautiful than even the emperor Solomon attired in all his precious clothes and ornaments, in all his grandeur. These poor flowers, lilies, are far more beautiful than Solomon, for the simple reason that they don’t think of the morrow. They live in the moment, herenow. That is their beauty.”

And my own observation of the female is that she is less worried about the future than man and less burdened with the past than man. She is more realistic, pragmatic, more rooted and grounded in the earth; hence it is easier for her to be spontaneous. And spontaneity and a life of spontaneity can become the whole path.

God knows only one time and that is now, and only one space and that is here. God is always now-here. So once you withdraw yourself from the past and the future, only God is left. There is no need to pray, there is no need to go into scriptures, there is no need to dig into all kinds of stupid esoteric teachings. One can be very simple and one can find the truth without any fuss. The whole of theology is an unnecessary fuss, much ado about nothing. And this is my approach too — to live totally in the present. Nothing else is needed.

Source – Osho Book “Is the Grass Really Greener… ?”

Osho – Lalita, you are asking me what can be more beautiful than to be in the presence of the master. Why not dissolve in the presence? To be in the presence of the master, there is still separation. Why be in the presence? Why not become the presence itself? And only then you will know that to be in the presence was only the beginning of a journey that ends in becoming the presence.

I know you, and I know your heart. I have not told the story of the woodcutter without remembering the fact that you have such an innocent heart yourself. Just don’t stop anywhere.

It is possible… make it your realization. Become the light yourself, and then whatever is experienced is inexpressible.

In your dark moments, while you have been away for one year, you have heard the word `watch’. With your innocent mind, it is very simple for me to speak to you from any distance, a heart-to-heart communion. Those words were mine, and you have recognized them. Because there are things you need not bother about, you simply have to watch and they pass on — anger, greed, jealousy. All the components of darkness have one quality in common: that if you can watch them they start dispersing. Watching is enough; you are not supposed to do anything with them.

In the life of one of the great mystics, Baal Shem, there is an incident. He used to go towards the river in the middle of the night just to be in absolute silence, alone, to enjoy the peace and the beauty of the night. Just on the bank of the river was a rich man’s mansion, and a watchman was there who was puzzled about this man, Baal Shem. Every night, exactly as the tower bell was tolling twelve, Baal Shem would appear out of the darkness.

The poor watchman could not contain the temptation to inquire, “Why do you come here every night and sit next to the river in the darkness? What is the purpose of it?”

Rather than answering him, Baal Shem asked, “What is your work?”
He said, “I am a watchman.”

Baal Shem said, “Exactly — that is my work. I am a watchman.”
The watchman said, “That is strange. If you are a watchman, then what are you doing here? You should be watching the house where you are the watchman.”

Baal Shem said, “There is something to be explained to you: You watch somebody else’s house; I watch my own house. This is my house. Wherever I go, I go with my house — but I am continuously the watchman.”

I love the story. Be continuously a watchman of all dark moments. They will pass away. In fact, that is the definition: anything you watch, if it disappears by watching that means it was something wrong. If by watching it becomes more clear, closer, that means it was something to be absorbed.

There is no other definition of good and bad. It is watching that decides — the only criterion. What is sin and what is virtue? That which disappears is sin, and that which comes closer, becomes clearer, wants to become part of you, is virtue. Watching is certainly the golden key of spiritual life.

Source – Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”

Question – Beloved Osho, I’m afraid that the world is going to end before I get enlightened. What can I Do?
Osho – You seem to be very much in a hurry. If you understand me, there is no problem — right now you can become enlightened. At least right now the world has not ended. There are thousands of people in the world trying for enlightenment, but their very trying is the barrier. It postpones enlightenment.

For ninety years J. Krishnamurti has been working, first upon himself, then upon others. And now he is getting immensely frustrated. Nobody is to be blamed, he himself has made it a difficult job. He is obsessed with reading detective novels; he has made the search for enlightenment a very sensational, puzzling, difficult detective story. My Krishnamurti Lake is doing far better: just the other day somebody became enlightened there.

You are asking me, “The world is going to end, what am I supposed to do?” Have I to answer you? Can’t you understand? Krishnamurti Lake is not far away.

Krishnamurti himself will not help you. He has been just on the border of enlightenment. One step more… but that one step is missing. And the reason is that he was forced to become enlightened. For twenty-five years in his early life…. The theosophical idiots found him. He was nine years old, the son of a poor, very poor father; the mother had died, he had one brother. The father was in much difficulty. He was just a small clerk in some office; to look after these two children, and do the work — it was becoming maddening.

So when the Theosophists told him they would like to adopt his two children — one was Nityananda and the other was Krishnamurti — he happily handed over the children to Annie Besant, knowing that at least they would be taken care of, given a good education. The theosophical movement in those days was the top movement of the world. Very important, significant, powerful people had become involved in it.

The Theosophists started making these two poor boys enlightened — it had never been done before… so much hammering that Nityananda died. My feeling is that the Theosophists were responsible for his death. They tortured these two boys as much as possible: wake up in the morning at three o’clock; go to the river, take a cold bath, then chant mantras… spiritual teaching that went on deep into the night.

Both escaped them finally, because it was absolutely inhuman — Nityananda in one way, Krishnamurti in another. Nityananda died — he must have been of a weaker constitution. Krishnamurti survived.

The Theosophists were going to declare Krishnamurti the world teacher. When he was twenty-five they gathered in Holland to declare him the world teacher, with great hope: “The man who can deliver the whole world from misery has arrived. He is the Christ, he is the Buddha; he contains all the hopes of the past humanity.”

Krishnamurti stood up to declare himself to be the world teacher, but on the contrary, he simply said, “I am nobody’s teacher. I am fed up with teachers! And just forgive me, I am not jagadguru, the world teacher. And I dissolve this whole organization that you have created around me.” A special organization called The Star of the East, a branch of the Theosophical Society, was created for Krishnamurti. He dissolved the organization. The people were simply shocked; they had worked so hard to make him enlightened, and this man freaked out at the crucial moment.

Since then he has been going around the earth alone. But those twenty-five years are still heavy on him; that’s why he cannot take that one step. He is not freed from those dead Theosophists. They are long dead, the movement has almost disappeared, but what happened in those twenty-five years in the beginning is holding him back.

Remember always: love is an attachment; hate is a bigger attachment, far more solid. Compassion is very delicate, but cruelty is very hard. He is still fighting with the ghosts of the Theosophists. All his life he has been fighting and fighting with those ghosts — who are dead, there is no need to fight with them. One should be simply free of them, but being free means you don’t hate them. Hate imprisons you.

He has become so afraid of the master and disciple phenomenon…. It is his experience — I can forgive him, I can understand him. What happened to him through his masters was so ugly that he has been teaching everybody that you don’t need any master.

This is a contradiction. If they don’t need any master, why are you bothering them? Who are you? You have assumed, unknowingly, the role of a master, of a teacher. What have you been doing for ninety years? — teaching people: Beware of teachers! If the people had really understood you, they would have left you, because, “What is the need? Why should we listen to you? This is what a teacher and a student, a master and a disciple do.”

The master knows, the disciple does not know. The master imparts his knowledge to the disciples. Krishnamurti has been doing that, and I am amazed how blind people are. They don’t say to him, “Shut up! If we don’t need any master, then who are you to bother us? For ninety years you have been bothering people, and not a single person has become enlightened out of this whole effort.”

He has created a different kind of effort: “Don’t make effort, don’t accept any master, don’t be open to any teaching.” All kinds of egoists have surrounded him for all these years, because the egoist feels great that he need not be open, he need not listen, he need not be concerned about masters and teachers; he is enough unto himself.

It is true, you are enough unto yourself, but you don’t know it! Somebody has to hammer it on your head. But things can backfire. That’s what has happened in Krishnamurti’s case: a man of tremendous intelligence, fighting with ghosts, and continuing teaching, telling people there is no master, telling people, “You are enough unto yourself” — this can be misunderstood.

You are enough unto yourself if you relax and settle in your being; otherwise you are the greatest enemy of yourself. If you go on making an effort to become enlightened…. And man is so strange: if you tell him that no effort is needed, he starts making “no effort”!

Krishnamurti has never criticized any individual by name. Although he has criticized principles, doctrines, he has not criticized Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, Moses, Mohammed. Just the other day I received the information that he has criticized me. This is great! He has always pretended that it is not worth his while to criticize Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira; it is something below him. That attitude is ugly.

But he could not restrain himself about me, for the simple reason that I have told my sannyasins, “Wherever he is, just go and sit in the front line.” And you ask me why I have chosen red clothes for you?

The color red has something mysterious about it — just show a red flag to a bull and you will know. You can show a blue flag, nothing will happen; a green flag, nothing will happen. But show a red flag to a bull and he will rush towards you to kill you. Krishnamurti must have been a bull in his past life. The moment he sees my red people he forgets all his philosophy, he starts immediately criticizing me. But this is the first time he has used my name.

And what criticism has he given? — very childish. He has said against me that I am convincing people that enlightenment is their sheer inheritance, it is a gift of existence — just as life is a gift. I have always respected Krishnamurti, his intelligence, his courage to dissolve a great organization. But I cannot help it, I have to say the truth to you: he is just on the borderline, he is not yet enlightened. He can be any moment.

You should not be afraid of the third world war. For you there is enough time. But he is ninety; for him there is not much time. He should come to Krishnamurti Lake and get enlightened!

Source – Osho Book “From the False to the Truth”

Question – Who is a Baul? Please tell us the definition.
Osho – IT should have been asked in the beginning; now this is going to be last. But in a way, it is good. If in the beginning you had asked about the definition of a Baul, it would have been almost impossible to say anything. Not that now I can define, but at least now I can say it is indefinable.

The Baul is not a metaphysics, the Baul is a mystique. I can invite you to participate in that mystery, but definition is not possible. So I am not going to define. Instead, I will tell you a story. Maybe that will give you a definition; but you will have to find it yourself.

I have heard….
Once upon a time, an angel came to earth to see man and his world, because he had heard so many stories of man’s splendor that he could not resist his curiosity. The beauty of the world overwhelmed him: the sunlit mountain peaks and dark forests, the whining winds and tossing, rainbow-colored valleys, the dew-kissed soil, the soil’s lusty smell, the animals, fierce and gentle.

Everywhere there was such beauty. But when the angel saw man he was awed, for he heard the music of the human heart and the song of the human soul. He fell in deep love with human mystery. Dusk came, but he lingered on. Man and man’s earth had so moved the angel that he hesitated to leave.

But finally, his time finished, he had to go with tears in his eyes. And tremendously encircled, enriched by this adventure on the earth, by this experience, before going out, before going back to his own world, just out of sheer joy he wanted to help some of us on our way. He looked about, saw four persons walking together.

He approached them and said, “I have come to grant you each one wish.” As luck would have it, they all were spiritual aspirants.

The first one spoke up, “I have striven incessantly after distant divine truth — nothing but struggle, struggle, struggle. Give me spiritual peace!”
“But struggling is one of the joys of life,” said the angel, not understanding the first seeker’s wish.
“I would like peace!” insisted the man.

This being his wish, the angel changed the youth into a cow that chewed the grass of a distant pasture quite contentedly.
A bit disturbed, the angel turned to the other aspirant.
“God is pure but I am not,” said the other. “Please rid me of all impurities, of passions, emotions, desires.”
“Are not they the very fount of life?” asked the angel.
“But I don’t want life, I want purity!” insisted the second man.

He then closed his eyes and waited for his transformation. In a split second he disappeared, and in a faraway temple, a marble statue appeared in his likeness.

Then the third one said, “Make me perfect; anything less will simply not do.” He vanished but did not reappear anywhere, for nothing on earth is perfect or can be perfect.
The angel turned to the fourth, “And what is your wish?”
“I have no wish,” replied this happy man.
“No wish at all?”
“None — except to be human, fully human and alive.”

A near-smothered joy began again to stir within the angel. He looked longingly upon this blessed man, and then leaned over and embraced him with a deep love. The fourth man continued on his way singing the glory of life, dancing the joy of life.

This fourth man is the Baul. There is no other way to define a Baul. The Baul is tremendous love for life, tremendous love for this earth, tremendous love for all that is. The Baul is not an idealist, he is a realist — down to earth. The Baul does not ask for any paradise somewhere else, he is already in paradise, herenow.

The Baul is not a seeker, the Baul is one who has found. the Baul is a SIDDHA: one who has looked into life and realized that all is available and there is no need to seek. One has just to participate in this mystery called life. He dances, he sings, he enjoys, he is blissful for no reason at all. This is half the story; the other half is still there.

The angel reached heaven. God called him and asked him, “What were you doing on the earth? Tinkering with my creation?”
The angel said, “I am sorry, but those people desired; those were their wishes. I simply helped them to fulfill.”
God said, “That’s right. I am not angry, I was just enquiring. Have you any wish to be fulfilled?”
The angel said, “Make me the fourth man back on the earth. Send me back and make me the fourth man.”

Let that be your wish also. And there is no need to ask? because that is already fulfilled. You are a man on the earth, a woman on the earth; enjoy this gift of God! In deep gratefulness, sing the song, dance the dance that is waiting deep inside your being to be expressed. Be creative. Flower.

A Baul is a flowering. A Baul is a flowing energy. A Baul is not the ordinarily so-called religious, a Baul is really religious. He is not against the world, because he is not against God. It is His creation; he is not against anything because all is God’s. He finds the temple of God everywhere. Every presence is full of His presence. A Baul is a madman; that is the meaning of the word ‘baul’. It comes from a Sanskrit word, vatul, which means mad.

Become mad in the name of God! Become mad in sheer joy! and then you will know what a Baul is. There is no way to define; I can only indicate. There is no way to even describe, but I am here, present — I am a Baul. You look into me, taste me a little, eat me, drink me; that may give you some definition. And if you really want, if you really desire the definition, then become a Baul. There is no other way to know it. To know God one has become a God, because you can know only that which you have become. Only existence, and the experience of existence, can enlighten you, nothing else.

Source – Osho Book “The Beloved, Volume 2″

Osho – A few more indications about the inner state of a jivanamukta, the one liberated while living. The jivanamukta is one who has known death while still living. As it is, death is known by all, but only at the time of dying. That too cannot be called the knowing of death because just in the moment of dying the mind becomes unconscious.

So we never know our own death, we always only know the death of others. You have only seen others dying, you have never seen yourself dying. Thus our knowledge even about death is borrowed. When someone else dies what do we learn from this? We know that he has lost his speech, his eyes cannot see, his pulse has ceased, and that his heart has stopped. We just know that the body mechanism has ceased to work, but we do not know anything about what happened to the one that was hidden behind the body mechanism, or whether there really was anything hidden behind or not, or whether that hidden being is saved or not.

Death happens within, and all we are able to see is its symptoms on the outside. How can one know death by seeing others dying? We too have died many times but we have never been able to see ourselves dying, because we had become unconscious before dying.

So you may see many persons dying, but you never come to believe that you too are going to die. Have you ever believed that you too will die? Many people may start dying every day, the whole cemetery may become full of them, some epidemic may spread and you will see dead bodies everywhere — still one always feels that only others are dying. You never feel within that you are also going to die.

Even if such an awareness of death comes it remains only on the surface, it never enters deep within. Why? Because we have never seen our own death, we have no experience of it, we have no remembrance of death. However much we may think backward in the past we never come to find that we have ever died before. So something that has never happened in the past, how can it happen in the future?

All the calculations of mind are based on the past. Even when the mind thinks of the future it thinks only in the language of the past. What has happened yesterday, that alone can happen tomorrow — with a little difference here and there. But what has never happened before, how can that happen tomorrow? This is why the mind is never able to believe in death. And when death in fact happens the mind is already unconscious.

Thus the two great experiences of life, birth and death, we never experience. We take birth and we die, and if we are unable to experience these two great events of birth and death then how can we experience and what can we experience of the life that flows in between the two? One who is unable to know the beginning of life, one who is unable to know the end of life, how can he ever know the middle of life?

The stream that flows between birth and death is life. Neither we know the beginning nor the end; the middle is bound to remain unknown. There may be some hazy dim knowing — like something heard from a faraway distance, or like a dream that was seen. But we have no direct contact with life.

The meaning of jivanamukta is a person who has known death during life by waking up, by becoming conscious. This word jivanamukta is wonderful. It has many different meanings. One meaning can be: one who is liberated during life. Another meaning can be: one who is liberated from life. The second meaning is deeper. Actually the first meaning is useful only after the second meaning is known. Only the one who is liberated from life can be liberated in life.

Who will be liberated from life? Only he can be liberated from life who has known that the whole life is a process of death; one who has seen that that which we call life is only a long march towards death. After birth we do not do anything else except die. We may be doing anything — the march towards death continues each moment.

Evening comes after the morning and we have died for twelve more hours. Then morning will come again after this evening and we will have died for twelve more hours. Life goes on exhausting itself drop by drop; time goes on emptying itself away.

So what we call life is actually a long process of dying. After birth, whatsoever one may be doing, one is definitely doing one thing — that is dying, continuing to die. No sooner are you born than you have begun to die. In the very first breath taken by a child the arrangement for his last breath has been made. Now there is no way of avoiding death. One who is born will die sooner or later; the difference may be of time, but death is certain.

One who has seen life as a long process of death… I say has seen, not has understood. You can also understand, “So this is how it is?” — that you can also do But by that you will not be a jivanamukta. No, one who sees, one who becomes a witness to it, is one who has seen that every moment he is dying.

One thing we never realize is that “I will die”; it is always the others who die. Secondly, even if we infer our death through the death of others, then too it is something that will happen in the future; for now it can be postponed. It is not happening now, today. Even a man lying on his death-bed does not think that his death is happening today, this moment. He too avoids, postpones — tomorrow. In avoiding we save ourselves. For us life is now and death is far away in time.

One who has seen that the whole of life is a process of death has also seen that death is not tomorrow but now, this very moment — “I am already dying in this very moment. How to see, how to realize this happening of my death this very moment?” If one is able to see, then one does not lust for life.

Buddha has said that one who does not lust to live is a jivanamukta. One who does not demand that he should get more life, one who does not desire to live more, one who has no lust to live more, one who will accept death gracefully if it comes now, one who will not ask death for even one moment more — “Wait, let me tidy up matters” — one who is ever ready to live every moment, that person is a jivanamukta.
One whose lust to live is finished can be free from life. One who becomes free from life becomes a jivanamukta — then he is liberated while living. Then here and now he is with us but he is not like us. He too is sitting, rising, eating, drinking, walking, sleeping, but the very quality of all these activities is transformed. Doing everything as we do, he is still not doing what we do.

This world as we see it remains the same but it looks different to him — his angle of perception is changed; the center in him that is seeing is changed; for him the whole world is transformed. The definition of and indications about such a liberation while living is in these aphorisms. We shall try to understand them one after the other.

Source – from Osho Book “Finger Pointing to the Moon”

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.