Osho – Whenever you think of suicide, remember, why are you thinking of suicide? Some hope has turned sour, some expectation has turned into a frustration, some desire has proved futile. You have become aware; even in your unawareness a little ray of awareness has penetrated you. You have seen, maybe only for a moment, a glimpse, just like lightning in the dark night. For a moment all was light and you have seen that the way you are living is false and there is no fulfillment if you live in a false way. Immediately the idea of suicide arises in you.

More and more people are committing suicide today, more than ever. More people commit suicide in the West than in the East. It looks very strange, very illogical. It should not be so, because in the East people are starving but they don’t commit suicide. In the West they have all that man has always desired. People have two houses — one in the city, one in the mountains or on the seabeach, in the country. They have two-car garages…and all kinds of gadgets that technology has made available.

For the first time, the West has succeeded in being affluent, but more people are committing suicide there than in the East. Why? — for the simple reason that the East can still hope and the West is becoming aware that there is no hope. When you don’t have something you can hope for it; when you have it, how can you hope any more? The thing is there and nothing has happened through it. You have the money, you have a good wife, children, husband, prestige, respectability — and suddenly you become aware in this affluence that deep down you are hollow, poor, a beggar and nothing else. The whole effort of achieving all these things has failed. Things are there, but no fulfillment has happened through them. This is the cause of more suicide in the West.

In the West, too, more Americans commit suicide than anybody else because they are the most affluent, they are the most in a state of shock: “All the hopes for which we have lived for centuries are fulfilled, and yet nothing is fulfilled.” And this is going to be so more and more: more and more people will commit suicide.

Friedrich Nietzsche is correct: the ordinary man cannot live without illusions. Don’t take his illusions away from him! And the Master does exactly that: he tries to take your illusions away. He creates a situation in which, ordinarily, you would commit suicide. But if you are fortunate enough to have a communion with a Master, the same situation creates sannyas. It is the same situation, the SAME crisis!

This is my observation: that true sannyas happens only when you have come to the verge of suicide. When you see that the outside world is finished, then there are only two alternatives left: either commit suicide and be finished because there is nothing to live for any more, or turn in. “The outer world has failed, now let us try the inner”: that is sannyas. Sannyas and suicide are two aspects of the same coin. If you are focused and obsessed with the outside, then suicide; if you are a little loose, flexible, then sannyas.

But a Master cannot be diplomatic. He has to create this crisis in which suicide is possible — and also sannyas, also transformation, also a new birth. But a new birth is possible only when you die to the old, when you die to the past.

Source – Osho Book “Ah, This!”

Question – Beloved Osho, Please talk about the Misuse of Power.

Osho – Shantam Divyama, there is the famous statement of an English philosopher: “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I do not agree with him. My analysis is totally different. Everybody is full of violence, greed, anger, passion — but has no power; so he remains a saint. To be violent you need to be powerful. To fulfill your greed you need to be powerful. To satisfy your passions you need to be powerful.

So when power happens into your hands, all your sleeping dogs start barking. Power becomes a nourishment to you, an opportunity. It is not that power corrupts, you are corrupted. Power only brings your corruption into the open. You wanted to kill somebody, but you had not the power to kill; but if you have the power, you will kill.

It is not power that corrupts you, corruption you carry within yourself; power simply gives you the opportunity to do whatever you want to do. Power in the hands of a man like Gautam Buddha will not corrupt; on the contrary, it will help humanity to raise its consciousness. Power in the hands of Genghis Khan destroys people, rapes women, burns people alive. Whole villages are burnt — people are not allowed to get out. It is not power… this man Genghis Khan must have been carrying all these desires in him.

It is almost like when rain comes, different plants start growing; but different plants have different flowers. Whatever is hidden in your seeds, whatever is your potentiality, power gives you a chance — because most human beings are living so unconsciously that when they come to power all their unconscious instincts have a chance to be fulfilled. Then they don’t care whether it kills people, whether it poisons people…. You are asking me about the misuse of power. Power is misused because you have desires which are ugly, which are an inheritance from the animals.

In a better world the first things should be…. We waste almost one third of life in educating our children. In that one third of life, some time should be given to cleanse their unconscious; so by the time they graduate from their university, and they have some power somewhere — somebody will become a police commissioner, somebody will become a governor, somebody will become a prime minister — if they do not have anything in their unconscious that is poisonous, destructive, then power cannot be misused. Who is going to misuse it? Power is neutral.

My sannyasins in Italy have been trying for one year for a tourist visa for me, just for three weeks. And it has taken one year for the authorities, and they still have not been able to decide. Finally, a few days ago, a letter came: after one year the old application has become useless, a new application is needed.

They had filled in the application, I had signed the application, and just yesterday the Italian ambassador informed me that I have been given a ten day tourist visa — but there are conditions. I have never heard that tourist visas are given with conditions. The conditions are: “To report on what date, at what time, from which airport you will leave India and on what date, at what time, at what airport you will land in Italy; and the same for the return.

“In Italy, whichever city you are in, you should appear at the police station first, and inform them how long you are going to stay in the city. And before leaving the city you should go again to the police station, to inform them that you are leaving the city. Next city, again you have to go to the police station.”
I have told Anando to write a letter to the prime minister of Italy: “Just a few months ago you were in India. How many conditions were put on you? And in how many police stations did you appear? And do you think I am a murderer, or a terrorist, or I am carrying bombs and dynamite?

“Let us know when you are coming back to India, so that we can give you a really good welcome. And I refuse to step in your land unless you apologize for making these conditions. It took you one year to figure out all these conditions; and then too you have not given the visa for three weeks, just for ten days. Ordinarily the visa is given for three months — and nobody has ever heard that such conditions have to be followed.”

I have told Anando to write to him that, “It seems Benito Mussolini has not died yet. Your country is not a democratic country, it is still fascist. These conditions indicate, without any doubt, a fascist mind.

“So I will come to Italy if you apologize publicly; or I will come to Italy when you are no longer in power. And my people in Italy will try in every way to ensure that you are no longer in power. Just let the new election come, because I have thousands of sannyasins in Italy; and this is an insult to my thousands of sannyasins in Italy.

“The pope comes to India, and the president the prime minister go to receive him at the airport; and he is not asked to appear at the police station in every city. And he himself has been here. But next time, if you come here as prime minister, then just inform us at what time and at what airport you are landing, so that we can reply to you about your conditions.”

These people are not corrupted by power. These people are corrupted; power simply brings their corruption into action. Power in itself is neutral. In a good man’s hand it will be a blessing. In an unconscious man’s hand it is going to be a curse. But for thousands of years we have condemned power, without thinking that power has not to be condemned; people have to be cleaned of all the ugly instincts that are hiding within them, because everybody is going to have some kind of power or other.

It does not have to be great power. You may be just sitting in a railway station selling tickets, but that too gives you power. You are standing at the window, and the man does not even look at you. He goes on turning his file — and you can see that he is not concerned with the file, he simply wants to show you your place. Even the peon sitting outside the collector’s office behaves as if he is the president of the country — so it is not a question of where you are. Wherever you are, you will have some kind of power.

Aurangzeb, one of India’s Mohammedan emperors, was so impatient that he could not wait for his father to die, or to become old, so that he could succeed him. He imprisoned his own father, and became the emperor of the country. His father had remained busy all his life. Now, sitting in the prison cell, he sent a message to his son: “At least arrange thirty boys, so that I can teach them the holy KORAN.”

And the comment that Aurangzeb made to his courtiers is very significant. He said, “That old man does not want to lose power. Now he is no longer the emperor. But thirty students… teaching them the holy KORAN, he will again have the power over those small children.”

Psychologists say that people who are afraid of competing in life and becoming powerful, choose a simpler way: they become teachers in schools. Small children… and you can harass them, beat them, although it is illegal — but it happens all over the country.

Just the other day I was reading a report that there are cases found… but the government goes on hiding those facts. For the first time it has been accepted, because it has become too much, that teachers have hit the children so hard that they have become deaf for their whole lives. One boy… his own father chained him; almost for ten years he remained chained, tied to a pillar in the house. He has almost become like an animal. He cannot stand up, he can only move on all fours; and because he was forced to live in darkness, he has lost his eyesight.

Even parents use power. Teachers use power, husbands use power, wives use power. It does not matter where you are. If mankind comes to understand the deep psychological roots and changes man’s unconscious so that there are no seeds, power can go on raining but there will be no flowers of corruption. Otherwise power is going to be misused always. And you cannot take power from people’s hands; somebody must be a mother, somebody must be a father, somebody must be a teacher.

The only way is, to cleanse people’s unconscious with meditation, fill their inner being with light. It is only meditation that gives you a clean heart, which cannot be corrupted. Then power can never be misused, then power can be a blessing — it is going to be creative. Then you are going to do something to make life more lovable, more livable; to make existence a little more beautiful. But that great day has not yet arrived, and to make an effort for that great day to arrive, all the power — addicted people are going to be against you. It has been again and again asked of me, “Why is the whole world against you?”

They are all power-addicted people, and I am trying to make man a pool of serenity — peace and silence and love and ecstasy.

Source – Osho Book “The Razor’s Edge”

Question – Beloved Osho, Why do I like so much to criticize people and complain against life?

Osho – Everybody likes it. To criticize people, to complain against people, gives you a good feeling. Criticizing others, you feel you are higher; complaining about others, you feel you are better. It is very ego fulfilling. And I am saying almost everybody does it. A few people do it out loud, a few people do it just within themselves, but the enjoyment is the same.

Only rarely are there people who don’t criticize, who don’t complain; those are the people who have dropped their egos. Then there is no point — why should you bother about it? It is none of your business, it no longer pays you. The ego was helped, nourished.

Hence my emphasis is: drop the ego. With the dropping of the ego, you will find almost a whole world disappearing. The whole world that was knit around the ego falls away completely, and you start seeing people in a new light. Perhaps the same person that you might have criticized in the same situation… instead of criticizing him you feel a great compassion for him, a great love, a deep desire to help. The same person and the same situation you would have complained against, now your eyes are different; you see things differently. Perhaps you will see that in his place in this situation you would have behaved in the same way, there is nothing to complain about.

Your outlook will become more human, more friendly… a deep acceptance of people as they are. You know only some part of them; you don’t know their whole life. And it is not good to decide from a small fragment about the whole person. That small fragment may be absolutely fitting and right in the whole context. But the situation is this: it is very easy to criticize. It does not need much intelligence.

I have often told a story of Turgenev’s, THE FOOL. In a village, a young man is very much disturbed because the whole village thinks he is an idiot. A wise man is passing through the village and the young man goes to him and says, “Help me! For twenty-four hours a day I am criticized; whatever I do I am criticized. If I don’t do anything I am criticized. If I speak I am criticized, if I don’t speak I am criticized. I don’t know any way out.”

The wise man said, “Don’t be worried….” He whispered the secret in his ear, and told him, “After one month I will come back. Meet me then and tell me how things are going.”
The young man went to the marketplace and started working on the formula given by the wise man.

Somebody said, “What a beautiful sunset!”
And he said, “What is beautiful in it? Prove what is beautiful in it!”
The man who had said it was a beautiful sunset was shocked. It was a beautiful sunset, but what was the proof? Is there any evidence? Do you know what beauty is? Everybody knows, but nobody can prove it.

The man remained silent. Everybody started laughing. And everybody said, “Strange, we used to think this man was an idiot. He is a great intellectual.”

This was the formula given by the old man: criticize anything; just roam about the village watching and when anybody says anything, does anything, criticize it. And particularly criticize things which are taken for granted and nobody questions. Somebody uses the word `God’ — immediately catch hold of him: “Where is God? What nonsense are you talking about?” Somebody talks about love — catch hold of him: “What is love? Where is love? Put it here in front of everybody!”

Somebody would say, “Love is in the heart.”
And he would say, “No, there is nothing in the heart. You can go and ask any surgeon — in the heart there is nothing like love. There is only a blood-circulating system which just pumps blood and purifies it. What does it have to do with love?”

After one month the old man came back. By that time the idiot had become a wise man. He touched the old man’s feet and he said, “You are great! That trick worked; now the whole village thinks I am a wise man.”

The old man said, “Just remember one thing: don’t assert anything from your side, so nobody can criticize you. Let them assert things; you just criticize and complain. And always be aggressive, never be defensive. Don’t take a defensive attitude. Attack, be aggressive, criticize each and everybody, and they will all worship you.”

And the idiot becomes the wise man. It does not need much intelligence to criticize or to complain. And cheaply you become wise; cheaply you become very intelligent.

One of my professors… He used to teach me logic. Within a few days I found out that even if I mentioned the name of a book which did not exist, a fictitious writer, he would immediately criticize it: “I have read that book, and there is nothing in it.”

I went to the vice-chancellor and I told him the whole thing. I said, “This is sheer dishonesty, because first he criticized those who have really written books. And seeing his attitude — that he criticizes everybody, I suspected that he had not read them but was just trying to show that he is so well-read, so wise, so intelligent. So I tried a few fictitious names and he criticized them also. He said: `There is nothing in those books. Those writers know nothing.’” And I said, “Those writers don’t exist. Those books don’t exist!”

The vice-chancellor said, “This is strange. I used to think that man was a responsible man.”

I said, “Call him in sometime, and I will drop in casually, by the way.” I wrote down three or four names of books which don’t exist, have never existed and will never exist, with writers who are just fictitious. I gave those names to the vice-chancellor and I told him, “I will come when he is here and we will talk, and just by the way you bring up these names and see what his reaction is.”

And he brought up those names and the professor immediately said, “Don’t waste time. Those are all ordinary, mediocre writers, and the books they have written have nothing original in them.”
The vice-chancellor could not believe his eyes. He said, “Do you know that these four books do not exist at all? Neither have these four men ever existed. Why are you criticizing them?”
And before the vice-chancellor, he became afraid. He said, “Never existed? How did I get the idea that….”

I said, “Don’t try to befool anybody, because I have been asking you about other books which have not existed. This was only a proof. I wanted to show the vice-chancellor that a professor should at least be sincere enough to acknowledge that he has not read a particular book.”

I said to the vice-chancellor, “What kind of respect does this man want from us? My feeling is that he has not read anything; he has simply read Turgenev’s story, THE FOOL.”

I had brought the book, and I read the story to the vice-chancellor. And I said, “This man is the idiot from this story. You should make him alert that if it happens again in the class, we are going to boycott him completely. Either he will have to find the book and prove…. He never even goes to the library!”

I had looked into all the records before I went to the vice-chancellor. The professor had never been to the library. Under his name — and he had been in the university for ten years — not a single book was issued. And this man was ready to criticize anybody.

I said, “A wise man, an intelligent man is always humble.”
Your question about why we are so ready to criticize, to complain is very simple. The psychology behind it is that this is the simplest way, the cheapest way to prove that you are somebody special, that you know more. But in fact you are simply proving that you are the idiot of Turgenev and nobody else.

Be humble in the world of wisdom. Before criticizing anybody, look into the fact from all directions, from all angles, from all possible viewpoints, and you will be surprised: there is very little that can be criticized or complained about. And if you pay that much attention, then whatever you criticize will be accepted, and accepted with gratitude because it is not to fulfill your ego; it is just to help the other person on the path. But you have to do so much work.

One of my professors had written his doctoral thesis on Shankara and Bradley. I told him, “I have read the thesis, and now I am studying everything possible about Shankara and Bradley before I say anything about your thesis.”

He said, “You are strange, because I have given my thesis to many professors and they have all given their opinions.”
I said, “I cannot give you my opinion in such a cheap way. I will look at all the sources you have looked into; I will look into other sources that you have not looked into.” And it took me almost six months to study Shankara and Bradley.

When I gave my opinion to him he said, “My God, it is good that you were not one of my examiners; otherwise, I would never have been able to get the doctorate. I worked on it for six years, and in six months you have gone through all the sources that I have referred to. You have even gone to other sources which I have not even heard of….”

I said, “Your treatise is juvenile, it is written by an amateur. Shankara and Bradley are very mature philosophers of the East and West. You have not paid enough respect to these two geniuses. You have done a clerical job. You have looked at a few books of Shankara, a few books of Bradley, taken a few pieces from here, from there, and your thesis was ready. Your thesis does not contribute a single original point. And unless a thesis contributes an original point, it does not deserve a doctorate; it is at the most a beautiful essay. You can publish it as a book, but not for a doctorate.” But he was a humble man; he accepted it.

He said, “You are right. I myself was feeling that I had not done them justice. Six years were not enough to cover Bradley’s whole life and Shankara’s whole life. These two are the very highest peaks of genius; six years are not enough. But nobody pointed it out to me, not even my examiners. The examiners will not point it out because to do that they would have had to read it, they would have had to go through the whole thing. Who bothers? In fact, perhaps some of their students gave me the marks and the examiners have not even looked at the thesis.”

Nobody is interested in praising anybody, in finding those qualities which everybody has… Nobody is ready to help those qualities grow; everybody is afraid — if all are growing, what about him? His whole concern is that his ego should go on becoming bigger, and the easier way is to criticize everybody, to complain against everything: Be negative, make negativity your very approach. And for this you don’t need intelligence, any idiot can do it.

But to be really critical, one has to be very compassionate, very loving. And one has to be ready to devote time and energy and intelligence. Then it is not criticism, then it is not inimical, it is not antagonistic; it is a friendly suggestion, a sympathetic approach. Everyone here should learn to be sympathetic. Your meditation should help you, not to criticize but to appreciate. And if you are intelligent enough, you can appreciate in such a way that whatever you wanted to criticize will be understood without being said.

Source – Osho Book “Beyond Enlightenment”

Question – Beloved Master, What is the definition of a Pessimist?

Osho – Shivananda, a pessimist is an optimist who has become frustrated with his optimism. He hoped too much and failed, he dreamed too much and could not achieve anything substantial. The pessimist is an optimist standing on his head; they are not different fellows — that’s what I want to make clear to you. Unless you have been an optimist you can never be a pessimist. First you have to become an optimist.

And each child is brought up with great optimism. All parents think that they have great children. Ask any mother: she thinks she has the unique child; the most superior, rare, incomparable. Each mother brags about the child. Parents bring up children with great optimism that they are going to be Alexander the Greats or Jesus Christs or Gautam Buddhas.

But slowly slowly life proves just the contrary. Slowly slowly, the child becomes aware of his ordinariness. He becomes aware that these great dreams, that these great ambitions, cannot be fulfilled. And by the time one is coming closer to forty, forty-two, pessimism starts settling — gloom, darkness….

Now medical science is aware that most heart attacks happen nearabout forty to forty-four, between those four years. Most people go mad between those four years, forty to forty-four. Psychologists, psychoanalysts, are aware that that is the most dangerous time. If you can remain sane beyond forty-four, that means you will remain sane. But many people fall flat.

And don’t think that if you are sane even beyond forty-four… that does not mean that you are very intelligent. It may only be that you are very dull and it takes a long time for you to understand. It may only be that you are very insensitive. It may only be that you are foolhardy, that you don’t listen to life, what life is saying, that you go on hoping.

But sooner or later, a person starts feeling that life has gone down the drain. Optimism turns sour and becomes pessimism. Optimism, that hopefulness, turns upside-down; a hopelessness settles in. Then everything looks dark and dismal. First you used to count the roses, now you start counting the thorns. First you used to say, “How beautiful this roseflower and what a miracle! It grows amongst thousands of thorns.” You were poetic, you had some aesthetic sense; you still believed that life is going to be a fulfillment.

But soon the day comes when the roses start fading away and you start counting the thorns, and you cannot believe in the roses anymore. You start saying, “It is impossible! The rose must be a dream, the rose must be MAYA, illusion, hallucination. How is it possible amongst thousands of thorns, how is a rose possible?” It looks contradictory, it looks illogical, it cannot happen in the nature of things. You start counting nights; before, you used to count days.

The optimist says, “There are two days, and between two days just a small night to rest.” And the pessimist counts the nights; he says, “There are two long nights — nightmares, ugly dreams, tortures — and just a small day sandwiched between the two.” Life is the same: you can count the days or you can count the nights. If you count the days you are an optimist, if you count the nights you are a pessimist, but there is really no difference. The optimist can become a pessimist, the pessimist can become an optimist. They are not contraries; they are two points on the same spectrum.

One has to go beyond both, Shivananda. A sannyasin has to go beyond both — neither hope nor hopelessness. No need to count days, no need to count nights. Be a watcher! No need to count thorns, no need to count roses. Be a watcher….

I don’t teach you optimism. In the West it is very fashionable nowadays; it is called “positive thinking.” That is a new name for optimism; the old name has become a little too out of fashion, out-of-date. The new name is positive thinking. I don’t teach you positive thinking, because positive thinking carries the negative in its wake.

I teach you transcendence — neither positive nor negative. Be a watcher: witness both. When there is day, witness the day, and when there is night, witness the night — and don’t get identified with either. You are neither the day nor the night; you are the transcendental consciousness. Become more and more centered there in that transcendence. True religion is not positive, nor is it negative. It is neither via negativa nor via positiva; it is via transcendence.

One September morning after Labor Day, Levin and Ostrow met for lunch. They had not seen each other for several months.
“I have just lived through a summer I never thought I would see,” said Levin. “June was a disaster — never have I seen a June like that. When July came, I realized that June was terrific, because with July I went right into the cellar. July was so bad….”
“For heaven’s sake!” interrupted Ostrow. “Why are you coming to me with these piddling matters? You wanna hear real trouble? I got it. Yesterday my only son came home, told me he is gonna marry another fella. My boy is a homosexual! What could be worse than that?”
“I will tell you,” said Levin, “August!”

Just wait! There are people who are continuously looking for the negative — and if you look for the negative you will find it, because the negative is there in the same proportion as the positive. If you look for the positive, you will find the positive. But by finding the positive you cannot destroy the negative; the negative is there, side by side. They are always together like negative and positive poles of electricity. You can’t have electricity with one pole, you will need both.

Life needs both: thorns and roses, days and nights, happiness/unhappiness, birth/death. Be a witness to it all and you will know something that is beyond birth, beyond death; something that is beyond darkness and beyond light; something that is beyond happiness, beyond unhappiness. Buddha has called it peace, nirvana.

Source – Osho Book “The Dhammapada, Vol4″

Question – Beloved Osho, How can we Avoid being Authoritative?

Osho – It is very simple. The people who are authoritarian are the people who are suffering from an inferiority complex. To hide their inferiority they impose their superiority. They want to prove that they are somebody, that their word is truth, that their word is law. But deep down they are very inferior beings.

This is one of the reasons that all of the politicians suffer from an inferiority complex. Anybody who does not suffer from an inferiority complex will not go into politics at all. There are so many beautiful things in the world to do — to paint, to sing, to dance, to create literature, to make beautiful statues, to create a Khajuraho. There is so much creativity available, but that is available only to a person who does not suffer from inferiority.

So we have to make clear to all our sannyasins that nobody in the world is inferior and nobody in the world is superior. The whole idea is artificial and created by people who have a vested interest in it. They have created the same idea in many ways… man is superior, woman is inferior — on what criterion?

The woman lives longer than man, five years longer. The woman falls sick less than man. For one hundred boys born, only ninety girls are born, because by the time the boys will be marriageable, ten will have gone down the drain. At the time of marriage they will be equal, ninety of both. The girl has more stamina, more resistance to disease. She talks about committing suicide but she never does. Men commit suicide almost twice as much as women.

In what way is man superior? But the idea had to be created because it helped man to keep woman a slave. She is inferior, so inferior that in countries like China, woman has no soul. A husband can kill his wife — it is not a crime. It is just like you destroy your chair. It is your chair, you have paid for it: what crime is there? And men have convinced women that they don’t have any soul because they never allowed them to be educated, they never allowed them to move in society. Naturally, they could not argue.

Why is it so difficult to argue with a woman? Nobody thinks about it. If you argue with a woman she will start screaming, crying, throwing things; but she will not argue. And you, seeing this whole scene, will feel it is better to accept whatever she is saying; otherwise she will put the whole house on fire. And neighbors are watching, people in the street are gathering around your house. So it is better — whether you are right or wrong does not matter — to say she is right.

But who has put her in this condition? It is because you never gave her education, you never taught her logic. You never allowed her to be as intelligent as you are because you were always afraid. And you can see the fear in the universities. Women are always ahead of men, they top the list more than men. They always achieve more first class honors than the man. We have created this idea of superiority and inferiority for some vested interests.

The sudras are inferior. Nobody has proved why. There seems to be no reason that the brahmin should be superior and the sudra should be inferior, but you have managed for thousands of years to keep them uneducated. You have kept them doing things which need no intelligence, and you have not allowed them to do anything else.

A man who has been making your shoes — his family has been making shoes for thousands of years, generation after generation. Now there is no need of intelligence. There is no challenge — he has only to make shoes. These are all strategies of exploitation.

We have to explain to our sannyasins that nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, and nobody is equal either. Everybody is unique. That point has to be remembered, because if you say nobody is superior and nobody is inferior, people are certain to conclude that everybody is equal — which is not true.

Equality is psychologically wrong. Everybody cannot be an Albert Einstein and everybody cannot be a Rabindranath Tagore. But that does not mean that Rabindranath Tagore is superior because you cannot be him. Rabindranath cannot be you either.

My whole point is that everybody is a unique manifestation. So we destroy the whole idea of superiority and inferiority, equality and inequality, and we replace it with a new concept of uniqueness. And every individual is unique.

Just look lovingly and you will see that every individual has something which nobody else has. Once the idea of uniqueness spreads in the commune, there will be nobody who will try to enforce authority.

Source – Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Question – Beloved Osho, Is Jealousy yet another form of Cowardice?

Osho – Jealousy is very complicated. It has many ingredients in it. Cowardice also is one of them; egoistic attitudes is another; monopolistic desire — not an experience of love but only of possessiveness; a tendency to be competitive; a deep-rooted fear of being inferior…. So many things are involved in jealousy.

You love a person — at least you think you love a person…. If you really love, then jealousy is impossible. If you find the person loving somebody else, you will be happy: you love the person, and he is happy with somebody else; and all that you want is to make him happy. You will not feel jealous; on the contrary you will feel grateful to the person who has made your lover happy. You will feel a great friendliness.

But this is about true love, which is a rare variety. What exists in the name of love is just an idea. You “love” a person means you possess a person. You “love” a person means he cannot love anybody else. If he loves anybody else he is insulting you; he is proving that you are inferior, that there are better people, more lovable people than you are. It hurts the ego, it hurts your possessiveness, it hurts your monopolistic idea.

And basically it is cowardice, because you are not trying to face the facts about your love in a straightforward manner. It is not a question of your lover loving somebody else; the question is, do you love the person? And you are not brave enough to face that question. And that is the real question to be asked.

If I love the person then nothing matters.
Love allows freedom.
Love allows that whatever he feels like doing, he can do.
Whatever he feels to be blissful, it is his choice.

If you love the person, then you don’t interfere in his privacy. You leave that person’s privacy uninterfered with. You don’t try to trespass his inner being. You don’t want that he should say where he has been, why he is late in the night. That is not right at all.

It is his life: where he goes, and whether he comes late or not…. You have loved the person as he is — and this is the way he is. And you never try to interfere in his privacy. You don’t open his letters; you don’t look into his pockets, into his diary and note the phone numbers. You don’t try to find out some clue. That is all ugly.

You have to face it yourself.
If you don’t face it, that is cowardice.

And to hide it, you make so much of a tantrum of jealousy that you completely forget that it is only your cowardice. What was needed was to be very clear whether it is an idea that you love the man, or it is a reality. Reality has no problems; only ideas bring trouble because they are just superficial. Underneath there is so much rubbish that those ideas cannot help you. Any small thing and immediately trouble starts.

I cannot conceive that if two persons really love each other they will ever have any fight for any reason, that they will try to impose any idea on the other for any reason, that they will try to inhibit the other person from any action.

Love’s basic requirement is: “I accept the other person as he is.” And love never tries to change the person according to one’s own idea of them. You do not try to cut the person here and there and bring him to size — which is being done everywhere all over the world.

People who think they are lovers — they are continually harassing each other, trying to create the image that they want. They want the other person just as a puppet — and the strings should be in their hands. And the same is being done by the other person: he wants you to be a puppet, and the strings have to be in his hands. Now there is going to be continual conflict, misery, pain.

And one starts feeling a great wonder: why have poets been writing so many beautiful things about love? — because nothing seems to happen! It is only in the poetries. The reality is that most of the poets have never loved. They are in love with the idea of love, so they make beautiful poems, beautiful novels. Or perhaps they have loved, but failed so utterly that just to console themselves they create the polar opposite in their poetry.

For example, Leo Tolstoy was tortured by his wife for his whole life, even to the very end. The last day, she harassed him so much that he left the house at night and went to the station and died there on a bench. He was a count, and he had immense property and immense land and everything — but he lived like a poor man. The wife had control of everything.

She would not allow him even to have a friend, a male friend. She was so jealous that she would not allow him to read or write in front of her. He had to go out in the garden or in the fields to write; all his writing was done outside. Her jealousy was such that…, “When I am present you are more interested in your novel. This is an insult to me!”

And this man has written such beautiful books and such beautiful things about love, that if you didn’t know his life, you could not believe how it is possible. It is a compensation. In life he is missing it; he is putting it in the novels: in the novels he is creating the fantasy he would have liked his life to be, just to forget his life, its ugliness.

So either the poets have never loved and known, have never known the agony of it; or, if they have loved, they have known the agony of it and they wanted to know the ecstasy. So in their poetry you will find the ecstasy of love. But the truth is that the whole world is tortured unnecessarily.

Yes, it is cowardice that keeps you in torture. Just face the facts, whether you love a man or not. If you love, then there are no conditions to be put. If you don’t love, then who are you to put conditions?

Either way it is clear. If you love then there is no question of conditions: you love him as he is. If you don’t love, then too there is no problem: he is nobody to you; there is no question of putting conditions. He can do whatsoever he wants to do.

But one has to face one’s feelings in a very sincere and honest way. And that straightforward encounter of one’s feelings immediately shows you the path. Life is not difficult — we are making it so because we are cowards: we don’t see a thing which we know is there.

I had a friend; we were traveling together and the ticket checker came. I gave him my ticket, and my friend was looking in this pocket and that pocket, and was getting in great trouble.

I asked him, “Why don’t you look in this pocket — on the right side?”
He said, “That is my only hope! If it is not there, then the ticket is lost! So I am afraid to look in that pocket — first I look everywhere else. That will be the last.”

And that is the situation in life: we are not looking because we know that perhaps to face it will be a difficult task. But I know that it’s not difficult. It is always simple to face reality. And it makes you innocent; and unnecessary complexities don’t arise. Otherwise one goes on living in imagination, that one loves, that one can die for the other person.

You cannot even see the other person being happy with someone for a minute — and you think you can die for the other person! Just try to see what actually is in you for the other person — and jealousy will disappear. In most of the cases with jealousy, your love will also disappear. But it is good, because what is the point of having a love which is full of jealousy, which is not love?

If jealousy disappears and love still remains, then you have something solid in your life which is worth having.

Source – from Osho Book “Light on the Path”

Osho – Try to understand why there is ambition within us. What is the reason for our running so madly? The reason is that the more a person is suffering from inferiority, the more ambitious he becomes. The more inferiority you experience, the more you feel that you are nothing, the more you will become ambitious. Why? Through ambition, you want to prove yourself in the eyes of the world and in your own eyes, so that nobody makes the mistake of considering you inferior.

I will tell you a small story to help you understand. You may have heard the name of Tamerlane – he fought and defeated a small country. The king of that country was Baijal; he was arrested and brought before Tamerlane, duly handcuffed. Defeated, Baijal stood in front of Tamerlane, who was sitting on a throne with his advisers and soldiers standing by.

Tamerlane began to laugh. It was natural that Baijal should get angry; Baijal, though defeated, was a king. He lifted his head proudly and told Tamerlane not to be foolish. ”He who laughs at others’ defeat has some day to shed tears at his own defeat.”

But Tamerlane said, ”I am not laughing at your defeat. I am not so foolish as to laugh over such a small victory. I am laughing at the fact that I am a lame man and you are a man with one eye. How strange God is, that he gives kingships to lame and one-eyed men!”

If I were present at that time I would have told Tamerlane that nobody else asks for kingships except for those who are lame and blind. No wise person would like to become a king. No wise person would like to become a politician. No wise person would want to sit on the chest of another person. No wise person would like to bring someone else down to his feet or be his owner. All these things are desired by the diseased and inferior man residing within us.

The mental states of inferiority and weaknesses within us – the lameness and blindness – want to be hidden. We are running to hide them and to prove that the whole world is wrong, that we are alright. We have proved our might, and we are trying to prove to others that we are not weak or wanting. This is the race of the inferior mind.

The education based on ambition is, at its root, based on violence. Ambition is not a dignity to the personality; it is an inferiority of the personality. Everybody in the world is afraid of being nobody. Everybody wants to have a name, to be a VIP. Everyone wants to have a position, a good reputation and a house of his own. Who is creating this madness? It is created by our education.

The education is right which can say that you are enough as you are; that you do not have to be anything else, you are enough as you are. Explore all your possibilities and experience the joy of it. Do not be in a race with anyone. It is not necessary; there is no reason for doing so. If Education can make every person aware that one is enough as one is, and can enable him to experience the bliss of it, if education can make facilities available for the full growth of what one has – facilities for growth, not for ambition; facilities for love, not for competition; facilities for self awakening and consciousness, not for conflict with others – then such education will be able to bring about a fundamental revolution in the world.

As long as education is not able to do this, it is not in the interest of man; on the contrary it is harmful to man, it poisons the human mind. Whatsoever we have is enough. What is lacking in anyone? If a person does not become ambitious, the world is not lacking in anything. If a person does not become diseased with the madness of ambition he has everything. But he is not able to see that.

How can he see? We only see what others have. One who is ambitious always sees what others have, he is not able to see what he has. It is interesting to note that if tomorrow he is able to get what others have, he will cease to see that too. Again, he will begin to see what others have. Just think and see if it is true or not. You have two eyes, two hands, two legs; you are breathing; you have a body – it is a great wealth with which you can create a great many things.

Source- from Osho Book “Revolution in Education”

Question – BELOVED MASTER, I AM OBSESSED WITH FOOD. I EAT TOO MUCH AND HAVE GAINED ENORMOUS WEIGHT. CAN YOU HELP ME TO REDUCE MY WEIGHT?
Osho – Sangito, this is strange, coming to me from California just to reduce your weight. In California there are far more facilities available to reduce weight. I know it because I had to send Mulla Nasruddin to California. The problem was the same.

When Mulla Nasruddin reached California, he was directed by our sannyasins there to this ultimate weight-losing program. It took four days and was guaranteed to take off fifty pounds or your money would be refunded.

He entered the building and was told to enter the first door to his left and to undress there. He did so and then from a second door in the room entered a beautiful blonde woman, naked but for a sign around her neck. It read, “If you catch me, you can make love to me!”

Nasruddin felt the passion rise within him. The room was fairly small, but the lady was agile, and it took him twenty minutes to catch her. After his love-making, Nasruddin showered and left, eagerly awaiting the next day.

On the second day, he was directed to another room, a bit larger than the first. There a beautiful redhead, naked except for the sign, greeted him. The chase lasted for almost forty minutes.
On the third day, it was another, larger room, and a beautiful brunette! After almost an hour, he caught her too.

Throughout the three days, Nasruddin had kept an account of his weight loss — twenty-eight pounds to date. On the fourth day, he envisioned perhaps a bevy of beauties. He was directed to the top floor. He climbed the stairs, removed his clothes and waited. There was a click behind him as the door was locked, and out of his left eye he caught sight of a huge gorilla coming his way with a sign around its neck which read, “If I catch you I’m going to make love to you!”

Sangito, you need not come from California to Poona! But one thing is certain: people become obsessed with food only when they lose the capacity to love. It is an indication that you have forgotten the language of love. If you are in love you never become obsessed with food. Obsession with food is a symptom that you don’t know how to love. How it happens has to be understood.

The first acquaintance of the child with the world is the mother’s breast. That is his first introduction to the world, his entry into the world — his first relationship is with the breast of the mother. And the breast becomes the symbol for him of two things: food and love.

Whenever the mother is loving, the breast is available; and whenever the mother is unloving, the breast is not available. Food and love become associated; a deep conditioned reflex happens. It becomes so unconsciously rooted that you repeat it your whole life. If the child knows that the mother loves him he will not drink too much, because he KNOWS, he is secure; whenever he needs the mother her breast will be available.

If the child is insecure and feels that next time the mother may not be available, he will start drinking too much, eating too much. Now, you can see the point: whenever love is there, there is security and a kind of fulfillment, and the child never becomes obsessed with food. If love is not there, there is insecurity, fear, and a kind of emptiness, and the child stuffs that emptiness with food.

In the West, weight is becoming more and more of a problem for the simple reason that mothers are not ready to give their breasts to their children. Of course the breast loses its shape; and the fear that the breasts will lose their shape and make the woman look old has gripped the mind of women in the West so deeply that they are afraid to give their breasts to their children. And they are creating an obsession about food in the child unknowingly, unconsciously.

The child will become obsessed with food, he will eat too much. Eating will become his substitute for love. Sangito, you will have to learn love. There is no other way to reduce your weight. All other programs can help you a little bit, but sooner or later you will gain weight again because the basic root cause remains the same. You can diet, you can run, swim, exercise, but how long can you diet? Sooner or later you will be fed up with dieting and your mind will become more and more obsessed with eating. Now you will eat in your fantasy, in your dreams, and your mind will convince you that this is not the right way to live. You can’t eat this, you can’t eat that, and somehow if you ask the doctors, all the good things have to be avoided.

A child was talking to his mother, “You say God is very wise. I don’t believe it.”
The mother said, “But why don’t you believe it?”
He said, “If he was wise, he would have put more vitamins in ice cream. He puts vitamins in things which are uneatable, and things which are really worth eating are dangerous.”
How long will you avoid ice cream? The temptation will be such that it will be unavoidable. So you can lose weight for a few days and then you will eat too much, you will take revenge. And you may gain more weight than you had lost by dieting. This is the pattern of millions of people, particularly in the West.

In the East people are starving. You can see a few fat people in Bombay, in Delhi, in Calcutta, but that’s all. If you go to the real India, eighty percent of the people in India are starving. There is no question of gaining more weight, they don’t have enough weight. They are suffering from malnutrition. Yes, sometimes you will find villagers with big bellies and thin bodies, because they are eating food which is not nourishing, unbalanced, and they eat only when it is available. So when it is available they eat too much.

There are millions of people in India who eat only once a day because they can’t afford to eat twice. So to keep their bodies together for twenty-four hours they eat anything, whatsoever is available; sometimes they have to eat the roots of trees. So the problem is not in the East, the problem is in the West where enough food is available and people have completely forgotten that food grows on trees. Children know that food grows in the fridges. You go to the fridge any time and food is available.

I have heard about a woman who must have been suffering like Sangito. She went to her psychiatrist and asked him his advice — what to do? He pondered over the problem and gave her a picture, a picture of a naked woman, such an ugly fat woman, disgusting, nauseating, sickening — just to see it was enough to become afraid of food. And he told the woman, “Stick it inside your fridge so that whenever you open it you will see this picture — this will remind you of what is going to happen to you.”

So she sticks in the picture of the naked woman. The psychiatrist has also given her another picture of a beautiful young woman with a very proportionate body, a world beauty, and has told her, “Stick this in too, so you can compare. If you don’t eat too much you will be like this woman, if you eat too much you will be like that one.”

Immediately, from the next day, the woman starts losing weight. But a miracle happens: her husband starts gaining weight. The woman is puzzled. She says, “What is the matter?”
He says, “Since you have put that beautiful naked woman inside the fridge, I go again and again to see the picture. And when I see the picture I see the food too, and the flavor and the smell… and I say, ‘Why not take a cake or some ice cream or something?’ I am eating too much because of your pictures.”

In the West the child grows with the idea that food is somehow miraculously produced by the fridges and it is always available, twenty-four hours a day; any time he can go and eat. And mothers have taken their breasts away and mothers are not available much either. The Husbands go to work and the mothers go to so many committees — they belong to the liberation movement, and consciousness-raising committees — and they have so many charity shows going on and they have to sell tickets and collect the charity funds… they are not available. The father is gone, the mother is gone; the child is left with the fridge and with no love.

Sangito, just understand the root cause of it: love is missing somewhere in your life. I will not take your obsession with food as a real problem, it is a symptom. Love is the real problem — love more. And if you love more, you will be loved more. And it is not yet too late; you can find a woman. And all women are mothers, and all men are always like children.

So any woman will do, because she will function like a mother. And each man needs a mother his whole life, he needs mothering, and each woman needs children. Even the husband is only the oldest child, that’s all. And if you cannot find one, you can come to me — I always have many applications with me; women searching for men, men searching for women. And I fix anybody with anybody! I don’t believe in astrology, I believe only in accidents.

Mulla Nasruddin awoke one morning and looked at the clock. It was five minutes to five. Unable to go back to sleep, he went to the front door to get his newspaper. On the front page he saw the date: May 5th.
“Oh, fifth day, fifth month, five minutes before five,” he thought. “Today will be my lucky day!”
He decided to go to the horse races, so he got dressed and went to the corner to wait for the bus. Soon it came — it had the number five, and Nasruddin noticed when he boarded that there were three other passengers, the driver and himself — five in all. He arrived at the track and waited for the fifth race. He bet five hundred rupees on number five to win — his horse came in fifth!

Enough for today.

Source: from Osho Book “Dhammapada Vol 5″