Question – Beloved Osho, What is so attractive about Missing?
Osho – Devaraj, it has a tremendous attraction, because it is only through missing that the ego can survive. It is only through searching, seeking, desiring, that the ego exists; it exists in the tension between that which is and that which should be.

The moment the “should” disappears, the ego collapses. Hence all ethical systems, all moralities, are nourishments for the ego. The moral man is the most egoistic man in the world. And the mechanism is very simple. Seeking, searching, you live in the future, which is not; and the ego can exist only with that which is not, because it itself is not.

If you are in the moment, in the present, the ego has no possibility of surviving even for a single moment. The present is and the ego is not, like light is and darkness is not. Bring light in, and darkness disappears. Even to say that it disappears is not right, because it was not there in the first place, so how can it disappear? It was a pure absence. The absence of light, that’s what darkness is.

The absence of the present, that’s what the ego is. Not to be herenow, that’s what the ego is — not to be herenow, to be somewhere else, seeking and searching for a faraway goal, looking at a faraway distant star. The farther away the goal, the bigger the ego.

Hence people who are not worldly have bigger egos than the so-called poor worldly people. Spiritual people have bigger egos, naturally; their goal is very far away, distant, beyond death, above the seven skies. God is their goal, or moksha or nirvana — goals which look almost impossible.

The possible goal can give you only a small ego, and that too only for the time being. Once the goal is achieved you will start feeling frustrated. That’s what happens every day. You wanted a beautiful house, now you have got it, and suddenly frustration sets in. The ego needs a new goal to survive; now it starts fantasizing about a bigger palace.

You were seeking and searching for a woman; now you have got her, and the moment you have got her you are finished with her. It may take a few days for you to recognize the fact, that is another matter, but you are finished with her. Now your ego needs another woman so that the journey can continue.

The ego is constantly journeying from the present to some nonexistential future. If you ask me, this is my definition of samsara, the world. The ego journeying from the present to the future is the world. And the ego not journeying at all, simply being herenow, is the end of samsara: you are in nirvana, samadhi, enlightenment. Hence enlightenment cannot be reduced to a goal. If you reduce it to a goal, you have missed the whole point.

All the buddhas of all the ages have been telling you a very simple fact: Be — don’t try to become. Within these two words, be and becoming, your whole life is contained. Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance. But you have been taught to become this, to become that. And the mind is so cunning, and the ways of the ego are so subtle that it even turns God, nirvana, enlightenment, truth, into goals; it starts asking how to achieve them. They are not to be achieved, they cannot be achieved; the achieving mind is the only barrier. They are already here. You have to drop the achieving mind, you have to forget journeying from this point to that, you simply have to relax and be, and all is attained.

Lao Tzu calls it wu-wei, action without action. You have not moved a single inch, and you have arrived; this is wu-wei. You have not gone anywhere, you have not even thought of going anywhere, and you are already there. Suddenly the recognition comes, “I never lost the home, I only fell asleep and started dreaming about achieving.”

Those who give you goals are your enemies. Those who tell you what to become and how to become it, are the poisoners. The real master simply says, “There is nothing to become. You are already that, it is already the case. Stop running after shadows. Sit silently and BE. Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.

Source – Osho Book “The Book of Wisdom”

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”