Question – Why do I feel hesitation in enjoying anything?

Osho – Joy is not allowed; you are preconditioned against joy. From the very childhood you have been taught that if you are happy then something is wrong — unhappy, everything is good. If you are miserable nobody is worried about it, but if you are too happy, everybody is worried about you. You must have done something wrong.

Whenever a child is happy the parents start looking for the cause: he must have done some mischief or something. Why is he so happy? — the parents are not happy. They have a deep jealousy towards the child because he is happy. They may not be aware of it, but they are jealous. It is easy to tolerate somebody else’s misery, but it is almost impossible to tolerate anybody else’s happiness.

I was reading an anecdote. A very religious father was bringing up his son as perfectly as possible. One day when they were going to church he gave the boy two coins: one, a one rupee coin; another, a one paise coin. He also gave him the choice that whatsoever he thought was right he could put in the donation plate in the church. He could choose the rupee or the paise.

Of course the father believed and hoped that he would put the rupee in the church plate. He had been brought up in such a way — he could be expected to, relied upon. The father waited. After church he was very curious to know what happened. He asked the boy, “What did you do?” The boy admitted that he had donated the one paise coin and kept the rupee for himself.

The father couldn’t believe it. He said, “Why? Why did you do this? — we have always been inculcating great principles in you.”
The boy said, “You ask why. I will tell you the reason. The priest in church talked right before. In his sermon he said, ‘God loveth a cheerful donator.’ I could donate the one paise coin cheerfully — not the one rupee!” God loveth the cheerful giver. I am absolutely in agreement with the boy: what you do is not the question; you are religious if you can do it cheerfully. It may be a one paise coin — it doesn’t matter. It is immaterial because the real coin that you are giving is your cheerfulness.

But from the very beginning every child is taught not to be so cheerful. To be cheerful is to be childish. To be cheerful is to be natural, but not civilized; to be cheerful is somehow primitive, not cultured. So you have been brought up not to be cheerful and whatsoever you have ever enjoyed was condemned again and again. If you enjoyed just running and shouting around the house, somebody was bound to be there saying,”Stop that nonsense! I am reading the newspaper!”-as if the newspaper is something very valuable.

A child shouting and running is a more beautiful sight than any newspaper. And the child cannot understand: “Why do I have to stop? Why can’t you stop your newspaper reading?” The child cannot understand: “What is wrong in my being happy and running?”

“Stop!” — the whole cheerfulness is suppressed, the child becomes serious. Now he sits in a corner unhappy. The energy needs movement: the child is energy, he delights in energy. He wants to move shout and scream. He is full of energy he wants to overflow, but whatsoever he does is wrong. Either the mother is saying, “Keep quiet,” or the father, or the servant, or the brother, or the neighbors. Everybody seems to be against his flowing energy.

One day it happened: Mulla Nasrudin’s wife was very angry. Her small boy was making too much of a nuisance, creating too much nuisance. Finally she was exhausted and she ran after him — she wanted to thrash him well — but he escaped, escaped upstairs, and hid himself under a bed. She tried hard, but she couldn’t get him out. And she was a very fat woman, she couldn’t get underneath, so she said, “Wait, let your father come.”

When Mulla Nasrudin came, she told the whole story. He said, “Don’t be worried; leave to me. I will go and put him right.” So he went upstairs, walked very quietly, looked under the bed and he was surprised — surprised the way the boy greeted him. The boy said, “Hello, Dad — is she after you also?!”

Everybody is after him. The overflowing energy is looked at as a nuisance. And that is DELIGHT for the child. He doesn’t ask much; he simply asks a little freedom to be happy and to be himself. But that is not allowed.

“It is time to go to sleep!” When he doesn’t feel like going to sleep, it is time. He has to force himself. And how can you force sleep — have you ever thought about it? Sleep is nothing voluntary, how can you force it? He turns in his bed — unhappy, miserable — and cannot think how to bring on sleep. But it is time; it has to be brought or it is against the rules.

And then in the morning when he wants to sleep a little longer — then he has to get up. When he wants to eat something, it is not allowed; when he doesn’t want to eat something, it is forced. This goes on and on. By and by the child comes to understand one thing: that whatsoever is cheerful for him has something wrong about it. Whatsoever makes him happy is wrong, and whatsoever makes him sad and serious is right and good and accepted.

That’s the problem. You ask, “Why do I feel hesitation in enjoying anything? ” Because your parents, your society, are still after you. If you are really with me, drop all that nonsense that has been forced on you. There is only one religion in the world and that religion is to be happy. Everything else is immaterial and irrelevant. If you are happy, you are right; if you are unhappy, you are wrong.

Every day it happens, people come to me — the wife comes or the husband comes and the wife says she is very unhappy because the husband is doing something wrong. I always tell such people that if the husband is doing something wrong, let him be unhappy. “Why are you unhappy? The wrong itself will lead him towards unhappiness — why are you worried?”
But the wife says, “But he is not unhappy. He goes to the pub and he enjoys. He is not unhappy at all.”

Then I say, “Something is wrong with you, not with him. Unhappiness is the indicator. You change yourself; forget about him. If he is happy, he is right.”

I tell you, if you can go happily to a pub, that is better than going unhappily to a temple — because finally one comes to discover that happiness is the temple. So what you do is not the question — -what quality do you bring to it while doing it? Be happy and you are virtuous; be unhappy and you are committing what religious people have called sin. You must have heard them say that the sinner will suffer some day in the future, in some future life, and the saint will be happy somewhere in the future, in a future life. I say that is absolutely wrong. The saint is happy here and now, and the sinner is unhappy. Life does not wait for so long; it is immediate.

So if you feel yourself unhappy, you have been doing something wrong with yourself. If you cannot enjoy — if some hesitation comes in, if you feel afraid, guilty — it means somewhere by the corner the shadows of your parents are still lurking. You may be enjoying, or trying to enjoy, ice cream, but deep in the unconscious the shadow of the mother or the father is lurking. “This is wrong. Don’t eat too much, this is going to harm you.” So you are eating, but the hesitation is there. The hesitation means that the contradiction is there.

Try to understand your hesitation and drop it. And this is one of the most unbelievable phenomena: that if you drop the hesitation it may come to pass that you stop eating too much ice cream automatically (because eating too much may be part of it). Because they have denied it, they have created a certain attraction in it. Every denial brings attraction. They have said, “Don’t eat it,” and that has created a hypnotic, a magnetic, attraction to eat it.

If you stop having any hesitations, you drop all the parental voices, all the upbringing that you have been forced to go through. You may suddenly see the ice cream as just an ordinary thing. Sometimes one can enjoy it, but it is not a food. It has no nutritious value — it may even be harmful. But then you understand. If it is harmful you understand it, you don’t eat it. And you can always eat it sometimes, sometimes even harmful things are not so harmful. Once in a while you can enjoy it, but there is no obsession to eat it too much. That obsession is part of the repression.

Drop hesitations. People come to me and they say they want to love, they hesitate; they want to meditate, but they hesitate; they would like to dance, but they hesitate. If this hesitation is there and you go on feeding it, you will miss your whole life. It is time: drop it! And nothing else is to be done: just become aware that this is just the way you have been brought up, that’s all.

Consciously it can be dropped; it is not your being. It is just in your brain, it is just an idea which has been forced upon you. It has become a long habit — and a very dangerous habit at that because if you can’t enjoy, then what is this life for?

And these people who cannot enjoy anything (love, life, food, a beautiful scene, a sunset, a morning, beautiful clothes, a good bath — small things, ordinary things), if you cannot enjoy this things, and there are people who cannot enjoy anything: they become interested in God. They are the most impossible people; they can never reach to God.

God enjoys these trees, otherwise why does He go on creating them? He is not fed up at all, not at all. For millennia He has been working on trees and flowers and birds, and He goes on listening.He goes on replacing: new beings, new earths, new planets. He is really very, very colorful! Look at life, watch it, and you will see the heart of God — how it is.

People who are very up-tight, unable to enjoy anything, unable to relax, incapable even of enjoying a good sleep, they are the very few people who become interested in God. And they become interested for the wrong reasons. They think that because life is useless, futile, they have to seek and search God. Their God is against life remember.

Gurdjieff used to say, :I have searched into every religion, into every church, mosque and temple, and I have found that the God of the religious people is against life.” And how can God be against life? If He is against, then there is no reason why life should exist or should be allowed to exist. So if your God is against life, in fact, deep down, you are against the real God. You are following a Godot, not a God.

God is the very fulfillment of life, God is the very fragrance of life, God is the total organic unity of life. God is not some thing that exists like a dead rock, God is not static. God is a dynamic phenomenon. God does not exist, It happens When you are ready, It happens. Don’t think that God exists somewhere and you will find a way to reach Him. No, there is nowhere, and there is no God existing somewhere waiting for you.

God is something that happens to you when you are ready. When you are ready, when the sadness has disappeared and you can dance, when the heaviness has disappeared and you can sing, when the heavy weight of conditioning is no more on your heart and you can flow — God happens. God is not a thing that exists; It is something that happens. It is a dynamic, organic unity.

And when God happens, everything happens: the trees, the stars, the rivers. And to me, to be capable of enjoying is the door. Serious people have never been known to have reached Him. Seriousness is the barrier — the wrong attitude. Anything that makes you serious is irreligious. Don’t go to a church that makes you serious.

It happened once: A woman purchased a parrot, but by the time she reached home she was very much puzzled, worried. She had paid a good price for it; the parrot was beautiful. Everything was good, only one thing was very dangerous — once in a while the parrot would say loudly, “I am a very wicked woman.” This was something!

The woman lived alone. And she was a very religious woman — otherwise why live alone? She was a very serious woman, and this parrot would say again and again — and even passers-by would hear and listen — and the parrot would say, “I am a very, very wicked woman.”

She went to the vicar because he was the only source of her wisdom and knowledge and information. She said, “This is very bad, and I am puzzled about what to do. The parrot is beautiful and everything is good except this.”

The vicar said, “Don`t be worried. I have two very religious parrots. Look!” — one was in his cage tolling the bell and another was praying in his cage. Very religious people — “You bring your parrot. Good company always helps. Leave your parrot for a few days here with these religious people, and later on you can take your parrot back.”

The woman liked the idea. She agreed brought the parrot, and the vicar introduced the parrot to his parrots. But before he could say anything, the parrot said, “I am a very, very wicked woman.”

The vicar was also nonplussed — what to do? In that moment the parrot who was praying stopped praying and said to the other parrot, “You fool! Stop tolling the bell, our prayers are fulfilled.” They were praying for a woman! “Stop tolling the bell; the prayer is answered!”.

In fact whenever you see somebody praying, suspect something has gone wrong. They are praying for a woman, praying for money; praying for something, praying for happiness. A really happy person does not pray. Happiness is his prayer, and there cannot be a higher or a greater prayer than just to be happy.

A happy person does not know anything about god, does not know anything about prayer. His happiness is his God, his happiness is his prayer-he is fulfilled. Be happy and you will be religious: happiness is the goal. I am a hedonist, and as far as I see it, all those who have known have always been hedonists, whatsoever they say. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna — all hedonists. God is the ultimate in hedonism, He is the peakest peak of being happy.

Drop all the conditioning that you carry with you. And don’t try to condemn your parents because that won’t help. You are a victim of there conditioning, but what could they have done? They where victims of there on conditionings of their parents, so it is a long succession. Nobody is responsible, so don’t feel angry that your parents destroyed you. They couldn’t help it. If you understand, you will feel pity for them. They were destroyed by their parents, and their parents were destroyed by somebody else, and it has always been going on. It is a succession, a chain.

You simply get out of it. There is no point in condemning anybody and there is no point in being angry — an angry young man and this and that. There is no point. That is again a foolishness. Once you are sad, then you become angry. That is as bad as sadness. Just look at the whole thing and get out of it. Simply slip out of it without making any noise. That’s what I call rebellion.

The revolutionary gets angry. He says the education has to be changed, he says the society has to be changed, he says a new type of parent is needed in the world. Then only will everybody be happy. But who will do this? The doers are always in the same mess, so who will be the help? “Create a new education” — but who will create it? The teachers have to be taught first. And the revolutionaries are just as much a part of this nonsense as the reactionaries, so who will bring the revolution? The hope is futile.

There is only one hope: you can bring light to your being. And it is available immediately, there is nothing to it. Have you ever seen a snake slipping out of his old skin? — it is just like that. You simply slip out of it: forgive and forget. Don’t be angry against your parents; they themselves were victims. Feel pity for them.

Don’t be angry against the society, it could not have been otherwise. But one thing is possible: you can slip out right now. Start being happy from this very moment. Everything is available — only a deep attitudinal change is needed: that from now on you will look at happiness as the good and misery as the sin.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You, Vol 1″

Question – My little son was never baptized. will this be of importance.

Osho – It is very important! It is good that he was never baptized because baptism is such a significant thing — it cannot be forced upon anybody. When you force it on a child you are creating an artificial religion for him, and if that artificial religion remains there he may forget all about the real religion. He may become a Christian and he will miss Christ.

Good, your child is fortunate. Blessed is he who is not baptized by his parents — then he is available, clean and clear. Whenever he becomes ripe enough, when he becomes aware, then he can seek his religion.

A religion is to be sought. A religion has to be chosen consciously. Nobody should be made a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jain by birth. Birth has nothing to do with religion. Because of this association with birth, the whole world seems to be religious, and nobody is religious. Everybody is religious: somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Christian. Nobody is a Hindu and nobody is a Christian — people have been befooled.

Leave children alone. Never impose any religion on them. Don’t condition their minds. Leave their enquiry free. Help so that they can enquire, but don’t give them answers. Help so that their questions become very penetrating, help so that they can ask intensely, help so that someday they can ask so intensely that their very intensity becomes a transformation, but never give them answers. Ready-made answers are very deceptive.

Religion has to be lived, religion has to be chosen. It is a commitment — how can you commit for your child? Who are you to commit for your child? Help the child to grow, love him deeply, and don’t give him answers which you don’t know yourself. If he asks,’Is there a God?’ tell him the truth, that you don’t know! Tell him the truth, that you are seeking; tell him the truth, that he has to seek himself; and tell him that if someday he finds, he has to tell it to you also. Be humble. Before the child, the temptation is great in the parents to be knowledgeable — that is foolishness. You don’t know anything about God and you go on teaching the child, you go on conditioning his mind. Don`t condition anybody’s mind. Leave him — intact, untouched, virgin. One day….

Because religion is such a deep urge, it need not be taught. Through the teachings the urge is corrupted. It need not be taught. Leave him to himself, love him. Through your love he will create the opportunity to understand prayer someday. Love him, and through your love he will become aware that existence must be a mother to him, a father to him. But don’t talk about the Father who is in heaven, just be a father to him. Your being a father will have given him the first glimpse that the existence is not alien, that somebody takes care, that somebody loves. Love him, mother him so that he comes to feel that existence is a mother. Through your care through your love, through your mothering let him become aware of certain qualities in existence.

Don’t talk theology — it is rubbish. Don’t go on telling him,’Pray.’ Wait, let the right moment come, but help the situation so that he becomes capable of prayer. Don’t teach him the words of the prayer. Just create a situation in the family: the atmosphere of prayerfulness. The father prays, the mother prays, and when the child sees father praying he can feel the delight that comes on his face. He can see that he is transported to some other world. He can see that after prayer, for hours he is a totally different person — more loving, more soft and delicate. He can see that after prayer there is an after-glow that follows the father the whole day.

There is no need to teach anything. One day you will suddenly find when you open your eyes after your prayer, that your child is sitting by your side — deep, somewhere else, his eyes closed. He does not know the words, but now he understands the feeling, and that is REAL baptism. Don’t force him to go to church because church will corrupt him, and he will start thinking that religion is nothing but a business. He will understand by and by, that religion is nothing but politics.

All mystics, without exception, know that all religions are true; all philosophers, without exception, know that all religions are false; and all politicians, without exception, know that all religions are useful. Don’t teach the child the politics of religion. Leave him intact, alone, but give him an opportunity, a milieu, an atmosphere, a climate where he can feel in touch with what religion is. Then he will be religious. He may not be a Christian, but that is pointless, that is meaningless. He may not be a Hindu, but he will be religious. But parents are more interested that the child should be a Christian — he should follow the same foolishness that they have been following. The child should be a Hindu — he should be corrupted in the same way they have been corrupted. The child should have an identity of belonging to some organization — the same that they belong to. This is the politics of religion; it is not religion at all.

If you really love your child, will you want him to be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan? — no, never! If you love your child you will never want him to be a Christian. What has Christianity done to the world? — it is an ugly dis-ease. You will not like him to be a Mohammedan. What has Mohammedanism done to the world? — it has been just violence. You will not like him to be a Hindu because what has Hinduism done? — it is just a fossilized death: stale, dead for centuries, a corpse; it stinks. No, if you love your child you will make him aware not to fall into any trap, not to be trapped because there are enemies all around: the priest, the missionary, the temple, the church. You will make him aware,’Don’t be trapped by anybody. Remain free, remain loving, search and seek and find your God. The God that you find is the only God. The God that is taught is not God; it is just a word. And when you have found YOUR religion, it is not separate from life, it is one with it. It is life itself!’

And remember when I say that life is God, I don’t mean life with a capital L, no; but just with a lower-case l. Just ordinary life is God.

A journalist just a few days ago asked Jean-Paul Sartre,’What is the most important thing in your life today?’ Sartre said,’I don’t know. Everything: to live, to love, to smoke.’ This is a Zen kind of answer. Sartre is not a religious man but the answer is very religious. He has never belonged to any church, he does not believe in God, but the answer is religious.’I don’t know’ — that is the first religious quality of it because only foolish theologians know. A religious man is simply aware of his tremendous ignorance. Life is a mystery; how can you know it? He knows only one thing, that he does not know.’I don’t know!’ — ask any priest, he cannot say that. He will immediately open his Bible and say,’Here is the answer. I know.’ And he is simply repeating borrowed knowledge. He is a parrot.

Once I went to Varanasi and a great scholar of the Vedas invited me to his home. He was very happy to show me his parrot, because the parrot could recite many things from the Vedas, from the Gita, from the Upanishads. I laughed. The pundit said,’What’s the matter? Why are you laughing?’ I said,’I am laughing because I don’t see any difference between this parrot and you. The parrot is a scholar and you are a parrot.’ He has been angry since then.

No, a theologian can never say,’I don’t know.’ One needs courage to say that. One needs real guts to say,’I don’t know.’ One needs a certain realization to say that one doesn’t know. And everything, when you lead a religious life, everything is beautiful, everything is important. There are no pigeon-holes, there are no categories. You cannot say that something is more important and something is less important. If you live a religious quality, all things are important: a dog is as important as God, not a single bit less important.

Somebody asked Joshu — a Zen Master, a rare being; the person who asked must have been a sceptic — he said,’Joshu, I have heard that you say that God is in everything. What about a dog?’ Nobody has answered this way: Joshu jumped on his four legs and started barking. He said,’I am a dog, and also a god.’ Joshu barking is God barking.

Then there is no difference. Nothing is small and nothing is great. The smallest carries the greatest, and the greatest carries the smallest; then the lowest is the highest, and the highest is the lowest; then the valley goes to the peak and the peak comes to the valley. That is the meaning when I say that sex is samadhi and samadhi is sex. Then there is no difference between the low and the high. Everything! — to live, just to live today is the most important thing. To love, and to smoke…. Such an ordinary thing, to smoke, but when a religious man smokes he smokes religiously; there is no other way.

Once a man came to me. I was in Calcutta. The man was a follower of Paramahansa Ramakrishna, but he was worried about one thing: Ramakrishna used very vulgar words, like ‘son-of-a-bitch’, like that. Ramakrishna used very vulgar words. So he was very worried. He said,’Everything is good, but Ramakrishna seems to be a little… vulgar. What do you say, sir?’

I said,’His vulgarity is religious. Even when Ramakrishna says ‘son-of-a-bitch’, it is a blessing. Yes, it is a blessing because whatsoever he says is purified by his saying it. Even a vulgar word becomes sacred; the touch of a Ramakrishna transforms it.’ So I told him,’Don’t be worried. Wherever Ramakrishna treads, it becomes holy. If he goes to a prostitute’s house, that becomes a temple. Because it is not a question of an outer house or an outer world, it is the quality that you bring to it.’To smoke,’ Sartre says,’is the most important thing today.’ Yes, I also say that smoking can be as beautiful and sacred as chanting — it is a chanting in smoke. It depends on you.

In Zen monasteries they have a small tea-house, like a temple. Whenever somebody enters the tea-house, he has to be very aware because the goddess of tea resides there. The goddess of tea — then why not the goddess of smoking? The nicotine is the same in tea as in tobacco.

I have just instructed Laxmi to make a small temple for smoking here in the ashram. But you have to go very alert, aware, meditative! If you can smoke meditatively, it is perfectly beautiful. If it stops by being meditative, that too is perfectly beautiful. Life is sacred.

So don’t teach a child Christianity, HYinduism, Jainism. At the most, give him a milieu, if you love him, so that he can grow a sensitivity towards what religion is in its essence in its purity. Don’t teach him about so many flowers, just let him become sensitive to the fragrance of it — that will do. THAT is baptism.

Source – Osho Book “Come Follow To You Vol 4″

[A sannyasin says: I am pregnant and I want to ask you if I can be a good mother and if the child can be okay. ... I wanted a baby so much; that's why I don't know. Maybe I'm not strong enough -- that's why I wanted to ask you.
Osho checks here energy.]

Osho – You have a very great desire to be a mother. So be, mm? But be knowing that you are taking on a great responsibility. To become a mother is one of the greatest responsibilities in the world. So many people are on the psychiatrists’ couches and so many people are in madhouses and so many are out of the madhouses. If you go deep into the neurosis of humanity you will always find the mother, because so many women want to be mothers but they don’t know how to be. Once the relationship between the mother and the child goes wrong the child’s whole life goes wrong, because that is his first contact with the world, his first relationship. Everything else will be in continuity with it. And if the first step goes wrong, the whole life goes wrong.

The desire is there — I can feel it… a tremendous desire to be a mother. Nothing is wrong in it, but one should knowingly become a mother. You are taking one of the greatest responsibilities that a human being can take. Men are a little freer in that way because they cannot take the responsibility of becoming a mother. Women have more responsibility. So become a mother, but don’t take it for granted that just by being a woman one is necessarily a mother — that is a fallacy. Motherhood is a great art; you have to learn it. So start learning about it!

A few things I would like to say to you. First, never treat the child as yours; never possess the child. It comes through you but it is not yours. God has only used you as a vehicle, a medium, but the child is not your possession. Love, but never possess the child. If the mother starts possessing the child then the life is destroyed. The child starts becoming a prisoner. You are destroying his personality and you are reducing him to a thing. Only a thing can be possessed: a house can be possessed, a car can be possessed — never a person. So this is the first lesson — get ready for it. Before the child comes you should be able to greet him as an independent being, as a person in his own right, not just your child.

And the second thing: treat the child as you would treat a grown-up person. Never treat a child like a child. Treat the child with deep respect. God has chosen you to be a host. God has entered into your being as a guest The child is very fragile, helpless. It is very difficult to respect the child. It is very easy to humiliate the child. Humiliation comes very easy because the child is helpless and cannot do anything, cannot retaliate, cannot react.

Treat the child as a grown-up, and with great respect. Once you respect the child, you don’t try to impose your ideas on him. You don’t try to impose anything on the child. You simply give him the freedom — freedom to explore the world. You help him to become more and more powerful in exploring the world but you never give him directions. You give him energy, you give him protection, you give him security, all that he needs, but you help him to go farther away from you to explore the world.

And of course in freedom the wrong is also included. It is very difficult for a mother to learn that when you give freedom to a child it is not freedom only to do good. It is also necessarily the freedom to do bad, to do wrong. So make the child alert, intelligent, but never give him any commandments — nobody keeps them, and people become hypocrites. So if you really love the child, the one thing has to be remembered: never, never help him in any way, force him in any way, to become a hypocrite.

And the third thing: don’t listen to the morality, don’t listen to religion, don’t listen to culture — listen to nature. Whatsoever is natural is good — even if sometimes it is very difficult for you, very uncomfortable for you. Because you have been not brought up according to nature. Your parents were not bringing you up with real art, love. It was just an accidental thing. Don’t repeat the same mistakes. Many times you will feel very uneasy….

For example a small child starts playing with his sexual organs. The natural tendency of the mother is to stop the child because she has been taught that this is wrong. Even if she feels that nothing is wrong, if somebody is there she feels a little embarrassed. Feel embarrassed!

That is your problem; that has nothing to do with the child. Feel embarrassed. Even if you lose respectability in society, lose — but never interfere with the child. Let nature take its own course. You are there to facilitate whatsoever nature is unfolding. You are not to direct nature. You are just to be there as a help.

So these three things… and start meditating. Before the child is born you should go as deeply as possible in meditation. When the child is within your womb, whatsoever you are doing continuously goes as a vibration to the child. If you are angry, your stomach has a tension of anger. The child immediately feels it. When you are sad, your stomach has an atmosphere of sadness. Immediately the child feels dull, depressed. The child totally depends on you. Whatsoever is your mood is the mood of the child. The child has no independence right now: your climate is his climate. So no more fighting, no more anger. That’s why I say that to be a mother is a great responsibility. You will have to sacrifice much.

Now during these coming seven months you have to be very very alert. The child is more important than anything else. If somebody insults you, accept it, but don’t get angry. Say, ‘I am pregnant, and the child is more important than getting angry at you. This episode will pass and after a few days I will not remember who has insulted me and what I have done. But the child is going to be there at least seventy, eighty years in the world. It is a big project.’ Even if you want, note it down in the diary. When the child is born, then you can be angry, but not right now. Just say, ‘I am a pregnant mother. I cannot be angry — that is not allowed.’ This is what I call sensitive understanding.

No more sadness, no more anger, no more hatred, no more fighting with Anand Veda. Both have to look to the child. When a child is there you are both secondary; the child has every preference. Because a new life is going to be born… and it is going to be your fruit. If from the very beginning anger, hatred, conflict, enters into the child’s mind, then you are causing hell for him. He will suffer. Then it is better not to bring a child into the world. Why bring a child into suffering? The world is tremendous suffering.

In the first place bringing a child into this world is a very risky affair. But even if you want that, at least bring a child who will be totally different in this world — who will not be miserable, who will at least help the world to be a little more celebrating. He will bring a little more festivity into the world… a little more laughter, love, life.
So for these days, be celebrating. Dance, sing, listen to music, meditate, love. Be very soft. Don’t do anything hectic, in a hurry. Don’t do anything in a tension. Just go slowly. Slow down absolutely. A great guest is to come — you have to receive him. Good, be a mother! Good.

Source – Osho Book “God is Not for Sale”

Osho – Anand means bliss, mahbuba means beloved. God creates the world out of his love. The world flows out of his love – it is an expression of his love, an explosion of his love. He loves every creature… from stones to stars. We are all protected by his love, we are all continuously showered on by his love. Everyone has to consciously become a beloved of god. Once this recognition penetrates the heart, it transforms your whole being. It is as if suddenly a light comes into darkness and darkness is gone.

Just the idea ’God loves me’, just the feel of it – ’He surrounds me like a caress, his lips are on my lips, his heart is in my heart. I am not abandoned by existence; I am loved, cherished by existence. I am not worthless, I am not unworthy…’ and the dignity and the splendour starts growing in one.

And remember a great paradox: the real dignity has no ego in it; the real splendour has no idea of any superiority. In fact, the ego is just a cover-up for our worthlessness. Because we think ourselves worthless, we try to prove in every way that we are not worthless. That effort is our ego trip – ’I am a president of a country, I am not worthless. I have so much education; I am not worthless.’ ’Look, I have got so many lovers; I am not worthless.’ But deep down we are constantly nagged by our worthlessness. Deep down we know we are worthless, dust unto dust.

That has been taught to us down the centuries. Our souls have been corrupted and poisoned. The priests and the politicians have conspired against the whole of humanity. This is their whole conspiracy: to create the feeling of worthlessness in human beings. If they feel worthless they can be dominated by the politician, they can be dominated by the priest. If they feel worthless they will seek some authority figures to depend on. If they feel worthless they cannot not be independent. That is the secret trick in it. If they feel worth, if they feel loved by god, if they are nourished and cherished by existence, they will not look up to any father-figure, to any authority – political, religious, or any other.

So the basic conspiracy has been created in every child – the idea that you are absolutely worthless, that you are not up to the standard, that you are not as intelligent as you should be, that you are not as beautiful as you are supposed to be, that your behaviour is ugly, to improve yourself, to prove yourself. That’s what improvement is: an effort to prove ’I am somebody.’ The ego is nothing but an effort to cover this inner worthlessness that has been created by the society. My effort here is to give back the dignity that really belongs to you.

Everyone is utterly essential. This existence needs you – without you it would not be the same existence. And not only does it need you: it needs everybody in the same way, so there is no question of superiority. It needs even a small blade of grass as much as it needs the sun and the moon. As far as the whole is concerned, everything is absolutely essential – the great oceans and the small dewdrops. It will miss the small dewdrop if it is not there; it will not be so beautiful. There will remain a hole in it which cannot be filled by the great oceans; they can only be filled by small dewdrops.

As far as the whole is concerned, there is absolute equality. In asserting one’s own dignity, one asserts the dignity of the whole of existence of animals, of trees, of people, of mountains, of rivers, of all. So it does not create any superiority complex, because a superiority complex is nothing but an inferiority complex standing on its head, doing sirshasan, a headstand; that’s all it is. And it has nothing to do with ego. Ego simply shows a poor person who has not yet become aware of his inner splendour and the gifts that god has given to him.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Look Before You Leap”

[The new sannyasin says she is concerned about screaming at her son. Osho asks her to give an example, and she replies: He comes up to his sister and he pinches her and she shrieks. It makes me nervous and so I scream at him to stop it.]

Osho – No, don’t be worried about screaming – not at all. It is natural. Just one thing you have to remember – balance it by loving. There are moments when one wants to scream – and the chil-dren understand that, because they themselves scream. That is really their language. If you are feeling boiling within and you don’t scream, the child feels disturbed very much at what is happening, because it is beyond him to understand. He can feel…. Your very vibe is screaming and you are not screaming; you are even smiling, controlling. The child is disturbed very much by that because he feels the mother is cheating – and they never forgive cheating.

They are always ready to accept truth. Children are very very empirical, very earthy, down to earth. They can accept your screaming because they also scream when they feel like that. They will feel a bridge between you and them if you scream. The only thing to be done is, don’t feel guilty about it, otherwise your guilt will be disturbing. Your guilt will create problems for them. They will start feeling that they are the cause of your guilt; they are making you feel guilty. That will create guilt in them. Guilt creates guilt.

So scream when you feel like it. The only thing to remember is to balance it by love. Then love also madly. When you are screaming at them, you have to love them also, just the same mad way. Hug them, dance with them. They will understand that their mother is wild, and they know that she loves them so she has the right to scream also. If you only scream and don’t love them with intensity and passion, then there is a problem. So the problem does not arise out of screaming. It arises if you don’t balance it by love.

So just go on balancing, that’s all. And be true. If you feel like screaming, you feel like screaming. What can you do? All that you can do is going to be a sort of repression. You can repress it, you can hold it in, but it will come out in indirect ways. And children cannot understand those indirect ways – they are not yet civilised. They don’t know the language of repression. When they have done something wrong, they can understand that they are being beaten, but they cannot understand when they are doing something wrong and they have been caught and you smile. This simply puzles them. It is so unnatural; they cannot believe it. The mother must be faking it, because they cannot do it, so how can you? And of course they are closer to nature than you and they understand nature more than you.

When a child comes and he has done something wrong, he comes ready to be beaten, slapped. If you don’t slap him, his expectations are not fulfilled, he will be frustrated. If you hit him hard, nothing is wrong, only it should be warm. That hit should be warm, not cold – and there is a great difference between the two. A cold hit or a cold slapping comes only if you repress.

For example a child has done something and you have repressed your anger. This was the warm moment. If you had hit him, screamed at him, everything would have been warm and alive, but you repressed it. Later when the child is not doing anything – six hours have passed and he has forgotten completely – you cannot forget; you have repressed it. Now the whole thing has gone cold. Now you find some excuse: ’You have not done your homework! Where is your homework!’ Now this is cold and you are taking revenge – and you will take revenge otherwise it will hang around you. You have to do something otherwise you will not be able to get rid of it.

You find some rational excuse. Screaming was very irrational, but natural. You will find some unnatural but rational excuse – that he has not done his homework or his clothes are dirty or he has not taken a shower today. Now you are angry but your anger is cold. You may get rid of it; that too will be ugly. It is just like eating cold food – it takes long to digest; it becomes heavy on the stomach.

The child cannot understand; it is almost impossible. He has not done anything. He was not expecting this and he has completely forgotten what happened six hours ago. He never carries any memory that long. Then a distrust arises because he thinks the mother is somehow totally different from him. When he has done something wrong, she smiles. And when he has not done anything wrong, she is ready to slap him or scream. And a cold scream is heartless.

So be warm. They are your children, you are their mother. You have to be in a natural, flowing relationship. Don’t listen to what psychologists go on talking about – fifty percent of it is almost rubbish. They have destroyed many beautiful things in the world. Now mothers and fathers are reading their manuals on how to behave with their children. What foolishness! One simply knows… by being a mother you know how to behave. No need to learn from anybody. Just be natural.

These manuals are all to be burned. Listen to nature. You are a mother so you know. No cat goes and consults any manual on how to catch rats. She simply jumps and catches. She is a cat – that’s enough! No certificate is needed, no counsellors are needed. You are a mother – finished! Your mother nature will take care. Just be natural, and always balance. If you are natural it will balance itself. And I am saying it only so you don’t forget it. Otherwise there is a possibility that you can scream and be natural and you may not love them.

And love is not something only in the mind – that you think you love them. Do something – just as you scream. A scream is a physical thing. Sometimes sing and dance also because you have such a beautiful child. Then there is no problem. Sometimes hug him, take him close… Let him feel your body and feel his body. He is part of your body. He needs your warmth. Sometimes take his hand and run around the house… go swimming. Sometimes take him in the shower and stand naked, both stand naked, under the shower, and then he’ll understand perfectly well that his mother is natural; whatsoever she does is right. I don’t see that there is any problem. Good.

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”

[A sannyasin, present with his five-year-old son says: I would like to talk about the relationship with my son. He is a very beautiful and rich child, but I feel he demands too much energy from me and needs much attention. I am in a struggle between feeling guilty and sacrificing myself. Is it possible to have a balance?]

Osho – Yes, it is possible. Just one thing has to be understood. If you allow children, they can become very dictatorial; they can really exploit you. That is harmful to you and it is not good for them either, because once you allow yourself to be exploited and you have to give attention and love beyond your limits and you start feeling that this is too much, then somehow you will be taking revenge. Later on the child will grow into a world which is not going to bother about him, and he will always expect the same from everybody else. His expectations will be too much, and they will create frustrations. He will condemn you then – and it is logical too – and say, ’My father destroyed me.’

Give love, but don’t allow yourself to be dominated. The distinction is subtle but has to be understood. Give love when you feel like giving. When you don’t feel like giving, then don’t be bothered, because you are not here just to fulfill your son’s desires. And you are giving him a wrong example – he will do the same to his children. And always remember – sacrifice is not good, because you cannot forgive and you cannot forget once you sacrifice. You will never be able to forgive the son.

But he cannot be made responsible. He is not alert, he is not so conscious. You are more conscious. Your responsibility is the greater. Give your love but don’t be dominated. Make it clear…. And children are very perceptive. Once they know, once it becomes clear that you cannot be coerced, they become practical. I have never seen children very philosophical. They are always very down to earth. They know what is possible – and only then do they do it. If it is impossible, they won’t do it.

Once I was staying with a friend, and the couple went out and told me that their small son is there, so I have to look after him. I said, ’Let him play.’ He fell from the stairs and was hurt. He looked at me, and I sat there like a buddha (much laughter). So he looked at me, watched closely, and then thought, ’It is useless; to cry or to weep is meaningless, because this man seems to be almost like a statue.’ He started playing….

Half an hour later when the parents came back, he started crying. So I said to him, ’This is illogical because now there is no problem. If there was Pain or some hurt, half an hour has Passed – you should have cried before.’ He said, ’What was the point? I knew well that you were not going to be bothered. I had to wait!’ Children are very very practical.

So you have to be alert. You are doing something wrong. And once they know that you can be coerced easily, they will coerce you. So just give your love as much as you want, but not under coercion. It should be voluntary. For a few days it will be a little difficult because you must have made a habit, but the sooner you mend it, the better – better for you, better for him.

So from this moment become a little alert about it. For ten days, don’t allow him to force you, and then tell me how things are going. He will understand tomorrow. Children are never foolish, never stupid. Stupidity comes only later. Up to the age of seven, children are very intelligent. In fact stupid children are not born – only intelligent children. Then by and by stupidity is learned; it is not a natural thing. He will understand tomorrow. Just make it dear. Just as two plus two is four, make it clear to him. He will try the old tricks but he will see that they are not working and he will drop them, mm?

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”

[An indian sannyasin, here on visit from kenya, said that she was concerned about what she felt was her overprotective attitude to her eighteen-year-old son. He also felt he was overprotected and that he was not allowed to do those things that other boys of his age were doing. She added that he had fits occasionally, but apart from that, there were no other problems.]

Osho – It will be good if you send him here because I will have to talk to him. The problem is that if you feel your overprotection and too much love has damaged him, now this too much caring about him is again part of your being too protecting. Now you want to protect him from damage. And if protection has damaged him, then this again is the same game. So I have to understand him and what exactly his problem is; whether there is really any problem or it is just your overprotection which still thinks there is a problem.

Overprotection always creates a problem, but underprotection also creates a problem. And there is no way to know which is the balance between the two; there is no way. If you underprotect, he will be angry and say, ’Why didn’t you prevent me from doing those things which were not good to do?’

This is an eternal problem. It has nothing to do with you. If parents protect too much, one day or other the children are going to say that you repressed them, you didn’t allow them things which others were doing. They have a grudge, and parents feel very miserable because they always wanted to help them, and now this has happened. Now what to do? If parents are underprotective the children feel they are not cared about, that nobody bothers about where they are going, what they are doing; nobody cares about them.

And both have been tried. It has almost become a fashion in world history that one age tries one thing and then there are problems, so the next generation tries another thing, and then there are problems. This way the swing goes on moving from right to left, from left to right. Too much protection creates repression. Underprotection allows a vulnerable child to move into a world which is ugly and where a thousand and one things are happening which are easy to learn and will be very difficult to unlearn.

So parents have been eternally in trouble about what to do. Whatsoever they do turns out wrong, and it is very difficult to find a balance, because how to draw the boundary line? The problem becomes more complicated because one boundary line for one child may be the balance, and the same boundary line for another child may not be the balance because each child is so different from another; each child is so individual.

So don’t feel guilty. There is no need to feel guilty about it. The problem is bound to come; you cannot avoid it. You can avoid being a parent (a little chuckle), but you cannot avoid the problems that arise out of being a parent. It is part of a responsibility, a great responsibility. So the only thing possible now that you are alert, is to first send him. And send him alone – that will be good; don’t come with him.

If repression is the question, it is not very difficult; you can release it. In fact if indulgence is the question, it is more difficult to undo it. Repression simply means that energy is there, throbbing, and has lost direction, so how to bring it out? It is very easy. Energy is there. It is just that we have to remove the lid and the vapours can be released.

A greater problem arises when a child becomes indulgent. He may learn drinking, he may learn smoking, he may learn some perverted sexuality, and then it is very difficult to bring him back, because now it is a question of unlearning. It is not only a question of energy being released. So you should be happy that you have not made this mistake. And only two mistakes are possible, so you have done the lesser evil.

There is nothing to be worried about, but educated parents become very worried – and particularly in this age when freud and freudians all over the world have taught that the parents are the culprits. So people are reading this, and the whole climate is against parents. They start feeling, ’Something must be wrong with us, with what we have done. Now what to do?’ But you are still thinking in terms of what to do. But you will be the doer – and that is the problem.

So I will see him and then I will decide what to do. It may simply be that you need not do anything. Simply leave him as he is. Sometimes non-doing does many things which doing cannot do. Simply say to him, ’Now you are of age, we are finished. Whatsoever we could do, good or bad, we did. There was no other way. Now you are free to do whatsoever you like.’

Source – Osho Book “Dance Your Way to God”

Osho – Compassion is pure soul, it is pure sky: it has no matter around it. It is the ultimate blooming of the flower. Even the flower disappears in it, only fragrance remains. Shanti means silence, deva means god – god of silence. Help him to become as silent as possible. By being silent yourself, he will learn.

Children are imitators. If you sometimes find something in your child which you don’t like, look within yourself, you will find it there; it is reflected in the child. The child is only a sensitive response. The child is simply there imbibing you, repeating you, imitating you. So if something wrong appears in the child, rather than putting it right there, put it right in yourself, and you will be surprised: the chi!d drops it automatically. The child does not only depend on the mother for physical food, he depends on her in every way – for spiritual food also. So if you become silent, the child will follow it, he will learn it unknowingly; if you become meditative, he will become meditative.

Whenever parents come to me and they complain about their children, they are not aware of what they are doing, because my own observation is that if something is wrong with the child, it must have come from the parents. It is almost always so: ninety-nine percent of it comes from the parents; the smaller the child, the more is the percentage. When the child becomes a little bigger and starts moving in society, then of course he learns from others too, but in the ultimate account, almost ninety percent always comes from the parents. So whatsoever you want the child to become, be.

Be silent, be compassionate, be loving, be joyous, and you will be surprised that just by your being that, the child starts imbibing those qualities. And this will be the greatest thing for him, if he can imbibe silence.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Bite My Finger, Look Where I’m Pointing”

[A sannyasin and her young son are present. She says: It’s very difficult for me – I feel he is very strong and I don’t feel strong at all. I don’t know what to do in certain situations.]

Osho – Let him be strong! Why should you be worried about his strength? It is good. He has to be strong and the mother has to be soft. He has to be strong; only then can he grow into an individual. If he is soft and the mother is strong, he will be killed. That’s what happens to many people: the mother is too strong and they are soft, or the mother would not allow them to be strong. Then they go on hanging around the mother for their whole life. Even if they are old and the mother is dead and gone they are still holding on to her apron strings; deep down they still psychologically depend on her. That becomes pathology. Then the man may start looking at his wife as if she is his mother. He cannot live without a mother; he needs somebody to mother him.

Because of this tendency, breasts have become so important. Artists go on painting breasts, sculptors go on sculpting breasts, poets go on writing about breasts; it seems to be really a great obsession. Basically it is just an indication that these people are still hankering for the mother; the breast represents the mother. If children are free of the mother, the breast will disappear from poetry and films and painting. They will take the right proportion, they will be natural parts of the body. Right now it seems that it is not the woman who has breasts but the breasts who have the woman; the woman seems to be secondary. This is a very pathological state.

Children have to be very strong, so help him to be strong. It will be difficult for you to manage because the stronger he is, the more trouble he will create for you; if he is weak, there is no trouble. But one has to be strong in life: life creates trouble, life is risky, it is challenging. If he is dull and stale and just dead, he will sit in a corner and will not give you any inconvenience but then he is not alive! If he is alive he will create many many problems for you. You have to face them. That’s what it means to be a mother: to face those problems. And by facing them you will also grow, by giving him freedom and strength you will also grow. Mother and child grow together.

Remember always, the day the child is born the mother is also born. Before that you were just a woman, not a mother. Once the child is born you are a separate phenomenon, a mother; something has bloomed in you. And now the growth of the child will be the growth of the mother too. If one day you can help the child to be completely free of you, you will also attain to your inner freedom. So help him to be strong.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Bite My Finger, Look Where I’m Pointing”

[The sannyasin who started the ashram school says: I just don’t understand what it means to be a teacher to children here... ]

Osho – Yes, that is right – it will be a totally different thing! It will be a totally different thing…. It can’t apply here. A few things to remember, and then you can work them out…. The first and the most basic is that we are not to enforce any pattern on the children. We have just to help them to be themselves. So there is no ideal that has to be enforced on them. You just have to be a caring atmosphere around them, so whatsoever they want to do you can help them to do better. Just help them to do it better. And they are not in any game, ambition-game.

We are not trying to make them very very powerful, famous, rich, this and that, in their life, no. Our whole effort here is to help them to be alive, authentic, loving, flowing, and life takes care. A trust in life – that’s what has to be created around them, so they can trust in life. Not that they have to struggle but can relax. And as for education, just help them to be more creative. Painting is good – they should try painting – or creating something else, but let it be creative; let them do things on their own. And don’t bring in your criterions.

For example, when a child paints, don’t bring in adultish criterions; don’t say that this is not Picasso. If the child has enjoyed it and when he was painting he got absorbed in it, that’s enough. The painting is great! Not because of any objective criterion – the painting may be just nonsense; it may be just colours splashed, may be messy…. It has to be because a child is a child; he has a different vision of things.

For example, if a child makes the face of a man he has a different vision. He will make very big eyes; the nose will be very small. The ears may be missing – he has never looked at them – but eyes are very important for him. If he makes a man he will make the head and the hands and the legs and the torso will be missing – that is his vision. For you it is wrong but from his standpoint that is how he looks at a man: hands, legs and head.

So it is not the question that you have to judge whether the painting is good or bad. No, we are not going to judge at all. Judge ye not. Don’t make the child feel good or bad about it. If the child is absorbed in painting it, that’s enough. He was in deep meditation, he moved with the painting utterly… he was lost in it! The painting is good because the painter was lost.

Help the child to be completely lost, and whenever a child is painting on his own, he will be lost. If you force him to paint then he will be distracted. So whatsoever the children want to do, let them do; just help them. Mm ? you can help in many technical ways. You can tell them – if a child wants to paint – how to mix colours, how to fix the canvas, how to use the brush; that you can help with. Be a help there; rather than being a guide, be a help.

Just as a gardener helps the tree… You cannot pull the tree fast; you cannot do anything in that way, nothing can be done positively. You plant the seed, you water, you give the manure, and you wait! The tree happens on its own. When the tree is happening you protect it so somebody does not hurt it or harm it. That is the function of a teacher: the teacher has to be a gardener. Not that you have to create the child; the child is coming on its own – god is the creator. That’s what socrates means when he says, ’I am a midwife.’ A midwife does not create the child. The child is already there, ready to come out; the midwife helps.

So help them to be creative, help them to be joyous, because that has disappeared from the schools. Children are very sad, and sad children create a sad world. They are going to inhabit the world, and we destroy their joy. Help their joy, help their celebration, make them more and more cheerful. Nothing is more valuable than that. If they are not doing mathematics it is perfectly okay, because mathematics is not the point. The point is joy!

If they are not learning language, forget about it; they are learning something far more valuable. In this atmosphere of joy help them to learn two things – language and mathematics. History is meaningless bunk! Just two small things – a little mathematics will be needed in their life. And about that too: we are not to make them great mathematicians, just a little mathematics so they can figure out things. And language it needed so they can communicate. They can read poetry, they can enjoy the great works. And there is going to be no examination. There is going to be no gradation of who is first and who is second. Everybody is just the same. We make the space available for them to learn – they all have learned according to their capacities but who are we to judge? So no gradation, no examination.

And when children are a little grown up let them learn practical things – carpentry, pottery, weaving – and they will enjoy all those things. When they are still more grown up let them learn something about electricity, cars, mechanisms, technology, but practical things. That’s why the other day I said the university that is going to be will be rajneesh international antiuniversity. We will make everything anti: no examinations, and the vice chancellor and the chancellor
will not have any degrees. Only sweepers and cleaners will have degrees! And you have to work it out soon because when we move, then at least one hundred children will be immediately available….

Start working so it takes some shape before we move. Because there you have to start a full-fledged school. But it is going to be a totally different kind of school, because I am all for de-schooling society. Man can be saved only if society is de-schooled or if totally different kind of schools which cannot be called schools are evolved; then only humanity can be saved.

So no ambition should be there, no comparison ever. Never compare a child with another and say, ’Look, the other has done a better painting!… That is ugly, violent, destructive. You are destroying both the children. The one you say has done a better painting starts getting the idea of the ego, superiority, and the one who has been condemned starts feeling inferior. And these are the illnesses – the superior and the inferior – so never compare!

It will be difficult for you and other teachers because comparison is so much in us. Never compare. Each child has to be respected on his own. Each child has to be respected as unique – no comparison, no marks, no gradations. Because we are not going to create clerks or ugly things like that. We are going to create men and women.

Yes, they will need a few things in life so they are practically helped. Those things we should give them – and then they have to choose their own. In the new place we will make everything available – painting, music, dance – so wherever they want to join in, they can; whatsoever they want to do, they can do. They can have their own combinations. There will be no syllabus – there will be only opportunity.

And the teachers will work because of their joy… because they enjoy the company of the children. So only choose teachers who are not teachers, because ordinarily teachers are people who are a little sadistic. They want to torture, and the best way to enjoy torture is to become a teacher. A teacher is a torturer, and that is the most legal situation in which to torture: school.

Parents are in favour of the children being tortured – for their own sake; the government is in favour, everybody is in favour. Everybody is for the teacher because he is doing a good job. So all the people who arc sadists by and by start moving towards particular professions the teacher, the policeman. These are the professions where they can torture and still remain respected.

And children are so helpless: you can torture them no end and they cannot retaliate. So remember, choose teachers who are not teachers, not torturers, but people who love small children. Choose gardeners, so they can create a space for children to grow in. And they should be happy, they should not be sad and long faces. They should be able to see the humour of the children, the sense of humour. Children have immense sense of humour and teachers are very dull. They should be able to laugh with them and dance with them and hug them. They should be human.

So be very careful about choosing. In the new place, I will choose; right now you start working, but be very careful. No sadist has to be allowed there; nobody who is a disciplinarian has to be allowed there.

And I am not for order at all. Disorder is perfectly beautiful. So let there be disorder – nothing wrong. Order is one of the most dangerous calamities that has happened and obedience is one of the greatest blocks man has suffered from. They should not be forced to obey and they should not be forced into order. They should be allowed all chaos, and in chaos there is creativity, growth. Order and discipline are needed when you have certain ideals to impose upon them – that there is a nine month or six month session and you have to go through all this. You have to pass, otherwise you will be a failure; then order is needed.

We have an eternity available! Let children enjoy – there is no hurry; there is no need to have a programme of enforcement. Just let things happen; let it be a growing nursery. And be very careful, because out of this school will come a bigger school, then a college and a university, and everything will follow. This will be the seed. And whatsoever I have said about education and about things you just go through so you have some idea about what has to be done. But it is going to happen. And we have beautiful children around here – you just start, mm ? Good.

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”

[A sannyasin says she feels confused; stuck and not flowing. Osho checks her energy.]

Osho – Nothing to be worried about. I don’t see that you are not flowing with the river – that is not the confusion. The confusion is just the vice versa: for the first time you are flowing with the river, and that is creating confusion in your mind. The mind does not want to flow with the river, never. The mind exists always in fighting. The mind wants conflict, friction. The mind enjoys going upwards, not downwards with the river – upstream – and you have been going upstream your whole life so the mind is acquainted with going upstream.

You have been a fighter and a warrior. Now for the first time you are relaxing a little bit and moving with the river; that is creating confusion. If you continue fighting there will be no confusion; it will fit with you, with your past. Confusion comes only when something new comes. Whenever something new comes you have to readjust yourself again, hence confusion. Confusion means you have brought new furniture in the house; now you have to rearrange everything. Just bring a new chair and you have to rearrange everything.

There is a very famous story – and not just a story but an actual historical fact…. A Chinese man presented a German philosopher with a wooden box – a very ancient antique, near about two thousand, or even more, years old. He said, ’There is only one condition which has always been followed. This has been the wish of the original owner. The box has a history of who has owned it in the past. This is the wish of the original owner – that the box should always be put in such a way that it faces east.’

The German philosopher said, ’There is no problem; this can be followed!’ But when he went home and put it in the drawing room facing East, the whole drawing room looked maladjusted. He was worried, so he had to readjust his whole drawing room. He had to order new furniture to fit with this box.

Once he had arranged the room he started feeling that the room did not fit with the house. Now the whole house looked one way and the room was so different; the room became Chinese. But the wish had to be followed and the box was so beautiful that it would be a betrayal not to follow the wish of the original owner. So he changed the whole house! By and by the whole house became Chinese. Then he suddenly saw that his garden didn’t fit with it; the garden was German. He had to change his garden! He has written in his autobiography that such a small box changed his whole life!

That’s what happens when a new thing comes into your being: you have to change everything accordingly. Just a new child is born and your family and your house, everything, will be different. Now you have to make space for the new child and you have to look to the needs and the demands of the child. Whenever a new child is born the relationship between the husband and wife immediately changes. It is never the same – it can never be the same again; the triangle has come in. Anything new and there is confusion.

So it is not that you are not flowing with the river. You have started flowing with the river – and the mind still wants to go upstream; hence the dichotomy. The mind wants to go this way and you are going that way – hence the anxiety and the confusion.

Now don’t listen to the mind. The mind is worthless because it is the past. Let the mind adjust with you; don’t you adjust with the mind. The mind is your servant and he has to follow you. You are the master and you need not follow the mind. Yes, for a few days the mind will create trouble because it has been bossing you for such a long time and it is difficult to drop it so easily. It will resist, it will fight; tooth and nail it will fight. But if you go on flowing, sooner or later it will start flowing with you….

Source – Osho Book “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There”