Question – You said there are only two types of people: those whose path is awareness and those whose path is surrender or bhakti. It seems to me that lao tzu has nothing to do with either of them — is there a third type then who follow neither or both?

Osho – LAO Tzu has no path, or, the no-path is his path. Lao Tzu says,’There is nowhere to go, you are already there.’ So the very word ‘path’ becomes meaningless. A path is needed if you are going somewhere. If you are already there then the path is not needed at all. In fact, to have a path will be dangerous; you will go astray. Lao Tzu says,’Those who follow a path go astray.’ By and by, they go further and further away from themselves.

‘Seeker, follow no path, because all paths lead there, truth is here.’
Lao Tzu is the last word in spirituality; beyond him there is nothing.

Ordinarily it is very difficult to conceive no-path because then you are suddenly thrown to yourself, with nothing to cling to, nothing to do: no method, no technique, no means. Suddenly you are thrown to yourself, and that has become almost impossible for you. You need something else to be occupied with. You leave the world, you leave your family, you renounce everything, but you never renounce the ‘other’. In some form or other: in the form of God, in the form of yoga, in the form of a technique, you still have something. Lao Tzu takes that too away from you. He leaves you totally empty. That emptiness needs much courage. In fact, all other paths finally come to the same point.

If you follow bhakti, surrender, one day you will come to understand that in the first place there was nothing to surrender; ego never existed. The ego was false, so the surrender was also false because the disease never existed. But it helped, surrender helped you to know that the ego never existed. Then suddenly you start laughing at the whole ridiculousness of it: that you were surrendering something to your Master that you never had, or you were surrendering something to God that was just a false notion. But this will come in the end; with Lao Tzu it comes in the beginning. With Lao Tzu, the first step is the last. In fact, no-step is the last; there is no beginning and no end. The same is true about Zen. These are not ideologies or philosophies. These are not scriptures; these are tremendous visions of instant mutation.

It happened: When Bodhidharma reached China a great scholar went to see him, and he had brought with him the greatest book that he had written It was very famous; the book was almost in every home. The philosopher was acclaimed by the whole nation. He went to Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen. He wanted the Master’s opinion about his book, in which he had talked about all the possible paths, all the possible ideologies, very minutely. Very subtle was his exposition. He was a very, very refined intellect, a master-mind. What did Bodhidharma do? He took the book in his hand, put it to his nose and said,’It has a kind of quarrelsome smell about it,’ and threw the book away. He said,’Take it away from here! It will spoil my disciples, it will corrupt. It has a certain quarrelsome smell about it.’

All paths, all ideologies, all philosophies, all theologies are quarrelsome. They are in the marketplace claiming,’Only our path leads to truth.’ Not on]y that: they are fighting, arguing with other paths, other ideologies. The world of ideologies is a marketplace.

If you are ready to take the jump, then the truth is already present in you. There is no need to go anywhere; there is no need to look for it anywhere. Close the eyes and it is here. You ARE the truth. So now, let us try to understand the question.

Yes, there are two types of people, two types of persons. Humanity is divided into two types: the male and the female, the yin and the yang, the negative and the positive, the aggressive and the passive. These two types of people both live in illusion, in a sort of dream, a kind of sleep; drunk with desire, blind with desire. The person who belongs to the male type needs some path upon which he can exercise his will; that will suit him. Finally, a day will come when by this exercising of his will, by and by, he will start understanding that he is engaging in a futile effort. But he will take a long time to understand this. He will have to fall many times, and he will again stand, and he will again make efforts, and he will again be a failure because the will cannot succeed.

The will means the ego, the will means you. It is going to fail. But many times it will fail and you will go on hoping that the next time it will not fail. But one day — how can you escape the fact forever and ever? — one day or the other, you will stumble upon the fact that you are doing something stupid. In that realization the will will disappear, and suddenly you will see that the path has disappeared, the religion has disappeared, and you are illumined. It was always there, but you were so much occupied with the path, the will, the effort. All effort brings you to effortlessness, and all willing brings you to will-lessness, and all ego finally brings you to egolessness.

The other part of humanity, the female part, the passive part, cannot move on the path of will. It needs another illusory path: the path of surrender, devotion, bhakti. One day or other, devoting yourself and still finding that something is lacking, because the devotion can never be total — anything illusory can never be total: surrendering and surrendering, and again and again finding that you are still standing behind, you are not yet surrendered — one day suddenly you become aware of the fact. What are you going to do? Surrendering something which you don’t have? — how is it possible? Suddenly the ego has disappeared. Now there is no need to surrender, because there is no ego left.

The path of surrender and the path of will both bring you to where Lao Tzu starts. Their end is the beginning of Lao Tzu. His path is of pathlessness. He is the ultimate word, beyond which nothing exists. He is the last word. Buddha can be improved upon, Jesus can be improved upon, Meera and Mahavir, Krishna and Chaitanya can be improved upon, but not Lao Tzu. You cannot improve upon him; there is nothing to improve. He simply does not play the game. From the very beginning he is a non-participant.

The questioner has asked,’Is there a third type of person?’ No, there are only two types of people. The third type is not a type, because all types belong to the ego. The third type is sheer humanness. It is not a being, it is not a person. It is simply sheer existence, pure existence, purity itself. These two are the types. When these types disappear, then you become aware of that which is universal, which has nothing to do with the person, because personality gathers around the ego. Whether you will or you surrender makes no difference. The personality needs a base in the ego.

The ego has two types: the male and female. But a person who is egoless is not a type at all. You cannot categorize him, you cannot put him in any category. He simply transcends all categories. He is a flood — he is flowing in all directions, he is spread all over. He is not like a stone, he is like the sky: indefinable, elusive. The third is not a type, Lao Tzu is not a type. He does not belong to the world of types, the world of categories; he is simply beyond.

When Confucius went to see him, Confucius became very frightened, because to look into the eyes of Lao Tzu is to look into the eternal abyss… bottomless. It is what Buddha calls SHUNYA: eternal void, emptiness. He started trembling, he tried to escape from him. When his disciples said,’Say something about Lao Tzu, because you have been to see him,’ he was still trembling and perspiring. He said,’Don’t ask about that man! He is not a man at all; he is a dragon. And never go near him, he is dangerous! He can suck you in and you disappear.’

Had Confucius known about black holes he would have said,’He is a black hole; don’t go near him! Once you fall into him you will never be able to return. He is dangerous!’ Only once did Confucius go to see him — never again — but his whole life, the shadow haunted him, because he had known a man who was not bounded. He had known a man who had no limitations. He had known sheer humanity, pure humanity, pure beingness. He had seen the purity of death and life. No, the third does not belong to any types.

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

Question – The danger of your talks on taoism is that there are a lot of lazy, irresponsible people around who rationalise their bad habits by claiming to be inactive taoists. please clarify the difference between a taoist and a lazy escapist.

Osho – The question is from Anand Prem. The first thing, there are two dangers I have talked about: one is of egoism, another is of lethargy, laziness. And remember, if you have to fall into any trap, the trap of laziness is better than the trap of egoism. That is more dangerous, because the lazy person has never done anything wrong, a lazy person cannot do. He will never do any good — okay, but he will never do any wrong either. He will not bother to kill anybody, to torture anybody, to create concentration camps, to go to war he will not bother. He says ‘Why? When one can rest, why?’ A lazy person is not naturally a danger. The only thing that he may miss may be his own spiritual growth, but he will not interfere with anybody else’s growth; he will not be an interference. He will not be a do-gooder and these are the greatest, most mischievous people in the world the do-gooders. A lazy person is almost absent. What can he do? Have you ever heard of any lazy person doing anything wrong?

No, Anand Prem, the real problem comes from the egoist, and that is Anand Prem’s possibility. Don’t be worried about a few people here getting lazy — let them, nothing is wrong. The real problem is from the egoist; one who wants to be spiritual, one who wants to be special, one who wants to become a SIDDHA, one who wants to attain spiritual powers. One wants to prove something spiritually in the world: that is the real danger. If you have to fall, choose laziness. If you cannot fall, if you have to avoid, good to avoid BOTH.

Laziness is just like the common cold — nothing much to worry about. Ego is like cancer. It is better not to have either. But if you have to choose and you would like to have something to cling to, the common cold is good — you can depend on it, it never kills anybody, it has never killed anybody. But never choose cancer, and that is the greater possibility.

Now she asks ‘The danger of your talks on Taoism is that there are a lot of lazy, irresponsible people…’. The first thing: the moment you start thinking about others you are getting into an ego-trip. Who are you to think about others and their life? It is their life. If they feel like being lazy, who are you to interfere? Anand Prem has a do-gooder in her being; she is very worried about others — that is a dangerous thing. And of course she is condemnatory. This question has a condemnation: ‘The danger of your talks on Taoism is that there a lot of lazy, irresponsible people around who rationalise their bad habits by claiming to be inactive Taoists.’ Who are you to tell them that their habits are bad?

Laziness is a better habit than to be obsessed by activity. To be obsessed by activity is madness. A lazy person can be sane. Sometimes the laziest people have been found to be the sanest. I have the feeling that if Anand Prem comes across Lao Tzu, she will think he is lazy. He will look lazy to all purposes. If she comes across Diogenes, she will think he is lazy. If she comes around Buddha she will think he is lazy. Sitting under the Bodhi Tree…’what are you doing? At least you can run a primary school and teach children, or you can open a hospital and serve ill people. So many people are dying, starving… what are you doing here sitting under the Bodhi Tree?’

Anand Prem would have jumped upon Buddha and taken him to task. ‘What are you doing? Just sitting, meditating? Is this the time to meditate? Is this the time to be just sitting silently and enjoying your bliss? This is selfish!’ This condemnatory attitude is really dangerous: it gives you an idea of holier than thou, ‘I am better than you. You… you lazy people!’ She goes on writing questions every day that I have not been answering; every day — that ‘these people are hippies, these people are useless.’

She is in search of a lover, but she cannot find one here because she thinks that nobody here…. She wants a ‘straight person’ and she cannot find a straight person here. These are all ‘hippies and yippies’ and she wants somebody who is well-established.

She wrote a letter. ‘… well-established, has a bank account, is a gentleman, a squire, has prestige, respectability. Here these people are just hobos, wanderers, vagabonds.’ She would have refused Buddha, she would have refused Lao Tzu: they were not straight. She writes to me: ‘… these long-haired people!’ With such disgust she writes, and because of this disgust she has become a very disgusting person and she will not find. For one year she has been in the West in search. She is a Jew.

First she searched in America, then she went to Israel to search for a man. She could not find in America, she could not find in Israel — she will never find anywhere. Even if she goes to heaven, God will look like a hobo. She has such condemnatory attitudes that she cannot love a simple human being. Yes, there are flaws, there are limitations, but everybody has those limitations. If you want to love, you have to love a man with all his limitations.

You cannot find a perfect person. Perfection does not exist. God never allows perfection because perfection is so monotonous. Just think: living with a perfect person… twenty-four hours, and you will commit suicide. Living with a perfect person? Then how will you live? He will be more like a marble statue, dead. The moment a person becomes perfect, he is dead. An alive person is never perfect, and my teaching is basically not for perfection but for totality.

Be total, and remember the difference. The ideal of perfection says: Be like this — no anger, no jealousy, no possessiveness, no flaws, no limitations. The ideal of totality is totally different: If you are angry, be totally angry. If you are loving, be totally loving. If you are sad, be totally sad. Nothing is denied — only partiality has to be dropped, and then a person becomes beautiful. A total person is beautiful. A perfect person is dead.

I am not trying to create MAHATMAS here. Enough! Those MAHATMAS have done enough nonsense in the world. We need beautiful people, flowering, flowing, alive. Yes, they will be sometimes sad, but what is wrong in being sad? Sometimes they will be angry, but what is wrong in sometimes being angry? It simply shows that you are alive, that you are not a dead thing, that you are not driftwood. Sometimes you fight, sometimes you let go. Just like climates change: it is rainy sometimes and it is cloudy, and sometimes it is sunny and the clouds have disappeared. And all seasons are needed — the cold, the heat, the winter, the summer — all seasons are needed. And a real man, an authentic man, has all the climates in his being — only with one awareness: that whatsoever he is doing he should do totally and should do with full awareness — enough, that’s enough, and you have a beautiful person. But Anand Prem is in search of a perfect man.

I have heard…. Once a man travelled all over the world…. Whenever I look at Anand Prem, I again and again remember that man, He travelled all over the world in search of a perfect woman. He wanted to get married, but how to accept an imperfect model? — he wanted a perfect woman. He came back, his whole life wasted; he could not find. Then one day a friend said ‘But now you are seventy and you searched your whole life, couldn’t you find a single perfect woman?’
He said ‘Yes, once I came across one woman who was perfect.’

So the friend asked ‘Then what happened?’
But the man became sad, he said ‘What happened? That woman was in search of a perfect man, so nothing happened!’

Remember, the ideal of perfection is an egoistic ideal.

Ronald Coleman told Herb Stein about a Hollywood phony who spoke with a fake Oxford accent, wore a fake Purple Star and Phi Beta Kappa key — and worst of all, passed a lot of fake cheques. At the end of his rope, he decided to commit suicide, and went down to the Santa Fe railroad tracks. He calmly smoked several imported cigarettes while three or four heavy freights puffed by. A tramp who was watching jeered. ‘lf you’re gonna do it, why don’t you do it?’
‘Don’t be vulgar’ squelched the phony. ‘A man like me waits for the Super Chief.’

Even if an egoist goes to commit suicide, he waits for the Super Chief, the best train. He says ‘Don’t be vulgar. A man like me waits for the Super Chief.’ Even if he is committing suicide, he will not commit under a goods train.
Marriage is like suicide — you can commit anywhere. You should not wait for the Super Chief. Anand Prem is in search and it is impossible for her, the way she looks at things with such condemnation, to find anybody whom she can love.
‘Please clarify the difference between a Taoist and a lazy escapist.’

There is not much, and if there is, it is so inner that only the person will know — you will never be able to judge from the outside. Look at me. I am also a lazy person. Have you seen me doing anything, ever? It is very difficult from the outside to know. And I love lazy persons… Taoists or not; I love lazy persons because out of lazy persons never any Adolf Hitler is born, never any Genghis Khan, never any Tamburlaine. Lazy people have silently lived their lives and disappeared, without leaving any trace on history, without contaminating humanity. They have not polluted consciousness. They were here as if they were not. To be lazy and aware… and you have become a Taoist. It does not mean that you become inactive. It simply means that the obsessive activity disappears. It simply means that you have become capable of not-doing too.

It is said about a Zen Master that a person asked one of his disciples ‘What miracles can your Master do?’
And the disciple said ‘Are you a follower of somebody?’

And the man said ‘Yes, I am a follower of a certain Master and he is a great-miracle-man; he can do great miracles. Once it happened that I was standing on this shore of the bank and he was standing on the other shore, and he shouted to me “I want to write something in your book.” And it was almost a half-mile-wide river. So I took my book out, raised it, and from the other shore he started writing with his fountain pen and the writing came on my book. This miracle I have seen and the book is with me — you can see.’

And the disciple of the other Master laughed and he said ‘My Master can do greater miracles.’
So the man said ‘What miracles?’
And the disciple said ‘My Master can do miracles, and he is so capable… SO CAPABLE that he is capable of not doing them too.’

‘Not doing them too.’ See the beauty of it. He is ‘so capable… SO CAPABLE… of not doing them too.’

A Taoist is a man who does only that which is absolutely necessary. His life is almost like a telegram. When you go to the Post Office you don’t write a long letter when you are giving a telegraphic message. You go on cutting words, this and this can be dropped and then you come to ten or nine or whatsoever. If you write a letter you will never write only ten words. And have you watched the thing? A telegram is more expressive than all letters. It says much more in very few words. The unnecessary is dropped, only the most necessary is there. A Taoist is telegraphic, his life is like a telegram. The obsessive, the unnecessary, the feverish, has been dropped. He does only that which is absolutely necessary. And let me tell you that the absolutely necessary is so little that you will see a Taoist almost as if he were lazy.

But remember, I am not praising laziness. I am simply condemning the egoistic attitude. Against ego — I am for laziness. But I am not for laziness itself; it should be full of awareness. Then you pass from activity and from laziness both. Then you become transcendental. You are neither active, nor inactive; you are centred. Whatsoever is needed you do it, whatsoever is not needed you don’t do it. You are neither a doer nor a non-doer. Doing is no more your focus. You are a consciousness.

So please don’t take whatsoever I have said in the sense that I am helping you to be lazy. To be REALLY lazy means not to be inactive, but to be so full of energy that you are a reservoir of energy. Lazy as far as the world is concerned, but tremendously dynamic inside, not dull.

A Taoist is lazy from the outside; from the inside he has become a river-like phenomenon, he is continuously flowing towards the ocean. He has dropped many activities because they were unnecessarily leaking his energy. The danger is always there — in whatsoever I say there is danger — the danger of interpretation. If I say ‘Be active’, there is the possibility that you will become egoists. If I say ‘Be inactive’, there is the possibility that you may become dull. Man is very cunning.

I have heard…. He was the kind of a guy who would bet on anything — provided he was sure of winning. ‘I’ll bet my wife’s first words will be “my dear” when I get home’ he said to Lucky.

Lucky took him up on it. He knew his wife very well and she would be the last woman in the world to say ‘my dear’. Must have been like Anand Prem.

Lucky took him up on it and they bet a hundred dollars. When they got to the sport’s house he stuck his head in the door and called ‘My dear, I’m home.’
‘”My dear” be hanged!’ roared his wife. ‘Wait till I get you inside!’
And he looked at Lucky and said ‘Give me a hundred dollars. Didn’t I tell you that the first words she would ever utter would be “my dear”?’

Mind is very cunning. The wife is saying ‘”My dear” be hanged I wait till I get you inside!’ But you can interpret… so he is demanding a hundred dollars. Mind is cunning. It goes on interpreting in its own ways; it goes on finding reasons, rationalisations, tricks to defend. It wants to remain as it is. That is the whole effort of the mind: it wants to remain as it is. If it is lazy, it wants to remain lazy. If it is active — too active, obsessively active it wants to remain active. So whatsoever I say, you have to be careful not to defend your mind. You have to come out of your mind.

The man burst angrily through the door, threw his wife off the stranger’s knee and angrily demanded ‘How do I find you kissing my wife?’
‘I don’t know’ said the stranger. ‘Maybe you’re home early?’

People can find reasons. Be alert. And be alert about your own self, not about others. This is none of your business what others are doing. This should be one of the basic attitudes of a religious person — not to think about what the other is doing; that is his life. If he decides to live it that way, that is his business. Who are you even to have an opinion about it? Even to have an opinion means that you are ready to interfere, you have already interfered.

A religious person is one who is trying to live his life the best, the most total way he can; the most alert way that he can he is trying. And he is not interfering with anybody’s life, not even by having an opinion. Have you watched, observed? If you pass somebody and you have a certain opinion about him, your face changes, your eyes change, your attitude, your walk. If you are condemnatory, your whole being starts broadcasting condemnation, disgust. No, you are interfering. To be really religious means to be non-interfering. Give freedom to people; freedom is their birthright.

Once it happened, I stayed with one of my professors, my teachers. Though I was a student and he was my teacher, he was very respectful of me. He was a rare, religious man but he was a drunkard, and when I stayed in his home, he was very afraid to drink in front of me. What would I think? I watched him, I felt his restlessness, so the next day I told him ‘There is something on your mind. If you don’t relax, I will immediately leave and go to a hotel; I will not stay. There is something on your mind. I feel that you are not at ease, my presence is creating some trouble.’

He said ‘Since you have raised the problem, I would like to tell you. I have never told you that I drink too much, but I always drink in my home and go to sleep. Now that you are staying here I don’t want to drink before you and that is creating the trouble. I cannot remain without drinking but I cannot even conceive of drinking in front of you.’

I laughed. I said ‘This is foolish. What have I to do with it? You will not force me to drink.’ He said ‘No, never.’
‘Then it is finished; the problem is solved. You drink and I will keep you company. I will not drink but I can drink something else Coca-Cola or Fanta, I will keep you company, you drink. I can fill your glass, I can help you.’
He could not believe it, he thought I was joking. But when in the night I filled his glass, he started crying. He said ‘I had never thought that you would not have any opinion about it. And I have been watching you’ he said ‘and you don’t have any opinion about my drinking, about my behaviour, about what I am doing.’

I said ‘To have an opinion about you is simply foolish. It is not something very great that I haven’t any opinion about you. Why should I have in the first place? Who am l? It is your life — you want to drink, you drink.’

To have an opinion about you means that deep down somewhere I want to manipulate you. To have some opinion about you, this way or that, means that I have a deep desire to be powerful over people. That’s what a politician is. A religious person should be non-interfering.

Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 1″

QUESTION – ONE FRIEND ASKS HOW A PERSON SHOULD FIND THE INTERNAL CENTRE THAT IS MENTIONED BY LAO TZU AND DEVELOP ITS HUNGER.

OSHO – Sit with your eyes closed and think, “Where is the centre of my body?” We live through our body, but it is an unfortunate fact that we do not give any thought to the centre of our body. We are completely ignorant of the pivot on which the body functions. Many people believe the head to be the centre of all body functions because it is in the brain that all activities seem to take place.

The fact is, however, that the brain forms much later. When the child is conceived, there is no brain and yet life functions. But that which is formed later, cannot be the centre. People who are emotional, like most women, artists, poets, feel the centre to be the heart because whatever these people have known and experienced — love, beauty and the like — are things that have had a direct impact on their heart. That is why, when people talk of love, their hand inadvertently goes to their heart. So those who are emotional take the heart to be the centre of the body.

But the heart does not beat until the child takes its first breath. The child hears the mother’s heart beat within. Therefore, the sound “tick-tick” causes not only children but also adults to fall asleep. The sound of water dripping, or the ticking of a watch, induces sleep. Doctors say that the ticking of a clock is a very good tranquilliser. The heart in the embryo does not function like a heart and yet the child is alive.

Therefore, the heart also is not the centre. Lao Tzu says, “The navel is the centre and not the heart or the brain.” The child is joined to the mother by its navel. The first glimpse of life comes through the navel. This is scientifically correct.

So, search within. Lao Tzu says, “Keep searching within and bring your consciousness to the level of the navel centre. That is the first step of sadhana.” When the authentic centre and the centre of your understanding become one, you will become an united, integrated whole. When the centre of your mind, the centre of your consciousness and your authentic centre concentrate and converge into a single focus, you will find that your life has changed. You are now a new person altogether.

Lao Tzu’s disciples have, for ages, been carrying out a simple experiment to prove that you cannot grow unless you locate your centre within. The experiment is this. Take two small tanks of equal dimensions. Fill them with water. Insert an iron rod in the middle of one tank, leaving the other as it is. Put two identical fish and put one in each tank. Given the same conditions and the same diet, you will be surprised to find that the fish in the tank with the iron-rod in the centre develops quickly, whereas the growth of the fish in the other tank, which is without the central rod, is slower. The fish in the former tank swims around and around the rod, while the fish in the second tank has no centre. It swims here and there listlessly in the absence of a centre and is also more prone to illness.

This experiment has been religiously carried out by the followers of Lao Tzu for hundreds of years and it has always been found that the fish in the tank with the centre rod has always been well-developed and healthy, whereas the fish in the other tank was stunted in growth and unhealthy.

The followers of Lao Tzu maintain that a person who succeeds in locating his centre finds his consciousness revolving around and around this centre. It is only then that his consciousness begins to develop. Those who do not find their centres remain stunted and lifeless, like the fish in the second tank, because they have no centre, no base around which they can revolve and develop. They cannot find their direction: where they should go, what they should do. By revolving round the same circumference, the consciousness develops.

Lao Tzu says: “Your consciousness becomes concentrated when it discovers the navel centre. Then it begins to revolve around it.” Lao Tzu says: “When you walk, keep your attention on the navel. When you sit, keep your mind on the navel; when you get up, be aware of the navel. Do what you will, but let your consciousness always move around the navel.” Become a fish and go round and round the navel, and you will soon discover a new, powerful consciousness arising within you. The results are wondrous!

There are many experiments you carry out. You are sitting on a chair. Now, Lao Tzu says your way of sitting on the chair is wrong, therefore, you get tired. He says, “Do not sit on the chair.” This does not mean you are not actually to sit on the chair; that you should sit on the ground. Lao Tzu says, “Sit on the chair but do not put your weight on the chair. Put all your weight on the navel.”

You can carry out the experiment right away. It is only a matter of emphasis. When we put all our weight on the chair the emphasis is in the chair. The chair becomes the all in all. You are merely like a coat hanging on a peg. If the peg breaks, you fall down, like a coat which has no centre of its own and which depends on the peg for its centre. Lao Tzu says you will tire yourself this way because you are not acting like an animate, conscious being and are depending entirely on an inanimate object.

Lao Tzu says: “Sit on the chair but be fixed at your own centre at the navel.” Hang everything on the peg of the navel. Hours will go by and you will find no sign of fatigue. If a man begins to live by hanging his consciousness on the peg of the navel-centre, all mental-fatigue vanishes. A unique freshness pervades his mind, a serene calmness flows within him and he gains a self-confidence which only those who have found their centre attain.

So the first step in this sadhana is to find your centre. and to continue your efforts till the consciousness reaches not only the navel but two inches below the navel. Then one should begin to keep this centre always in mind. When one breathes in, this centre should rise up; when one breathes out, this centre should go down. Then, a constant japa begins: the rising of the centre with the incoming breath and the falling of the centre with the outgoing breath. If this becomes a conscious act, it yields great results. This is very difficult of course in the beginning, because remembrance is the most difficult thing to do. Constant remembrance is even more difficult. You might say, “That is not such a difficult thing at all. I can recollect the name of a person even after six years!” This is not remembrance. This is recollection (SMRITI).

Understand the difference. Recollection means you know something; you pass it on to your memory for recording. The memory stores this information and reproduces it on demand. Remembrance (smaran) means, constant, non-stop remembering. Try it a little: Observe the rising and falling of your abdomen as the breath comes and goes for just five minutes. After two seconds you will find that you have forgotten. You have started to do something else. Then you will be perturbed. You could not concentrate for even two seconds? The respiration was going on as usual, the abdomen also rose and fell accordingly. but you were not there. Then again bring back your remembrance.

If you strive continuously, your remembrance will increase — second by second. When you find that you can observe the breath constantly without a simple break for three minutes — and this short interval of three minutes will seem like three year — then you will find that you have begun to experience the centre correctly. Then you will feel the body to be separate from the centre.

This centre is the centre of energy. One who is united to this centre, reaches infinite exaltation because he is constantly receiving infinite energy. So, keep a constant remembrance of the navel centre and let your consciousness revolve around it constantly. That is the temple. Keep circling around this temple. Whatever the state within you — whether there is anger or hatred, jealousy or misery or happiness — whatever the state, your first duty is to return to the navel. Then do whatever you wish.

Someone gives you news of the death of a loved one. Go back to the navel. Then let the news go within you. “Then,” Lao Tzu says, “No one’s death will cause a blow to the mind.” You may not have observed, or perhaps you have or may be you realised later on, recollecting the incident — that whenever you have been given news of great joy or sorrow, the first effect has always been on the navel. You are walking on the road, or cycling, or going in a car, and suddenly an accident occurs. The first impact is on the navel. It begins to tremble. Then, the whole body begins to tremble.

Lao Tzu says, “Whenever anything happens, go back first to the navel centre.” Your first work is remembrance of the navel. Then, do what you like. Then happiness will not make you mad with joy, and sorrow will fail to make you unhappy. Then your centre will stand apart from the happenings that take place on the periphery. Then you remain the witness only. Yoga says, “Practice the sadhana of witnessing.” Lao Tzu says. “Remember the navel centre constantly and the witness state will result by itself.”

You will step outside of birth and death the day you become conscious of your navel centre, because this centre arises before birth and is the only thing that remains after death, when all else is lost. So he who knows and recognises his navel centre, knows that there is no birth for him nor death. He becomes beyond birth and death.

Keep constant remembrance. Seek the centre and keep incessant remembrance (SMARANA). The first thing is to find the centre, second is to keep on remembering it, and third is to remember the frequent loss of the remembrance. “This is going to be rather difficult however. People come to me and say, “I try to keep my attention on the (NABHI), the navel, but I cannot. What should I do?”

To this I say: Keep attention on the fact that you have lost attention. Make it a part of your meditation. Be attentive to inattention also: don’t let it pass unnoticed by you. Whenever you slip, be conscious of the slip and you will go back to remembrance, the current of meditation will join the mainstream again.

Now, the last thing. When the remembrance is complete and the centre becomes clear to you — when you experience the centre — then surrender everything to the centre. Say to the centre, “You alone are the master. Release me!” This surrender is easy.

Surrender is very difficult until the centre is experienced. People say, “Surrender to God,” but we have no knowledge of God. How is surrender to an unknown entity possible? And even if God is known, you still remain the owner of your surrender. If you feel sometime that God is not to your taste, you will withdraw your surrender. We are the givers and we are the withdrawers — what can God do? But the surrender that can be withdrawn is no surrender; in fact, it was never a surrender.

Lao Tzu’s method is different. Lao Tzu says: “The day the centre is known and felt, you begin to understand and experience that the centre is the master that does not need your assistance. The breath comes and goes; sleep comes, then awakening; birth happens, then death. The current of life flows on from the centre, without your help.” Then the question of surrendering does not arise because surrender just happens.

So the third and last stage of sadhana is to experience the surrender to the centre. Then there is no way for the ego to save itself. In the state of such surrender a person reach s the highest attainment.

Source – Osho Book “The Way of Tao, Vol 2″

Osho – We keep changing objects: from the first to the second and the third and so on, but our chase does not abate. And this chase is insatiable. It can never be satiated because the nature of desires is insatiable. Therefore, the sage seeks to satisfy the hunger that exists in the innermost centre of his being. He is anxious to satisfy this hunger.

Lao Tzu says: “Bring down your consciousness from the head to the heart.” As soon as it approaches the heart, a transformation of desires takes place. He says: “Take it still further down, towards the navel.” Then, desires become extinct and a new hunger is experienced. This hunger is called the hunger for spiritual-knowledge. As soon as the consciousness nears the navel, this hunger begins.

Then the question does not arise that I should be something or achieve something. Then the question is :I should know myself as I am. This is a completely new hunger, in which I want my true self to manifest before me. I do not wish to be anything or to achieve anything. I am eager to know myself as I truly am and as I have always been. The curtain should rise and I should see and know my true being.

This is the craving of the navel centre. As soon as a person brings down his consciousness to the level of his navel, an entirely new question confronts him: “Who am I?” All spiritual knowledge is an answer to this question. All yoga, all sadhanas are answers to this hunger, this craving. They are methods and processes to find an answer to it.

We are aware of all the other cravings within us: the craving for wealth, for honour, for position, but we are completely ignorant of the craving to know who I am, to know what I am! This is a hunger that is deeply embedded within the navel. When this hunger is awakened within a person, a new search begins in his life. There can be no search without the craving, without the hunger. We set out to find only that which we desire.

Lao Tzu says: “Therefore, the saint does not gratify his hunger for colour or taste or sound or touch. He does not fulfil the hunger of the senses. Rather, he removes his consciousness from the hunger of the senses and directs it to the navel, where lies embedded the actual thirst: the thirst to know oneself, to be oneself, to attain oneself.

“The saint negates the former and upholds the latter.” The saint does not exhort us to leave hunger altogether. He says that there is a hunger which is never satiated, however much you try. These are our external hungers. Try to understand this. All the hungers of our senses are instantaneous. You give the stomach food and in twenty-four hours you shall have to refill it because the food will have been used up by then. It is just like you fill gas in your car. It gives you a certain mileage and is burnt up in the process. The car will not work if you do not refill the gas. If you want to use the car, there is no other way except to fill the car with gas. Just so, you must give food to the body if you want it to work. The body has its requirements which need to be fulfilled in the course of the day. The body keeps on demanding fuel because the body is a machine that has to be filled everyday. But by filling the body, you cannot experience that fullness which never gets finished.

There is no cause for alarm however. This is as it should be, and there is no cause for anxiety. Some foolish people, however become the enemies of the body. “What is the use of gratifying the needs of the body?” they argue, because the body’s demands never end.” So they give the body as little as they can give if they wish to sustain it. They give the body the minimum of food, the minimum of water and rest. They are merely indulging in foolishness. Actually, they too desire to fill the desires of the senses for once and all and be done with it. This could not be, and hence the distress.

Your folly is that you are under the impression that by gratifying your desires everyday, some day you will reach a point of satiety. You and the one who denies the body are committing the same folly, but from different directions. You believe in gratifying the body with the hope of reaching the supreme gratification, whereas he denies the body in order to reach the same goal. Both he and you are completely unaware of the spiritual hunger that can only be gratified in a spiritual way.

Remember, petty thirsts are quenched temporarily. The hunger in your stomach is not the ultimate hunger. What is your thirst? Drink half a glass of water and it is satiated. But how long can the thirst be appeased by this much water? In no time, you are thirsty again. If the thirst is small, the result is small. We have no knowledge of the ultimate hunger.

There is only one supreme hunger: to know existence, to be one with it, to see it unfold before us. Call it truth or God, give it whatever name you please. “Remove your consciousness from the senses,” says Lao Tzu. Bring it down into the navel, bring it down from the head. The day it reaches the navel, will be the day of revelation. There will be a new thirst. This very thirst is your prayer, this very thirst is meditation. The search that arises from this hunger, is religion. When a sadhaka reaches the lake that gratifies this thirst, that lake is Paramatman.

Source – Osho Book “The Way of Tao, Vol 2″

Question – You said that the real morality is the shadow of enlightenment. But then how is one to live before becoming enlightened?

Osho – THE moment you ask ’how’ you are asking again for a discipline. The moment you ask ’how’ you ask for methods, techniques. Why can’t you simply live? Are not animals living? Are not trees living and birds living without asking any ’how’? Why do you carry on continuously about everything with this ’how’? How to love? How to pray? How to be friendly? How to be compassionate? How to be silent? How to live?

Drop the ’how’ and let life take its own course. It will. It is not waiting for any ’how’. That’s what Tao calls spontaneity, TATHATA, suchness. Let life take its own course. Who are you to interfere continuously? Can’t you simply eat? Why do you ask how to eat and how to taste? Can’t you simply taste? Just eat, chew well, and enjoy.

Let life move, don’t try to manage it. By trying to manage, you have mismanaged enough. By trying to improve you have destroyed all its beauty. With all your goals and ideologies you have poisoned your being. Be natural.

But that is very difficult for the ego. The difficulty comes from the ego, not from life. Life can be lived without any ’how’ but the difficulty comes from the ego. The ego says that then you will be like an animal. So what! Be an animal. What is wrong in that? Man is an animal. There’s nothing wrong in being an animal. No animal is as ugly as man. No animal has done so much violence on earth as man. No animal has destroyed nature as man has. What is wrong with animals? Have you ever heard of any animal becoming Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Mao Tse Tung? They have not killed. They have not murdered and butchered. They have not created wars. It is man who brings ugliness into the world.

But the ego says you have to be higher than the animals. In trying to be higher than the animals you fall lower than the animals. Be natural, don’t try to improve, and you will find a great transformation happening. Through nature God comes – not through improvement, not through any effort of the ego, but through effortlessness, through deep trust and surrender.

Can’t you trust God, who has given you birth? You did not ask the same question when you were in a womb – ’How to live for nine months?’ You lived well, you did well, perfectly well – otherwise you would not have been here. And there was no yoga teacher to teach you to be in a certain posture, to teach you how to breathe, how to do PRANAYAMA and PRATYAHAR, and which ASANA will be the best. You didn’t ask anybody. There was nobody to ask. You lived in the womb naturally and you grew. God was taking care, the whole was taking care, everything was provided.

Then you were born and then you became a child – you did not ask how to breathe, how to walk, how to talk. Everything came by and by. Can’t you trust life? One day you became a young man, youth came, and love started arising in your being. One day you will become old, life will start disappearing, and then one day death will come and the circle will be complete.

Why are you always trying to interfere? Tao says you should be in WU-WEI, non-interference. Let the whole do things. This is a very radical attitude, this is the greatest revolutionary attitude ever. ’How?’ is very childish. Yoga is for children, Tao is for grown-ups.

So don’t ask: BUT THEN HOW IS ONE TO LIVE BEFORE BECOMING ENLIGHTENED? Just live. And just living, I tell you, is fantastic. It is far out!

Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2″

Question – Osho, Tao is greater than mind. Then why do we keep choosing the mind instead of flowing with the Tao?

Osho – Prem Radha, It is precisely because of that. Tao is so vast that one is afraid to lose one’s identity in it. We are like dewdrops and Tao is like an ocean. The dewdrop is afraid, very much frightened to get closer to the ocean – one step in the ocean and he will be lost forever. He wants to cling to his identity; howsoever small, howsoever tiny, howsoever mediocre, but it is HIS identity, it is HIS personality. He is only because he is separate from the ocean.

That’s the way of the ego: the ego can exist only in separation. Separation creates misery because you become uprooted from the whole, but one is ready to suffer misery rather than to die and disappear into absolute bliss. People only talk about bliss, nobody really wants to be blissful. They talk about bliss as if they can remain the same and bliss can be added to them as they are. They want bliss also to be a kind of new possession so that their ego can feel more enhanced, more defined, more precious, more enriched.

But as the ego becomes more defined you become smaller. As you become smaller you become miserable because you start feeling suffocated, you start feeling closed from all the sides. Your prison cell becomes smaller and smaller – even to exist in it becomes impossible. But people are ready to suffer all kinds of misery, they are ready to sacrifice everything for the ego.

That’s why, Prem Radha, we cling to the mind. Mind is nothing but the process of the ego, the functioning of the ego. Mind is the boundary between you and the whole. It is a wall, not a bridge – no-mind is the bridge. Hence the emphasis of all the awakened ones to move from mind to no-mind. The ego can exist only if you remain in constant fight; a continuous struggle is needed, because it is a false entity. You have to maintain it; it is not something spontaneous, it is not something natural that can exist on its own. It needs competitiveness, it needs conflict; it needs all kinds of jealousies, possessiveness, hatred, war. It can exist only with all that is wrong.

Ego represents the unhealthy state of our being. It is assertive. To relax is against the ego, to be non-ambitious is against the ego. Just a moment of relaxation is enough and you will have the taste of Tao, because it is always there, it is never lost. You go on creating the walls, but all walls crumble in a split second. Hence, wherever it happens, in whatsoever situation it happens, you become frightened of that situation.

People have become afraid of love for the simple reason because love is the most potential force in existence – when the window in Tao opens on its own accord. Love means the wall disappears, the wall is no more, and the bridge arises. Of course it happens only between two persons, but even to let it happen between two persons gives you such joy, such orgasmic glow, such tremendous experience of the splendor of life that the ego is afraid.

The ego has created false substitutes for love. The ego is perfectly ready for marriage, but not for love. Marriage is a legal institution, a social institution produced by the cunning mind, by the cunning priests, by the vested interests. Love is natural. Love is dangerous for the ego. If love is allowed you will start tasting little bits of Tao, but that taste will create in you a longing to have more of it. It is so sweet, it is so exquisite, it is so beautiful! Then you will be ready to sacrifice all nonsense that goes with the ego. You will be ready to disappear into the whole.

It is love that will give you the courage to take the ultimate jump – first with a single person… But once the experience is there you cannot step back, you will have to go ahead; you cannot go back. First it is with a single person, but you cannot stop the process now. It is so ecstatic that if it is so beautiful with one single person, how much it will be with the whole…!

A Buddha is one who is in an orgasmic relationship with the whole. Tao is the ultimate orgasm, not between two individuals but between the part and the whole, between the dewdrop and the ocean. But the dewdrop has to disappear, but it loses nothing. Our all fears are unfounded; they are rooted in ignorance, but ego exploits the ignorance. Hence all societies have distorted the natural flow of love, because it can open the floodgates and then it will be uncontrollable. It is better to give people a false substitute. Marriage is that substitute. Hitherto, for five thousand years, man has lived with marriage and misery. You are not allowed to experience beauty. Your minds are from the very beginning distorted, channelized towards utilitarian ends. You are taught mathematics, you are taught geography, history.

Now history is all bunk, utterly useless. Why go on reading about the ancient idiots? For what purpose? It is better to forget all about them. Why bother about Genghis Khan, Tamburlaine, Nadir Shah, Alexander, Napoleon? For what? What these people have given to human consciousness?

They are like poisons; they have stopped in every possible way human progress, human evolution. And in your history books you will not find names of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Ko Hsuan – not even in the footnotes. And these are the people who are the real foundations of human consciousness, these are the people who are the real hope. But you will not find their names even mentioned; on the contrary, historians will always create doubt in you whether Jesus ever existed, whether Krishna is a historical person or just a myth, whether Mahavira was a reality or just a fiction; did Buddha really walk on the earth or has been a projection of our dreams, of our desires?

Sigmund Freud says that these people are wish-fulfillments. We want that there should be people like these, but they have not really existed and even if they have existed they have not existed the way we have described them. That was the cause of the rift between Freud and his disciple Carl Gustav Jung; the rift was of tremendous significance. Freud is very pragmatic; Jung is far more poetic. Jung has tremendous trust in mythology and has no trust in history. And I absolutely agree with Jung about this.

All the mythologies of the world are closer to truth than your so-called histories. But we teach our children history, not mythology. We teach them arithmetic, not poetry. And the way we teach a little bit of poetry – we teach it in such a way that they become so fed up and bored with it that once the student leaves the university he will never read Shakespeare again, he will never look at Milton’s works again. The very names of Shakespeare, Milton, Kalidas, Baubhuti will create a kind of nausea in him. The professors have tortured him so much behind these names that he is finished forever.

His interest has not been encouraged, he has not become more poetic; he has lost all interest in poetry. He has not been supported to be creative, he has not been helped to learn how to poetize. The scholars are so clever in destroying all that is beautiful by their commentaries, interpretations, by their so-called learning. They make everything so heavy that even poetry with them becomes non-poetic.

I myself never attended any poetry class in the university. I was called again and again by the head of the department, that ’You attend other classes, why you don’t come to the poetry classes?” I said, ”Because I want to keep my interest in poetry alive. I love poetry, that’s why. And I know perfectly well that your professors are absolutely unpoetic; they have never known any poetry in their life. I know them perfectly well. The man who teaches poetry in the university goes for a morning walk with me every day. I have never seen him looking at the trees, listening to the birds, seeing the beautiful sunrise.”

And in the university where I was, the sunrise and the Sunset were something tremendously beautiful. The university was on a small hillock surrounded by small hills all around. I have never come across… I have traveled all over this country; I have never seen more beautiful sunsets and sunrises anywhere. For some unknown mysterious reason Saugar University seems to have a certain situation where clouds become so colorful at the time of sunrise and sunset that even a blind man will become aware that something tremendously beautiful is happening.

But I have never seen the professor who teaches poetry in the university to look at the sunset, to stop even for a single moment. And whenever he sees me watching the sunset or the sunrise or the trees or the birds, he asks me, ”Why you are sitting here? You have come for a morning walk – do your exercise!”

I told him that, ”This is not exercise for me. You are doing exercise; with me it is a love affair.” And when it rains he never comes. And whenever it rains I will go and knock at his door and tell him, ”Come on!”
He will say, ”But it is raining!”
I said, ”That’s the most beautiful time to go for a walk, because the streets are absolutely empty. And to go for a walk without any umbrella while it is raining is so beautiful, is so poetic!”

He thinks I am mad, but a man who has never gone in the rains under the trees cannot understand poetry. I told to the head of the department that, ”This man is not poetic; he destroys everything. He is so scholarly and poetry is such an unscholarly phenomenon that there is no meeting ground between the two.”

Universities destroy people’s interest and love for poetry. They destroy your whole idea of how a life should be; they make it more and more a commodity. They teach you how to earn more, but they don’t teach you how to live deeply, how to live totally. And these are the ways from where you can get glimpses of Tao. These are the ways from where small doors and windows open into the ultimate. You are told the value of money but not the value of a rose flower. You are told the value of being a prime minister or a president but not the value of being a poet, a painter, a singer, a dancer. Those things are thought to be for crazy people. And they are the ways from where one slips slowly into Tao.

Prem Radha, Tao is certainly greater than mind – Tao is greater than everything. Tao is God, Tao is the whole. But we are very much afraid of losing ourselves, and we keep on feeding our egos in thousand-and-one ways.

We are doing two things in our life: closing all windows and doors to the sun, to the moon, to the stars, to the wind, to the rain, to the birds, to the trees, to love, to beauty, to truth. We are closing all the windows, we are creating a grave around ourselves with no doors and no windows. We are becoming Leibnitz monads, windowless capsules. Our life is encapsulated. That is one part that we go on doing. And the second part is to go on making the walls thicker and thicker. That is done by competition, ambition: have more and more; whether you need or not, that is not the point at all. Do you think the richest people in the world need more money now? They have more than they can use, far more. But the desire for more does not stop, because it is not a question that they need money; the question is to go on making the walls of the ego thicker and thicker. They are continuously in competition with each other. Competition creates conflict. Conflict keeps your ego alive.

A beatnik was boppin’ down the sidewalk just a-poppin’ his fingers and feeling good, when a Jaguar
pulled up at the intersection.
”Hey, daddy cool, wanna drag?” said the beatnik.

”Sure,” laughed the sportscar driver, amused.
The light turned green and off they shot, the beatnik in the lead, running like hell. The driver was amazed! He looked at his speedometer: twenty, thirty, not until forty miles per hour did he finally overtake the beatnik.

Then he looked in his rearview mirror and noticed that the beatnik had suddenly disappeared. Concerned, he went back to find him lying in the ditch all bruised and battered.
”Hey,” said the man, ”you were doing great: I could not believe it – what happened?”
”Like man,” groaned the beatnik, ”I mean, you ever had a sneaker blow out on you at forty-five miles an hour?”

Prem Radha, one has to decide one thing once forever: whether one wants to live the life of the ego, which is more like death than like life, or one wants to live the life of Tao, which is death in a sense and resurrection in another sense. It is both a crucifixion and a resurrection. The dewdrop disappears, but it becomes the ocean. It loses nothing, it only gains.

Sannyas means that you have decided to live the life of Tao, that you will not cling to the mind, that you will let it go, that you will not nourish it anymore, that you will not support it in any possible way, that you will go on finding how you have been supporting it and withdrawing your support. When all supports are withdrawn it falls on its own accord. And the moment the ego falls and disappears is the greatest moment in life. That’s the moment of enlightenment, the moment of awakening, the moment when you become a Christ or a Buddha or a Krishna.

Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2″

Osho – Tao says, that when nobody knows what to make of you – you are so ordinary that nobody knows what to make of you, nobody knows any utility for you, you cannot be used, you are so ordinary, without any talent – then, they say, the real mystery reveals itself through you. Then you become a real mystery. When you cannot be used you become god like. What is the meaning? Whenever you are used, you become a thing; whenever you cannot be used, you become a person.

A person is not a utility; a thing is a utility. If somebody asks you: Who are you? You say: I am a doctor. What do you mean? It means that society is using you as a doctor. It is a function, not a personality. It is not your person, not your being, it is a utility – society is using you as a doctor.

Somebody is a carpenter, somebody else is a shoemaker. Is this your being? Or just a utility in society? Society is using you as a thing, and the more valuable your use, the more society will value you. But if you drop all talents, if you become just ordinary, and nobody knows what to do with you, nobody can use you, you have gone beyond society. Now you are no longer a thing, you have become a person. And this does not mean that you will not do anything, you will, but nobody will use you. You will ’do’ on your own, it will be your flowering.

A rose flowers, not for those who will pass, not for those who will see, not for those who will smell the fragrance. No! It flowers on its own. A man of Tao flowers on his own. He is like a rose, he is not a utility. And a man who has not known his innermost being is always like a thing, always on display in the window of a shop; always waiting for somebody to come and use him with all his certificates, distinctions, talents; always crying: Come and use me, make me a thing. I am a most valuable thing, you will never get any thing better than me. Come and use me! This is your whole cry. And if this is your cry, you will become a thing.

A man of Tao drops all distinctions, he burns all certificates, he destroys all bridges, he remains in himself, he becomes a flower. And this flowering is purposeless – it has no utility. Many are benefitted by it, but it is not for them, it is for one’s own self. He has attained his own destiny. Then there is fulfillment.

As a thing you will remain unfulfilled because you have to be a person, an authentic person. You have not to be a thing, not to be a husband, because to be a husband is a thing; you have not to be a wife, because to be a wife is to have a utility. Just be a flower, then you can love. But there is no need to be a husband, no need to be a wife. You can share, but there is no need to advertise.

A flower flowers; it does not need any advertisement. If somebody partakes of its pleasure and happiness, it is okay; if nobody passes by the spot, it is also okay. When you flower for yourself, everything is okay, nothing is wrong. When you are for somebody else, just waiting in a showcase, labelled, priced, catalogued, advertised, you will never reach to a fulfillment because a thing is a dead thing, only a person is alive.

Be alive, and be a person. And this you can never be if you go on copying. If you remain on the monkey mountain you will never be the real, you will continue to be the false. Drop all falsities, exhibitions, displays. Just be yourself, ordinary and unique, and fulfill your destiny. Nobody else can do it for you. You can absorb me, you cannot follow me. I never followed anybody, I had my own path. You will have your own path. You will move on a path on which nobody has ever moved and nobody will move on it ever again.

In the spiritual world no footprints are left. It is just like the sky: a bird flies – no footprints are left, nobody can follow. Just take a delight in me, be happy with me and you will absorb. And that will become a light within you and that will show you the path. But don’t copy, don’t believe or disbelieve, don’t be head-oriented. Don’t be a monkey – be a man.

Source – Osho Book “When the Shoe Fits”

Osho – Don’t display! Don’t become an exhibitionist, otherwise you will be in trouble. And don’t rely on distinction and talent when you deal with men. Why? Because every man is an egoist. If you depend on your talent you will be in trouble because you will create enemies. If you depend on distinction you will be in trouble because all around you there will be enemies. Nobody wants you to be superior to them.

Once Mulla Nasrudin came to me, very excited. He said: Now you have to help me I asked him: What is the matter? He said: I feel terrible, it is awful. Recently I have been developing an inferiority complex. Help me! Do something! So I said: Tell me something more about it. Why are you developing an inferiority complex? He said: Recently I have been feeling that everybody is as good as I am.

Whenever you show your talent you are showing that the other is not as good – and the other will be offended. Remember, the Prince is offended just by a monkey swaying in the trees…. If you show your distinction, if you say that you are something, if you try to prove your talent in subtle ways, everybody will be offended. And they cannot forgive you, they will take their revenge.

With every man of distinction the masses take revenge. It may be that Jesus was crucified because the masses could not tolerate his superiority – and he was superior. They could not tolerate this man of quality. He was extraordinary, they had to kill him. Athens could not tolerate Socrates. He was rare – one of the most unique minds ever born, so penetrating that there is no comparison. Athens could not tolerate him, everybody felt offended.

Chuang Tzu says: Don’t rely on talent when you deal with men. Remain hidden! It has to be remembered that a Taoist master has never been crucified or poisoned. Never! Because they never rely on talent. They never say that they are distinct from you. They never say that they are higher than you, more divine than you, holier than you, no. They never say anything. They behave in such a way that everybody around them will feel that they are superior to them.

Chuang Tzu himself lived such an ordinary life and such a beautiful life, that nobody even suspected that here was a man of very extraordinary dimensions. He would pass through villages, and the villages would not even become aware that Chuang Tzu had passed.

Once it happened that the emperor heard about Chuang Tzu from some source, and the rumour was that he was a very wise man. So he sent his prime minister in search of him. But where to find him? He had no home, no address, he was a wanderer. Chuang Tzu used to say that if you stay in one place it is difficult to hide, people will start suspecting. Because you have something, they will suspect, and by and by they will become aware. So before they become aware leave them otherwise you will be in trouble. So he was a constant wanderer – no address, no home. Where to find him?

But they tried, when the emperor orders it has to be tried. They asked many Taoist teachers: Where can we find Chuang Tzu? They said: Very difficult, nobody knows. He moves like the wind, unknown, like a cloud, whereabouts unknown. But you go, and if some villager says that there is a man here who is absolutely ordinary, then catch that man, he may be Chuang Tzu. And they found him in that way.

In a village some people reported: Yes, there is a man who has just come to this village, absolutely ordinary. You cannot find a more ordinary man than he. When asked where he was, they said: He is fishing on the bank of the river. They went there and said to Chuang Tzu: The Emperor has enquired about you; and we have been searching for you. Would you like to come to the court? Would you like to become a member of the court – advisor to the king?

Chuang Tzu said: Wait, and let me think. And the next day, when they came to ask him, he was not found in that village; he had escaped. People had suspected, they had come to know. A man of Tao moves absolutely without identity. Why? Because if you show talent then people cannot forgive you. People can forgive fools, but they cannot forgive wise men. That is why Jesus was crucified, Socrates was poisoned. You feel so utterly inferior before a Jesus or a Socrates, how can you forgive them! It is natural, you will make a concerted attack. You will all make a concerted attack to kill that man. Then you will feel that a burden has been thrown. A Jesus is so superb – if he just stands by your side you feel inferior. He has to hide himself. This teaching is very basic.

Source – Osho Book “When the Shoe Fits”

Osho – Chuang Tzu always watched monkeys. He was deeply interested in them because they are the forefathers of man. And a monkey is hidden in you! This whole world is nothing but a monkey mountain, all around are monkeys.

What is the characteristic of a monkey? What is the deepest character in the monkey? It is copying. Gurdjieff used to say that you cannot become a man unless you stop being a monkey – and he was right. Somebody asked him: What is the deepest characteristic of a monkey? He said: Copying, imitation.

The monkey is a perfect imitator. What have you been doing your whole life? Have you been a man or a monkey? You imitate, you just look around and you follow; following, you become false. You see somebody walking in a certain way, you try to walk that way; somebody is wearing a particular dress, you would like to have that dress; somebody has got a car, you would like to have that car – everything!

You never look at what your need is. And if you do look to your need, life can become a blissful existence, because needs are not much. Imitation will lead you on a path which reaches nowhere in the end. Needs are not much, needs are always few; if you look to YOUR need, you can be satisfied.

Contentment is easy, because what is needed? Few are the needs. But if you imitate, then millions of unnecessary needs crowd all around. And there is no end to them, because there are millions of people and you would like to imitate everybody. It becomes impossible; you start living everybody’s life and then you forget that you were here to do your own thing, and you have become an imitator.

You are here to fulfill your own destiny and that destiny is individual, it is nobody else’s. This existence has given you birth to fulfill a particular destiny which cannot be fulfilled by anybody else. No Buddha can do it, no Jesus can do it, only you can do it. And you are imitating. That is why Hindus say that unless you stop imitation you will be thrown again and again into existence – that is the theory of rebirth. You will be thrown in again and again unless you fulfill your destiny – unless you flower, you will have to come back. How can you flower if you imitate? You see a musician and you want to be a musician; you see an actor and you want to be an actor; you see a doctor and you want to be a doctor. You want to be everything except yourself – and that is all that you can be, nothing else. Nothing else is possible, and nobody else is like you, so nobody can become your ideal.

Love a Buddha, Buddha is beautiful – but don’t imitate, else you will miss. Jesus is wonderful, but he is needed no more; existence has fulfilled that destiny, that work is complete. He has come to a flowering. That is why whenever a person has flowered he never comes back. Love Jesus, but don’t be an imitator, otherwise you will end up unfulfilled, in misery and anguish. You cannot really follow anybody. You can take hints, but then you have to be very alert; hints should not become blind imitations.

If you see a Buddha, take how he has flowered as a hint. What are the methods? What has he been doing? Try to understand it, and let that understanding be absorbed. By and by you will start feeling your path. It will never be like the Buddha’s, it can never be, it will be absolutely different. But absorbing Buddha will help. You will have to grow in your own way, but absorbing him will make you more understanding. That is the difference between an authentic disciple and a follower who is false.

A disciple is something completely different from a follower, and I would like to tell you to be my disciples but not my followers. What is discipline? Discipline is learning. The root word of discipline comes from learning. It is nothing to do with self control, no. A disciple is one who is ready to learn; a disciple is one who is ready to absorb; a disciple is one who is open, receptive; a disciple is one who is ready to become a womb. He is not antagonistic, he is not fighting and arguing. He is trying to understand, and when you try to understand, the head stops functioning. Because the head can do two things: it can either fight or it can follow. It can either be a blind follower or a blind enemy, but it can never be a disciple.

A disciple is totally different because he is not head-oriented; a disciple is heart-oriented. He loves the master, absorbs him, and then goes on his own way. It is a very indirect, very delicate thing. It is not direct. You cannot just look at the master and do whatsoever he is doing – then you will become a follower. You cannot learn the words and start repeating them – then you will become a follower, then the effort has been in the head, and the head is the problem.

Whenever you are not fighting and not in search of somebody to imitate, your consciousness falls from the head to the heart. Then you are open, then you are simply in love. That is what is meant by SHRADDHA, faith, trust. It is neither belief nor disbelief. Don’t think that trust or faith is belief, it is not. Belief is in the head, disbelief is in the head, trust is in the heart. It has nothing to do with belief or disbelief. Believing or not believing is not a concern at all; you simply love.

You see a rose flower. Do you believe in it or do you disbelieve in it? You don’t do anything, you simply look at it. Nobody is a follower, nobody is against. The sun rises in the morning. What do you do? Are you a believer or a disbeliever or do you follow the path of the sun the whole day because you are a follower? Either way you will go mad. You simply enjoy, you absorb the morning, the freshness of it, the youngness, the newness – with the sun everything is becoming alive. You enjoy the very life and become more alive through it. You look at a rose and something of the rose reaches to your heart. Outside the rose is flowering, inside, the heart starts flowering. You reach a master, a Buddha or a Jesus, a Chuang Tzu. What do you do? Do exactly as you would do with a rose or with a sunrise. No need to follow, no need not to follow, just absorb.

Jesus’s last words to his disciples were: Eat me, let me be your drink and your food, let me flow in your blood, absorb me. When he says ’eat me’, that means absorb me, digest me; don’t follow outwardly, digest me, and then you will have your own inner light. A real master never gives you rules, he gives you the eye. He never shows you the path, never says this is the path, follow. He simply gives you the light and says: Now take the light and go into the darkness, this light will show your path.

A false master always gives you a map: This is the map. Don’t go astray, follow this map. He never gives you the light. If you have the light then there is no need of the map, you will find your path. And everybody’s path is going to be different because everybody is different. Let this understanding go deep into your heart: there are not two persons similar, there cannot be. Existence is not repetitive, existence is not yet exhausted, existence goes on flowering in new uniquenesses.

Everybody is extraordinary. No need to prove it. If you want to prove, you will become a monkey, not a man. Stop copying. It is easy to copy, difficult to understand. That is why one copies, because it is so easy – just a rule has to be followed. You need not have any understanding about it: a clear-cut rule is given and you follow it. People come to me and they say: Give us clear-cut rules, so that we can follow. They are saying: we are not going to grow, we are not going to become mature ourselves. You simply give us clear-cut rules: what to eat, what not to eat, when to get up early in the morning and when to go to bed. Just give us clear cut rules so that we can follow. You want to become a monkey, not a man.

A man will never ask for clear-cut rules, he will ask for understanding, so he can find his own way, so he can move in the wide world. He need not have a map with him, no need of any compass. Just your inner light will show your path. And there is beauty because there is freedom. When there is no freedom, there is no beauty. Bondage, slavery, is the ugliest thing in the world.

Source – Osho Book “When the Shoe Fits”

Osho – Tao says that whatsoever is beautiful in you, hide it, never act it out; whatsoever is truthful in you, valuable, hide it, because whenever a truth is hidden in the heart, it grows like a seed hidden in the earth. Don’t throw it out. If you throw a seed on the street for everybody to see, it will die, and die to no purpose. It will simply die, there will be no rebirth.

Treat all that is beautiful, good and true, just like a seed. Give it some soil, a hidden place in the heart, don’t display it. But just the opposite is done by everybody: whatsoever is wrong, you hide it, you don’t want it to be known by others. Whatsoever is ugly you hide and whatsoever is beautiful, even if it is not, you try to advertise it, you magnify it, you display it. Hence the misery – because the ugly grows and the beautiful is lost. The untrue grows, it becomes a seed, and the truth is thrown away.

The precious is thrown and the rubbish grows; you become like weeds. No flower comes to your life because you have never done the right thing – hidden the seed of the flower within. This opposite is the path, and I say this is one of the most secret keys of Tao.

A man of Tao remains ordinary, absolutely ordinary. Nobody knows who he is, nobody knows what he carries within him, what treasure. He never advertises, he never tries to display. But why do we advertise? Because of the ego. You are not satisfied with yourself, you are satisfied only when others appreciate you. KOHINOOR is not enough. You may have a valuable stone, but it is not enough; others must appreciate it. Others’ opinion is more valuable – not your being. You look into others’ eyes as if they are mirrors and if they appreciate you, applaud you, you feel good.

Ego is a false phenomenon. It is the accumulation of others’ opinions, it is not a knowledge of the self. This self, the so-called self which is really the ego, is nothing but the accumulation of reflections – and then there is always fear. Others may change their mind, you are always dependent on them.

If they say you are good you have to follow their rules to remain good, you have to follow them to remain good in their eyes, because once they change their opinion you will no longer be good. You have no direct approach to your being, it is via others. So you not only advertise, you magnify, you falsify. You may have a little truth, a little beauty, but you magnify it and it becomes ridiculous.

I remember – and I will never forget it – the first time Mulla Nasrudin was introduced to me. A mutual friend introduced us. The friend said, among other things, that Mulla Nasrudin was a great writer. And he smiled knowingly. So I asked Mulla Nasrudin: What have you written? He said: I have just finished Hamlet. I couldn’t believe my ears, so I asked him again: Have you ever heard of a guy known as William Shakespeare? Mulla Nasrudin said: This is strange, because before, when I wrote Macbeth, somebody asked the same thing. And he asked: Who is this man William Shakespeare? It seems that he keeps on copying me. Whatsoever I write, he also writes. You think that everybody is copying you and the reality is that you go on copying everybody else. You are a carbon copy, you are not a real person, because a real person never needs any display.

I have heard that it happened once at a hill station, on the lawn of a big hotel, that three elderly women were playing cards. A fourth approached and she asked if she could join them. They said: Of course, you are welcome, but there are a few rules. And they handed her a printed card, with four rules on it. The first was, never talk about mink coats, because we all have them. Second, never talk about your grandchildren, because we are all grandmothers. Third, never talk about jewelry, because we all have precious jewelry purchased from the best of places, and fourthly, never talk about sex – what was, was!

But everybody wants to talk about himself, his mink coats, his jewelry, his children, his sex. And everybody bores everybody else. And if you tolerate bores, you tolerate them only because it is a mutual understanding: if he is boring you he will allow himself to be bored by you. You are just waiting – when he stops his display, you can start your own. And the whole of life becomes a false, a continued display. What do you achieve through it? Just a false feeling that you are important, extraordinary. How can one become extraordinary by having mink coats? How can one become extraordinary by owning valuable jewelry? How can one become extraordinary by doing this or that?

Extraordinariness is not concerned with what you do, it is concerned with what you are. And you are already extraordinary, everyone is unique, there is no need to prove it. If you try to prove it, you will just prove the opposite. If something is already the case, how can you prove it? If you try to prove it you simply show that you are not aware of the uniqueness that has already happened to you.

So if you want to prove something it shows that you are doubtful about it. You want to destroy your doubt through others’ eyes, through their opinions. You are not really convinced of your beautiful person, you would like others to say that you are beautiful.

In a small village it was the custom of the village priest that whenever he married somebody he would kiss the bride. It was an old tradition. One woman who was going to be married was very concerned. She thought herself very beautiful, as every woman does. It is womanly, it is nothing new. Really, every woman thinks so – even the ugliest. She thought herself very beautiful and she was very concerned and worried. She said again and again to the would-be husband, to the groom: Go and tell the priest that I don’t want to be kissed after the marriage.

Just before the marriage, she again asked the groom: Have you been to the priest and told him? The groom very sadly said: Yes. The bride asked: Why are you so sad? The groom said: I told the priest and he was very happy. He said: ’In that case I will charge only half the usual fee.’

You may go on thinking yourself a beautiful person but nobody thinks that way about you because everybody is concerned with his own beauty, not with yours. And if anybody nods and says, ’Yes, you are beautiful’, he or she is just waiting for you to nod about his or her beauty. It is a mutual bargain: You fulfill my ego, I fulfill yours. I know well that you are not beautiful, you know well that I am not beautiful, but I fulfill your ego, so you fulfill mine.

And everybody seems to have such a need to feel unique. That means you have not come upon your own being which is unique without any need of proof. Proofs are needed only for lies – remember. That is why you cannot prove God – because he is the ultimate truth. Proofs are needed only for lies, truth needs no proof; it is – simply it is.

And I tell you that you are unique, extraordinary. Don’t try to be so, it is ridiculous, you simply become a laughing stock and everybody smiles when you turn your back. If you are not convinced about your uniqueness who is going to be convinced about it? Conviction is beyond proof. And how does it come? It comes through self knowledge.

So there are two ways; Knowledge – direct, knowing oneself directly, immediately – this is the right way. And the wrong way is knowing oneself through others, what they say. And if you don’t know yourself, how can they know you? They are very far away. You are the nearest person to know yourself. If you don’t know your reality, how can others know?

But because we lack self knowledge we need a substitute: ego is the substitute and ego is on constant display. You are just like a display window in a market. You have become a commodity, you have made yourself a commodity on display, always on display, always begging for somebody to say: You are good, beautiful, you are saintly, you are great, extraordinary. Tao is against this, because Tao says that this is how you waste your life. The same energy can move directly towards your being and when the being is revealed it is extraordinary.

So a man who is in search of self knowledge will remain ordinary in the eyes of others. He will not bother, he will hide himself, he will not display. He will not be on exhibition, he will not be a stageshow. He will remain silent, live silently, enjoy life silently. He would like nobody to bother about him, because whenever somebody bothers about you, thinks about you, it is going to be difficult and complex – self knowledge becomes more and more difficult.

You have to go there alone, and if you are looking at the crowd, and if you think that the crowd has to follow you, you will never reach it. If you are an exhibitionist then you will remain a commodity, a thing. You can never become a person, because ’person’ is hidden deep in the recesses of being. It is the deepest possibility in the whole of existence. You are the greatest abyss. Nobody else can go there with you. You will have to go alone. And if you are too concerned about others, what they say, what they think, you will remain on the periphery. That is one thing.

The second thing is: just to be on display you hide whatsoever is ugly. In clothes, in words, in gestures, in masks, in actions, you try to hide whatsoever is ugly and wrong. What are you doing? This wrong will become a seed inside and it will grow. And the more you push it in, the more you are throwing it towards the source of all energy; it will be strengthened. And the beautiful you throw out – it will never become a seed.

Just do the opposite. If you have something ugly, show it to others: it disperses. If you are an angry man, tell everybody: I am an angry man, don’t love me, don’t be a friend to me. I am a very bad man. I am ugly, I am immoral, I am greedy, I am sexual. Say whatsoever is ugly about you, not only say it but authentically act it out. And you will be surprised that whenever something is thrown out, it disperses. And hide the beautiful; let it go deeper so that it can get roots in your being, and it will grow. But you have been doing just the opposite.

Source – Osho Book “When the Shoe Fits”

Osho – One of the basic sutras of Lao Tzu is that life is based on the rule of opposites. Life does not oppose its contradictions. Rather, it works in collaboration with its counter-forces. Ordinarily it appears that if your enemy dies you will be a happier man, but you do not know that with the death of your enemy something within you, which existed entirely on account of the enemy, also dies.

Therefore it happens many times that you lose much more by the death of an enemy than by the death of a friend. The opposition of the enemy awakens the challenge within you, and the mutual hostility gives rise to and nourishes those qualities within you which would have otherwise remained dormant.

That is why Lao Tzu has said: ”Any friend will do, but choose your enemies wisely.” Friends do not influence our lives as much as enemies do because a friend can be disregarded but we cannot afford to neglect an enemy. We can forget a friend but an enemy is never forgotten. It never dawns on us, however, that an enemy can so influence our life. Mahatma Gandhi would never have become a mahatma had it not been for the British. It was the opposition of the British Rule that brought him into being.

Great men are born when a country is in great trouble. It is the calamity that causes great men to be born, not vice versa. The hour of calamity. the hour of tension, produces great men. Hitler has written, ”No leader is born without a great conflict.” Therefore the greater the leader, the greater should be the battle. You cannot name a single leader who was born in times of peace. So he who desires to be a great leader has to make arrangements for a great conflict.

Life works on the law of the opposites – where the contradiction is visible and the collaboration on which it actually works is not. Let us examine this from different aspects in order to understand it better. If we were to remove Ravana from the epic of RAMAYANA, nothing would remain of the epic except Rama; and with him alone, it would not be possible to construct the narrative. Rama could have existed on this earth without Ravana, but then the Rama of the epic would have been lost completely. It is the very challenge of opposition to Ravana that brings out the resilience and temperance of Rama’s character and reveals the brilliance of his personality.

Ravana made a great contribution towards the exaltation of Rama. It would not have been possible for either Rama or Ravana to be born without each other. They grOw with each other’s support. This is the truth, but those who view things superficially see them to be enemies, opposed to each other. The profound reality of life is, however, that they are partners. It is not necessary that they themselves should be aware of this, but on a very subtle plane these seeming opposites are partners, co-sharers, collaborators and friends. Not only is life not formed without the opposites but it does not develop without the opposite. The opposite is inevitable.

Freud has discovered a priceless truth. He says: ”We also hate those whom we love.” This was a startling discovery even for Freud himself. It was a terrible blow for all mankind especially for lovers. Lovers cannot believe they are capable of hatred towards those whom they love. The fact is, however, that all lovers know this within themselves, though they may not admit it. Therefore, Freud was resisted for a long time. Ultimately he could not be proven wrong. Gradually, the truth was accepted.

Those whom we love we also despise, for love cannot stand without hatred. If you love somebody and you analyse it honestly, you will find yourself loving and hating alternately. You hate in the morning, love in the afternoon, hate in the evening and again love at night. Your love is periodical. The one you quarrelled with in the morning and decided it was impossible to live with, you again reconcile with and swear you would be lost without.

The ancient prophets of love have declared that love is complete and perfect only when there is no strife between the lover and the beloved. Freud however says that the greater the love, the greater the strife between the lovers. If there is no strife between two lovers, according to Freud – they are not in love; they are just fooling themselves. If you do not fight with your wife (or husband), it means your relationship has vanished long ago, so much so that there is no need for strife any more. Freud is not talking about the spiritual love. He is talking about that which passes for love in our society, what we generally know as love.

In this so-called love that we know, strife is an inevitable part. But lovers (and married couples) want there to be no strife, no conflict, in their relationship. Then, love would be bliss. But they are not aware of the facts of life. The day strife ends, love will end also. In fact, conflict cannot be ended by the sort of love we indulge in. Conflict exists because of expectations – great expectations. The greater the love, the more the expectation. The greater the expectation, the greater the frustration. And when there is frustration, there is conflict. If there are no expectations if there is no demand on the lover, if there are no hopes pinned on the other, all conflicts will stop immediately. Then we accept life as it is.

But Freud says, ”Great lovers cannot live in peace.” Another unique personality of the West, De Sade, has said, ”Love is an illness”. He calls love an illness because we invite love, and hatred is there instead. Love and hatred are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, hatred will go on side by side with love.

Hatred cannot stand on its own. If you think you have hatred towards someone, you are mistaken because of the simple fact that hatred cannot exist alone. You can hate only that person for whom you still have some measure of love. If you try and analyse your feelings about someone you really hate, you will find some strings of love that unknowingly tie you to him. If all ties of love are broken, all means of hatred have also vanished.

Hence, we are tied to both our friends and our foes. For the friend there is love outside and hate within; for the foe there is hate without and love within. Our ties with both are however the same. This may be difficult to understand, because we have great expectations for love. Let us try to understand this from different angles.

A man toils all day long. Now, according to our reasoning, a man who has toiled throughout the day should find it impossible to relax all night. He who is used to working all day should pass his nights also in work. The fact is however that he who toils throughout the day sleeps profoundly at night. The man who does not exert himself throughout the day should find no difficulty in relaxing at night because his experience of relaxing throughout the day should be good practice for sleeping at night.

But a person who relaxes in the day finds it difficult to sleep at night. Actually, he who toils all day long accumulates the opposite aspect (relaxation). He who relaxes, accumulates the opposite of relaxation. So he who relaxes in the day toils at night by changing sides time and again. He cannot sleep.

We cannot escape the opposite. The opposite is always standing by. If you wish to sleep at night, you shall have to exert yourself in the day. The greater the exertion, the deeper the sleep. So a very interesting thing happens: Those who work very hard, and have no time for relaxation, attain the height of relaxation. And those who have all the means to relax – to them, relaxation is a vexing problem Do what they may, they cannot relax. Unfortunately, we live by our superficial standards.

We say: we must relax in the day in order to know how to relax at night. This is straight and simple logic. But it has nothing to do with life. This is just the same as saying we should not have any conflict with those whom we love. But life exists in opposites – just like electricity exists because of its negative and positive poles. If we take away one, the other gets lost simultaneously and there cannot be any electricity. But it is very difficult to accept the opposite. He who accepts the opposite is a Sannyasin according to me. Lao Tzu calls such a person, wise.

To accept the opposite means that if, today, you have come and paid respect to me, I should accept the fact that at some level within you, disrespect is also gathering towards me. This fact cannot be escaped. If I accept your respect, I should also be prepared to receive disrespect from your hands at a later date. If I accept your obeisance with full knowledge of this fact, your reverence will give me no pleasure. Similarly, your disrespect will not make me unhappy either. Deep within your reverence, I shall spy the seed of irreverence; and deep within your irreverence, I shall see the spark of reverence.

If a man hurls a shoe at me, why should he take so much trouble if he is not concerned with me? Surely there is some connection between him and me somewhere. The shoe he throws at me is much more expressive than the garland that another person puts round my neck. This man’s leaning towards me is great. his restlessness is acute. He is bound to do something or other for me. If I become aware of the trouble he is taking for me, the sting of his disrespect will not hurt me. And if I become aware of the other side of the coin when I am honoured and respected, the illusion of reverence will vanish Then respect and disrespect appear to be two sides of the same coin. He to whom this becomes clear, transcends both sides.

Life is bound by opposites from all directions. When we see one side of life, we forget the other. It is this error that is the greatest misfortune of mankind. When we are looking at one aspect of life, we become completely oblivious of the other.

When we look at a flower, we never glance at the thorn; when we look at the thorn, we forget the flower. And the flower and the thorn grow on the same tree, the same branch. They are fed by the same channel, they are alive because of the same roots. The same gardener waters them and the same sun sends its rays towards them They come from the same existence. Deep within, they are one. But when we look at the flower, we forget the very existence of the thorn; and the more forget the thorn, the sharper it pricks. Then, when the thorn pricks, the flower vanishes from our vision and we are only aware of the pain of the thorn. We even forget that it was because of the flower that we had to suffer the prick of the thorn. We enjoyed the aroma of the flower and the prick was the result.

Our vision is always partial. Partial vision is ignorance. Partial vision is not wrong, but it is not complete. It sees only one half of reality. The other half seems so contradictory that we cannot relate the one to the other.

On the face of it, it is difficult to relate the opposites. You can never imagine that a person who clings to your neck, today and vows that you are aU that means anything to him in the world and life would be meaningless without you, would thrust a knife into you. Logic needs consistency. But here, there is no consistency. How can this very person kill you? But the reality of life is that he can. This is the very depth of life. He who has no relationship with you does not bother to kill you. He is not interested in you. Can you make someone an enemy without first making him your friend? Also, one who becomes your sworn enemy could not have just been a slight acquaintance. The proportion is equal: the greater the friendship, the greater the enmity.

Machiavelli, in his book THE PRINCE, has written, ”The greater the intimacy, the more cautious you should be of your friend.” This is cunning advice, but it has some truth in it. The thicker the friendship, the more vigilant we should be because the danger is greater. Machiavelli says, ”If you do not want your enemies to know the facts, take care that your friends do not know them.” He has also said, ”Do not treat your enemy in a way that you may regret some day when he becomes your friend, because an enemy can become a friend any day.”

Life changes every moment. Nothing is stable. Life swings from one extreme to the other. The opposites are united in the profound depths of existence; but on its surface they are far apart. He who sees only the surface of life cannot understand Lao Tzu because he talks of the ultimate polarity of existence.

Source – Osho Book “The Way of Tao, Volume 2″