Question – What is your Message, Osho? I Don’t understand you.

Osho – My message is that there is no message. I am not here to give you a message, because a message will become knowledge. I am here to impart something of my being. It is not a message, it is a gift. It is not a theory, it is not a philosophy. I want you to partake of my being. It cannot be reduced into a dogma. You cannot go back and tell people what you have learned here; you will not be able to.

If you have learned anything you will not be able to relate it to anybody, although your whole being will show it. You will not be able to say it but only to show it. Your eyes will show it, your face will beam, your whole energy will have a different vibe.

I am not functioning here as a teacher. This is not a school. I don’t teach you a thing. I simply want you to participate with me, in this mystery that has happened to me. Fall in tune with my energy, vibrate with me, pulsate with me — and you will know something which is beyond words, which no message can contain.

Once the great Master Joshu was asked for his word. Joshu said, “There is not even half a word.”
When he was asked further, “Master, but are you not here?” he said, “I am not a word.”

He is right. A Master is not a word, a Master is a door. A Master is not a message but a medium. A Master is a link, a bridge. Pass through the door, pass through the bridge, and you will come to know exactly what life is all about. If you can dive deep into the Master you will start feeling the presence of God — but it is not a message.

And you say you don’t understand me. I know why you can’t understand me: because whatsoever I am saying is so simple, that is why. Had it been complex you would have understood it. You are accustomed to complexity: the more complex a thing is, the more your intellect starts working on it. The challenge to the ego…

My communion with you is so simple, so utterly simple that there is no challenge for the ego; that is the reason why you can’t understand me. What I say is simple and absolutely clear.

I don’t use any jargon. I am simply using the language that you use in your day-to-day work, in your day-to-day life. Maybe that is the reason for your not understanding me. The obvious is what I say and teach — yes, the obvious — but the obvious sounds bizarre because you have become so accustomed to the complexities that the mad mind goes on spinning and weaving around you.

And moreover, always keep in mind that what I say is said for no particular reason. There is no motive behind it. Just as they say ‘art for art’s sake’, what I am saying to you has no particular reason behind it, no motive, but a sheer joy of being together with you, a sheer response to your questions. Not that my answers will solve your questions; no, not at all. If my answers can solve your questions, then it becomes a message.

My answers will only help you to understand your questions — and when a question is understood, it dissolves. No question is ever solved. If you understand a question rightly it dissolves, it is not solved. It becomes insignificant, trivial and false, like a dry leaf from the tree. It loses all meaning. I am not going to give you answers, I am going to take away your questions.
And when the mind has no question to ask, in that utter silence where no question is present, you come to know that which is — call it God, call it Tao, truth, NIRVANA, or what you will.

That’s why I say there is no particular reason in my saying whatsoever I say to you. There is no particular motive behind it, it is a simple response to your being. I am only being a mirror, hence there is no particular need to understand me. Don’t try to understand me. There is nothing to understand. Just be with me and understanding will come on its own. And these are two different types of understandings.

When you try to understand me you will miss, because while I am imparting something to you, you are engaged and occupied in understanding it. You will miss it. Don’t try to understand it, just listen! Just as I am talking to you without any motive, listen on your part without any motive — and the meeting is bound to happen. When I am without motive and you are without motive, what can hinder, what can obstruct the meeting? Then the meeting is going to happen. And in that communion is understanding; in that communion is light, clarity, transparency.

So rather than trying to understand me, celebrate me, rejoice in me — and you will understand, and without any effort to understand.

Nobody ever understands through effort. What effort do you make when you listen to music? Do you try to understand it? If you try to understand it, you will miss the whole joy of it. The music has to be rejoiced in. Do you try to understand a dance? Then you will miss it. The dance has to be celebrated. Do you try to understand the roseflowers and the songs of the birds in the morning? There is no need! Just be with the roseflower, just see the bird on the wing. Don’t let anything hinder, and suddenly, understanding arises. That understanding arises from the heart, from your intelligence. It is not of the head.

And then the understanding has a totally different flavor, a totally different fragrance to it. Then it has beauty — because it comes out of effortlessness, it comes out of love. If you try to understand me, logic will be there, mind will be there. If you don’t try to understand me, if you just listen for the sake of listening, then slowly, slowly something starts opening in you, arising in you, awakening in you.

Let me be a provocation, not a message. Let me be an alarm to wake you up, not a message. If you think in terms of a message you will create a wall between me and you. Just be here. Just as I am with you, you be with me — for no particular reason, just for the sheer joy of this silence, this presence that surrounds me and you, that joins me and you, this meditativeness, this grace, this moment of sheer beauty and benediction. And your heart will understand. Whether your mind understands or not is of no significance.

Source – Osho Book “The Secret of Secrets, Vol2″

Question – How can I serve you?

Osho – Just be yourself. There is no other service to me. Just be yourself; that’s how you can serve me. That’s how you have already served me — if you are yourself. My whole effort is to help you to be yourself. If you are centered, rooted, grounded, if you have come to a point where you are not worried to become somebody else, where the ambition to become somebody else has dropped — when there is no desire to move into the future, when the present is enough unto itself; when you are deeply contented as you are; when you can thank God, when you can be grateful and there arises no complaint; when your whole heart is simply full of gratitude — you have served me. There is no other way.

Of course it would have been easier if I had given you some other ways to serve me, because those things you can do. You can come and massage my feet. That won’t help; that is not of much use. That is not going to lead you anywhere. You may feel happy, but that happiness is not bliss.

My whole effort is: fall back on yourself. Don’t move into the future and don’t be motivated by the future. If THIS moment becomes your total reality, you have come close to me, the closest that one being can come to another. By being yourself, you will be near me; by trying to be something else, you will go far away.

Don’t be imitators. The mind is an imitator, because it is easier to play the game of imitation than to become authentically true. Many ideas have been given to you: become like a Buddha, become like Jesus. become like Krishna — as if you have to become everybody else EXCEPT yourself. As if God is only against you. He’s for Krishna, for Christ, for Mahavir, for Buddha — only against you. Then why does He create you? Then He seems simply foolish. Why does He go on creating you? If He’s interested in Buddha, Hc can create Buddhas. Why you?

It would be simpler. He can go on creating Buddhas… like Ford cars. They go on coming through the assembly line: one car after another: one Buddha after another. That will be good. But God is not interested in it. He never creates Buddha again, have you observed? He never creates, He never bothers to create, a Jesus again. Why?

There is no need to repeat. All repetition is dead. He goes on creating the new, the novel. He creates you! He’s more interested in you than in creating more Buddhas or more Christs. And remember, He will not repeat you either, so while you are here, be true and authentic. Be yourself.

I have heard one story. One American made a beautiful teacup and then he wanted to mass-produce it. But to mass-produce it in the States would have been very expensive, so he sent it to Japan to be mass-produced.

In transit, the cup handle was broken. The Japanese, as you know, are perfect imitators. They mass-produced it exactly as it was: with a broken handle. They repeated it exactly as it was!

This has been going on. God goes on creating the new, God goes on creating the novel, God goes on creating you, and the imitators in the churches and temples go on saying, “Be like Jesus. be like Buddha, be like this.” And in transit, everybody’s handle is broken!

The transit: two thousand years. Even if Jesus comes back, he will not be able to recognize the Jesus that is worshipped in the churches. Impossible. Jesus was totally a different man — alive! Churches go on worshipping somebody who was never there. It is their invention. Why do I go on speaking on Jesus, Buddha or Krishna, or Zarathustra or Lao Tzu? This is the reason: I would like to bring you Jesus as he was before the transit: unbroken, complete — before the priests entered.

In one of my friends’ house, there’s a very valuable painting: a seventeenth-century painting of a great master — very precious. He loves it so much that he’s always afraid to even clean it. Something may be destroyed; it is old and very fragile.

But much dust had gathered on it and an expert had to be called. When the expert started cleaning it, a new problem arose: the paint started peeling off. The expert was very worried. He said, “Should I stop? ”
I was staying with the friend. I said, “Don’t stop. You go ahead.” The friend was not there, otherwise he would have stopped the man.
But he said, “It may be destroyed.”
I said, “Don’t be worried. You just go ahead, because I can see something else behind the painting.”

And it was so. When the paint peeled off, it was discovered that the real painting was hidden behind. Some other painter had just tried to improve on the master. There were two paintings, and the real came out only when the imposed painting and the paint peeled off. Then everybody was happy. But the risk was there!

When I talk on jesus, I am trying to peel off the paint with which Christianity has tried to improve upon the original face of the master. But it is natural in transit. Things change.

You be true to yourself. Never try to be anybody else. That is the only sin I call sin. Accept yourself! Whatsoever you are, you are beautiful. God accepts you; you also accept yourself. He created you in His own image. He trusts; He has committed himself in your being. Don’t betray Him, don’t become imitators.

That is the only way you can serve me: by being yourself. Be thyself! Suddenly you will be close to me, the closest that is possible. By being imitators, by trying to be somebody else, you falsify your being; you become a traitor. All ideals are treacherous and all ideals are betrayals.
I don’t teach you any ideal, and I don’t want you to become anything that is not intrinsic to you. You don’t know who you are; that is the difficulty in being oneself. One has to remain content with the unknown.

I have heard: When the apostle, Paul, reached Athens, he told the people of Athens, “You are good, you are great in your thinking, you have given the greatest philosophies to the world. But one thing I have observed: I have seen one temple in your city which is devoted to the unknown God. Inside there is no statue — just inscribed on a marble:’This temple is devoted to the unknown God.’”

Paul said, “This is not enough: an unknown God. This is not sufficient. Your foundation is incomplete. I give you the known God, because only with the known God is a foundation possible. Your culture, your civilization, lacks foundation.”

But I tell you, only the unknown God IS the God. Once you are devoted to a known God you have started falsifying already, because the known will be knowledge, the known will be part of your mind. Buddha is known — easy to imitate. Jesus is known — easy to imitate. YOU are unknown. And I teach you to remain true to the unknown God.
The known is easy. You can tackle it; you can cope with it. To move into the unknown needs much courage, needs daring. And religion is the greatest adventure. It is not a consolation, it is not a convenience, it is not respectability. It is to move into the unknown, the uncharted, and to risk life.

What Paul said to the Greeks is dangerous. This man Paul talks sense but is very dangerous. You will also feel that a known God is better than an unknown God, because with the known we can relate easily; with a map we can move easily. But I tell you again and again, there is no better way to be lost than to have a map.

In the world of truth, all maps are false, because the truth is undefined and remains indefinable. Defined, it becomes untrue. That’s what Lao Tzu means when he says: “The truth cannot be said. Once said, it is no more the truth.”

God IS unknown. Or, it would be even better to say, the unknown is God. And that unknown resides in you, abides in you. If you want to serve me and to be close to me, be close to your unknown God which is within you. Serve that unknown God which is within you, help that unknown God to be: to expand, to become, to flow, to flower.

Source – from Osho Book “Come follow to you, Vol 2″

Question – WHY ARE THE ASHRAMITE SANNYASINS NOT ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN ALL THE MEDITATIONS? WHY ARE THEY TOLD TO PARTICIPATE IN ONLY ONE MEDITATION EVERY DAY?

Osho – It is because of you, ladies and gentlemen. It is because of your laziness. I go on talking about non-doing and my text becomes your pretext. Non-doing has nothing to do with laziness. In fact, a lazy person can never move into non-doing. A lazy person is almost suicidal. He is closed; his energy is not flowing. A non-doer is a flowing person: alive.

A non-doer does not mean that he does not do anything. He does many things, many more than ordinary doers, but he is still not a doer. All that he does is a happening. He is instrumental: as if the divine possesses him and functions through him. He never thinks, “I am doing it.” At the most he thinks, “I am allowing it,”

A non-doer will do many things and will not be tired because there will be no tension. A non-doer will do many things and will not accumulate any ego because he is not the doer. Things are just happening. A non-doer loves his work, and the work becomes worship.

People who are in the ashram — they are allowed to be in the ashram only for a certain work. That certain work is: they have to transform their work into worship. But they would like to be lazy. And particularly in India, sannyas is thought to be a type of laziness. People who don’t want to do anything become sannyasins.

I am not a shelter for them; I am not a shelter for escapists. I am here to teach you life and more life and still more life, because only when your energy is flowing will you be able to love; only when your energy is flowing will you be able to know; only when your energy is flowing will you someday be able to transcend death — otherwise not.

But very few in the ashram work as a worship. Many go on avoiding. Not that they want to meditate, because if they want to meditate then the thing will be totally different: they can meditate with their work. But they would like to d3 all the meditations just to avoid the work.

A few are absolutely lazy and they think that they can rationalize it. For example, let me tell you about one day in one sannyasin’s life. From six to seven in the morning he will meditate, Then comes breakfast. Then eight to nine-thirty or ten is the lecture. Then of course by ten o’clock he has already done too much: meditated, listened to such a long lecture…. So a little gossiping — it is obviously needed. Then by eleven, eleven-thirty, he is ready for lunch. By twelve, of course, he has already done too much — meditating, listening, even eating — so by twelve o’clock he goes to sleep. Up till three o’clock, rest is needed. Three to three-thirty: tea or coffee time. Three-thirty to four-thirty: Nadabrahma, an individual meditation. Four-thirty to five-thirty he goes for a walk of course. One needs a little physical exercise. Five-thirty to six-thirty: Kundalini meditation. Then dinner time. And then, of course, the girlfriend comes, so the day is complete. Still more meditations you need?

I talk every day for ninety minutes. That means, at the most, thirty pages. In the ashram we have twenty persons who are doing editing. Every day they have to edit, transcribe, proofread, thirty pages. Twenty persons — that means one and a half pages per sannyasin. Still the work goes on piling up. And they are always carrying long faces, as if they are doing too much work. It looks ridiculous: one person speaks; twenty persons edit. It simply looks ridiculous. And then, too, the work is never done. It goes on piling up.

They are told not to meditate too much because listening to me is meditation. Can you do a better meditation than listening to me? If you love the work, if you love me, that is meditation. Your whole life should be meditation. People who come for a few days from the outside have to learn meditation, but those who are living in the ashram — their whole life should be meditation. Their walking, their sitting, even their sleep; everything should become meditative. Meditation should be a climate here. Not something that you do, but something that you are.

And don’t carry faces that show you are doing very great work. Love it! Nobody is helped by carrying a long face and a burden. And nobody is deceived by you because the whole thing seems to be ridiculous. You just have the idea of feeling burdened. That burden kills you. And if you go on thinking about it, it will become a burden. It will create ulcers, it will make your body feel ill, and you will become tense and nervous. Then you will try to show even more that you are burdened very much. You are moving in a vicious circle now.

Here you are to enjoy, to be, to delight. And there is so little work that, in fact, it can be done within minutes. Just one and a half pages of editing, transcribing and proofreading — how long will it take? And this is just an example. The same is true with the other work. But there ARE people who take it as worship. They are flowing and growing and flowering. There are people who work — and work lovingly. That’s why some work is done; otherwise it would be impossible.

But these questions come from the people who are lazy. I will not give the name of the person who has asked this question because it is the same sannyasin who wants her name to be told.

Source – from Osho Book “Come follow to you, Vol2″

Osho – That’s my whole teaching, celebration; not worship but celebration. When you worship, you start making a hierarchy; the lower and the higher. When you worship you put something on top of other things. When you worship, something becomes sacred and something becomes profane. When you worship you divide, you split existence. Then something is praised but in the wake of it, something is condemned too. So worship is not religious.

The god of the worshipper is not the true god, because to exist it needs a devil. Without a devil the god will not be possible. The more you praise the god, the more you have to condemn the devil. Then the world is tom apart into two enemy forces, and when you divide the world, you are also divided in it, you become split and schizophrenic.

A part of you becomes evil and a part of you becomes holy, and then there is constant conflict, repression, and all joy is lost. A worshipper is basically ill-at-ease; he is dis-eased. Celebration is a totally different dimension. When you celebrate, you celebrate all, you don’t divide. For a celebrator, prayer is as beautiful as drinking tea. The tea is not profane and prayer is not separate; all is one. The church, the temple, the mosque and the pub are all one. Making love to a
woman or a man or praying to a god is the same.

Celebration does not divide. It unites, it brings things together; it creates a togetherness in the world. The duality disappears and there is unity, and with unity there is joy because there cannot be any conflict. There is no struggle, nothing has to be overcome. All is overcome in the celebration itself. The worshipper has a goal; he has to attain it. The celebrator has no goal; he has attained it already. Worship is always future-oriented; celebration is present-oriented. You celebrate this moment, you worship some other moment.

Source: from Osho Book “The Sun Behind the Sun Behind the Sun”

Osho – Love knows how to forgive. Not only does one have to forgive others, one has to forgive oneself too, and that is the harder thing because we have been taught to feel guilty; we are burdened by guilt. A burdened man cannot grow and one who feels guilty feels always sick; he does not allow his wounds to heal.

So I teach you to forgive others, but even more to forgive yourself. Out of that forgiveness, a great love for yourself will arise. The condemnation will disappear; you will not look at yourself as if you are something horrible. And with that forgiveness of yourself all the so-called saints and churches will disappear from your consciousness.

They exist through your wounds. If you are ill and sick they are relevant; if you are healthy, whole, they have no relevance. Hence they have great investment in keeping you feeling guilty.

[The visitor replies: I think they are; the sannyasins want to be copies of you.]
Osho – That is their misunderstanding. If somebody wants to…. But I am continuously throwing them to themselves. And you need not be that way! Even if others are making the mistake you need not: you need not try to become a copy of me. Think about yourself. Why should you be worried about others? If they are going to hell, let them go. You can go to heaven! You can be a first-hand sannyasin.

Why be worried about others? These are just tricks of the mind, strategies of the mind to keep you in control. There is no need to be a copy, at least not here. Each of my sannyasins is individual; that’s my message to them. If somebody persists, insists, on being foolish, then it is his decision. But I am not helping anybody to become anybody else’s copy.

In fact that is not possible. Each individual is so unique. If you become a copy, you can become a copy only on the surface; deep inside you remain yourself. You can never be somebody else. Think about it, mm? And my feeling is that you are going to become a sannyasin from the head first. Feeling will take a long time, maybe lives. But if you become a sannyasin feeling may start flowing; that may be the beginning.

These things are so interrelated, just like the egg and the hen. You bring an egg: it can become the hen; you bring the hen, it can give you an egg. They go that way, parallel. Good: if it can happen from the heart it will change your head. If it happens from your head, it will start entering and filtering into the heart. But think! Whenever you feel, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says he is fighting with himself about being alone, running away from it.]

Osho – Nobody can run away from himself. One can only deceive but one cannot run away from it. There is no way – you are you. And the aloneness is so fundamental that there is no way to escape from it. The more you try to escape from it, the more you will feel lonely. If you start accepting it, if you start being in love with it, if you start enjoying it, all loneliness will disappear, and then aloneness has beauty, tremendous beauty.

We are made alone. If we were not alone we would not have been at all. Then what would be the difference between a machine and a man? The machine can never be alone; it has no soul. It can never be celibate. It is always with others, it is part of a crowd. Only man can be alone. Even in the crowd man can be alone. That aloneness is man’s freedom. And it is not against love… in fact, only a person who is alone and knows how to be alone will be able to love.

This is the paradox of love: that only the person who is alone can love, and the person who loves becomes alone. They come together…. So if one is not capable of being alone, one will not be capable of being in love either. Then all his so-called love will be just an escape from himself. It will not be real love, it will not be real relating. Who will relate with whom? You have not even related with yourself; how can you relate with the other? You are not there – who is going to relate with others?

So a bogus kind of love exists in the world: you are trying to escape from yourself and the other is trying to escape from herself or himself and you are both seeking shelter in each other, deceiving; it is a mutual deception. Sooner or later deceptions wear away and then you are lonely again. Search for another relationship and the same will happen again. And so on and so forth, it goes on.

The first thing is to know one’s celibacy, one’s fundamental celibacy, to know that our aloneness is our very individuality, and function from that aloneness. Even your love has to function from that base. Then you will be able to love.

Only two individuals who are not in any way trying to escape from themselves, but are rooted deep in their own soul can relate. And out of that depth, they embrace each other. Then it is a sharing, not an escape. Then love is really a joy…. Stop fighting with yourself. It is utterly futile, destructive, and suicidal. And now it is time to drop it….

Source: from Osho Book “The Tongue-Tip Taste of Tao”