Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #4
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
First question:
Osho, does preeti—passing through sneh (affection), prem (love), and shraddha (reverence/faith)—naturally transform into bhakti (devotion)?
Osho, does preeti—passing through sneh (affection), prem (love), and shraddha (reverence/faith)—naturally transform into bhakti (devotion)?
Naturally and inevitably. If a seed is sown in the right season, in suitable soil, with water and sunlight, then naturally and inevitably it will sprout. If there are obstacles, it becomes difficult. If the soil is wrong—stony; if the sun is absent, the water lacking—the seed will not sprout. The full potential was there, but rocks fell across the path.
If the seed sprouts, then naturally and inevitably it will become a tree. But there may be obstacles, accidents. An animal may come and graze it; if no fence is put up, no protection; a child may break it in play. So a fence will be needed. For a few days it will need protecting. Very soon the moment will come when the tree can stand in its own strength; then no fence is needed; not even a gardener is needed.
And when there is a tree, and the nourishment is right, then one day flowers will bloom and fruits will set. All this happens effortlessly.
The energy of preeti must become bhakti. Preeti is born to become bhakti. In other words, man is born to become divine. Humanity must transform into godliness; that is its intrinsic nature.
Who is it that does not want lordship? One may try to gain it in a wrong way—seeking lordship through wealth. It is not found through wealth, but the aspiration is true. One may try to gain it through position. It is not found through position; the direction is wrong, but the urge is true.
Each person wants to be a lord. Without lordship there is no rest. Wherever your sovereignty is hurt, there you burn. Wherever someone makes you mean and small, there is pain, there the thorn pricks. You want supreme lordship. You want supreme freedom. You want no barriers upon you. That is the search of religion.
So whether we say that man wants to be God, or that the energy of preeti wants to become bhakti—it is one and the same. Only when preeti becomes bhakti does the individual become the whole.
But there are many obstacles on the way. The real question is of obstacles. You do not even get to pass through sneh, prem, and shraddha. Even your sneh is tainted; so it gets stuck. Your sneh lacks purity to fly toward the sky. Your sneh has no wings; stones are tied to it. Even when you love with sneh, you do it stingily. That very stinginess consumes it; that very miserliness devours it. The more miserly the sneh, the less the possibility that it can become prem.
Then in prem too there is much jealousy, much hatred. Your love is not pure. It lacks sanctity. In the fire of your love there is much smoke; the flame is not pure. So you are halted there. You become entangled there, drift in that so-called whirlpool of love, and perish there. Shraddha cannot be born. If sneh is pure it becomes prem; if prem is pure it becomes shraddha; and if shraddha is pure it becomes bhakti. You will have to hold fast to the thread of purity.
You love your son. If you love him because he is yours, the love is impure. Then it is not love for the son at all—it is love for your own ego: “my son.” It is the I that has been loved, by a circuitous route. You worship your ego through the medium of the son. Tomorrow, leafing through old books, a letter turns up and you suspect that when this child was conceived your wife loved someone else—suspicion surges, and in that very instant your sneh vanishes. Was that sneh at all? There was no relationship with the child; now that the ego is no longer gratified, the matter ends.
You love your wife. Because she is “mine”?
Where “mine” becomes heavy, a rock falls across the seed’s path. The ego is the greatest rock. Until it breaks, no seed will sprout. Even if it sprouts, it will not become a tree. Even if it becomes a tree, it will not flower. Even if it flowers, it will not fruit. At a thousand levels the ego obstructs. Beyond it there is no other obstacle.
The woman you love can be loved in two ways. One, because she is “mine.” The other, because the beauty of the Divine has manifested—she is God’s. The Divine has shimmered there. A son is born in your home—God Himself has come as a guest. Welcome him, honor him. Do not bind him with the ropes of attachment. Let the son be free. And until the father respects the son, the expectation that the son should respect the father will one day bring deep sorrow. Respect comes in answer to respect.
It makes no difference that you are older. The child has just come from the house of God, fresh. The touch of God is still upon him; the fragrance of God still clings to him. That is why all children are beautiful—an ugly child is hard to find. They are still immersed. They have come, but have not fully arrived in the world; it will take time. They will learn the world’s language, arithmetic, tricks, deceptions; it will take time. For now they are blank pages. Give respect, welcome, affection. But not because they are “mine”; because God has descended upon earth again.
If you can see God in your child, would you need to go worship some Krishna, some Bal Gopal? Bal Gopal comes to your house every day, and you run to Surdas for refuge to worship him? Empty-headed! When you read Surdas—“anklets tinkling on his feet, Krishna toddles along”—you are thrilled; and in your own house Krishna’s anklets are tinkling right now as he toddles—not in song, in reality! Not in a dream, not in a poet’s poem, but in fact! Yet there you see nothing. There a stone labeled “mine” lies on your heart. Because of “mine,” the anklets tied to those little feet are not heard. Your ears have gone deaf. You are like a wall. Your mirror reflects nothing.
You are moved hearing Surdas; and all around how many Bal Gopals are playing—yet seeing them you only get angry: “Don’t make noise! Run away from here! I’m reading the newspaper; don’t come near! I’m doing my accounts; I’m writing my ledger! I’m performing my worship! Children are forbidden to enter!” What worship will you do? Your eyes are of stone. You see nothing. In every child Krishna is present as much as he was in Krishna—only the seeing eye is needed. In every stone a statue is hidden—the eye that seeks is needed. He dwells in every speck.
The moment you can see Krishna—or Rama, or Christ—in a small child, in that moment sneh is purified. Sneh has grown wings. Now sneh cannot be kept to the earth; the seed has cracked, an offshoot has emerged, rising upward. Do you see the transformation? So long as it was a seed, it could not rise upward; it could only fall downward—no ascent, only descent. It could sink into the deepest pits, but not rise even an inch. Do you see the revolution? The seed breaks and sprouts—revolution happens—and the shoot begins to rise; a miracle.
You know the story: Newton discovered the law of gravitation sitting in a garden. An apple ripened and fell. Seeing the fruit fall, a question arose in his mind: why does everything fall downward? A stone thrown upward returns down. You leap, and before the leap is even complete you are back on the ground. Everything returns to the earth. From this he deduced the law of gravitation: the earth pulls things toward itself.
That is a half law. If I ever meet Newton, I would say to him: you asked that question, but there was a deeper one—how did the fruit get up there? We planted the seed in the ground, dropped it into a hole; yet the fruit appeared in the sky! How did it climb? It is true that the fruit, when it detaches, falls down—so one law is certain: the earth pulls. But there must be some force that pulls upward too; otherwise how would the tree rise at all?
It is a miracle that the tree rises. It should not be so; it is against the rule. Yet the stream of water reaches even the topmost twig—no pump attached. The sap climbs to the very tip—climbs by breaking the law of gravity.
Someone pulls downward; someone else pulls upward. Where you get pulled depends on you. If the seed does not break, it goes downward; if it breaks, it goes upward. If the ego does not break, it carries you downward—on a journey to hell. If the ego breaks, the whole heaven is yours; it has been waiting for you—pulling you upward. If the ego does not break, it is stone—a rock hung on the chest—how will you fly? If the ego breaks, wings appear. Then great flight is possible.
So remove ego from sneh; bid farewell to “mine-ness,” and you have strained out the poison. Then sneh will turn into prem. Then watch that the ego does not slip back into prem from behind; otherwise the joy of love becomes poisoned.
You see lovers—they seem to get more sorrow than joy. In the name of love, joy comes rarely; sorrow comes daily. Nowhere else does one receive as much sorrow as in love. So many clever people decide not to get entangled in the hassle of love at all. Once in a hundred times there is joy; in ninety-nine times, pain. Once a flower blooms; ninety-nine times thorns prick. The chest becomes burned and blistered. You find lovers weeping; do you find them laughing? Hatred arises, jealousy arises, discord appears—ownership brings obstruction. “My wife!” Now you must raise a wall around “my wife,” so that no one’s eye may fall on her. Raise such walls that she sees no one else—she cannot even see. Great fear arises in you—today she is yours; tomorrow she might belong to someone else!
Who is anyone’s here? All are strangers. On the road two have gone together for two moments—river and boat have met by chance. Who can belong to whom? This claim of ownership! In that claim the ego enters. The moment you said, “my wife, my husband,” the ego came in. And when the ego comes, the wings are cut. The ego comes, and the journey begins toward hell. Now anxiety comes, worry comes, fear arises; you sit in the office and think of the home—“Is my wife laughing and talking with someone?” A thousand anxieties surround you. And you stand guard twenty-four hours.
Husband and wife stand guard over each other. That becomes their work—free-of-charge watchmen! Their profession becomes this. The husband is late coming home, and the wife bursts into flame; she is ready, about to pounce. The husband walks home along the road, inventing a thousand stories—What will I say? How will I escape? There was extra work at the office; I was forced to stay; I met a friend—searching a thousand excuses.
Is this love? There is no trust in it—what kind of love is this? There is not even an iota of respect for each other—only insult. There is deep condemnation of the other—eagerly seeking the other’s smallness. Then you are stuck. You will not reach bhakti. And if you do not reach bhakti, where is God? Argue as you like, think as you like, read scriptures as you like—it is all futile.
Let love be purified. Free love from ego. Let the feeling of mine-and-thine not arise. Do not raise the question of ownership.
You see, we call the husband “swami”—master. And though the wife calls herself a “dasi”—a slave—who believes it? What wife truly takes herself to be a slave? It is just a manner of speaking. Even in calling herself a slave is her way of being master—a feminine way of mastery. The psychologies differ. If a man wants to grab the neck, he grabs the neck; if a woman wants to grab the neck, she grabs the feet. Different ways. If a man gets angry, he beats the woman. If a woman gets angry, she beats herself. Different psychologies. But in beating herself, she is beating the man.
When a woman beats her child, look closely: she is beating the neighbor’s child, not her own. If the neighbor has complained, she falls upon her own child—but in truth she is punishing the neighbor’s. Since she cannot beat the neighbor’s child, she beats her own.
Since a hand cannot be raised on the husband, women beat themselves; they tear their hair. When a husband grows angry, he thinks, “I will kill this wife.” When a wife grows angry, she thinks, “I will kill myself.” These are differences of language. But violence, anger, enmity—stand there in full.
No, if love is entangled like this in ego, it will not rise. Free love, renounce ownership. Do not erect bars over each other. Do not make cages. Birds are beautiful when they fly in the sky. It was precisely seeing a bird flying in the sky that enchanted you. Then you locked that bird in a cage and believed you had shown great love; you made the cage of gold and believed you had shown great love; you studded the cage with jewels and believed you had shown great love—but a cage is a cage; it is not the sky.
Then you will find that the bird sitting in the cage has become sad, and you grow restless. You think again and again, “What happened? The same beauty is not there! This woman does not seem as beautiful as she did!” But then she was an open bird in the sky; now she is your wife, imprisoned in your cage. Then she was a woman; now she is a wife. Woman has a certain beauty; wife has none. Then he was a man; now he is a husband. Where is the beauty in a husband?
It is said: however great the husband, however magnificent, before his wife he is neither great nor magnificent. Even Alexander becomes henpecked there. If you want to know the truth of a husband, ask the wife. No wife respects her husband. She cannot.
And however much a husband praises his wife’s beauty, it is hollow, formal, false. He does not see beauty anymore. Once perhaps he did. Now the thoughts that arise are: “This woman has deceived me! Was her beauty only decoration? Because now she does not appear beautiful.” Which husband finds his own wife beautiful? Many times it happens that a very ordinary woman in the street looks more beautiful than one’s own most beautiful wife. Why? There is freedom there. Your wife is within your fist. Whatever is held in your fist is worth two pennies. The one who is flying in the open sky... A parrot locked in your cage and a parrot flitting from one mango tree to another—do you see any difference between them? The difference is freedom.
Love liberates. And when love liberates, love has wings. And when love liberates, then if not today, tomorrow it will transform into shraddha. But if love becomes dependency, it will not reach shraddha.
So give freedom to love. The one you have loved, set them free; give them freedom. And the degree of freedom you can give to your beloved, to that degree your beloved will be able to give you freedom. The more you enslave your beloved, the more enslaved you will become. Remember: whenever you make someone a slave, you are becoming a slave too. Slavery is never one-sided; it is double. Make someone a slave and you become the slave of a slave. Set someone free, and in that very freedom is your freedom. Then the element of shraddha is born.
Shraddha means: within this world the sapling of preeti has risen as high as it can. The plant has attained its full height. There is no further height to go beyond. When the plant attains its full height, the sources of sap that were engaged in rising now become flowers and fruits. So long as the plant is striving to grow upward, all its energy is absorbed in rising. Flowers and fruits cannot be formed then. Flowers and fruits are formed from abundance, from overflow. When there is so much, and no further use for it—when the growth is complete—then that very energy fills and returns in fruits to the earth.
When shraddha has arrived, the sapling of preeti has reached its full height. Now on this very tree the flowers of bhakti, the fruits of bhakti will appear. You carry flowers to the temple—those are only symbols; they are not the real flowers. The real flowers are bhakti; they bloom on the tree of shraddha. The flowers you pluck from trees and offer at the temple are mere signs, pointers. Let your own tree grow and someday offer your own flowers—keep that hope, kindle that resolve: someday may I offer my own flowers. On that day prayer is fulfilled.
After shraddha, bhakti is born. And all this happens naturally and inevitably. It does not happen by your doing—but you certainly can create obstacles. In this world your doing amounts to only one thing: obstruction. You can create obstacles; and you are not needed otherwise—if you do not obstruct, everything is happening by itself. And when you see that you are putting up an obstacle, step aside, remove the obstruction.
“The honey of body and mind has all been poured out; now sweetness remains only in Madhusudan.
All my days I lavishly shared affection—absorbed, enraptured—
I squandered the essence of my very life, washing it again and again in the inner waters.
So much rasa surged within that neither shore nor end was seen;
It seemed I could fill every cup, it seemed I could fill every house.
Now talk of rasa has run its course; now rasa remains only in the Son of Rasa.
Do not, my friend, speak of honey; now honey is only in Madhusudan.
Touching this image, the restless, burning play of my dreams has been drenched;
In the spell of this form-conquering One my consciousness is bound.
Who has seen this treasure of lila—unceasing, unhindered—
Sees nothing else thereafter; his very rootedness becomes aloneness.
Beauty itself has taken form in this magnetic radiance of light.
Where is honey left in songs? Now honey is only in Madhusudan.
Now my love is for that rain of nectar, that ever-new, life-affirming One.
No tale of honey remains; now honey is only in Madhusudan.”
But it is a long journey—a pilgrimage—from sneh to bhakti. Prem and shraddha are the way-stations. Do not mistake these stops for the destination; do not halt until you have reached Madhusudan.
“The honey of body and mind has all been poured out; now honey remains only in Madhusudan.”
Pour everything out—in sneh, in prem, in shraddha. Give it all; do not save. What is hoarded rots; what is shared is saved. Ladle it out, with both hands ladle it out.
If you pour out sneh completely, you will find prem ripened. If you pour out prem completely, you will find shraddha ripened. If you pour out shraddha completely, you will find bhakti ripened. Whoever is stingy in sneh gets stuck at sneh. Whoever is stingy in prem gets stuck at prem. Wherever you become miserly, there you stop. Do not be miserly—that alone I call sannyas: do not be stingy. As the Lord has given you—unconditionally—so give. Whatever you have received, distribute it. Let there be no thought of taking anything from here—let there be only the feeling of giving everything here. Then no one will be able to stop you; if not today, tomorrow you will come to that moment when you can say—
“Now my love is for that rain of nectar, that ever-new, life-affirming One.
No tale of honey remains; now honey is only in Madhusudan.”
One day the only sweetness left is in God. For in every sweetness you had been seeing a glimpse of Him. In sneh you saw Him behind seven veils. In prem you saw Him with fewer veils. In shraddha you saw Him—only one veil remained. That is why the scriptures say, “Guru is God”—gurur brahma—because between shraddha and bhakti there is but a single veil; between the guru and the Brahman there is but a single step. It is a diaphanous veil—like clean glass. Thus in the guru a slight glimpse of God begins to appear.
But pouring yourself out without remainder is the method. Call it yajna, call it tapas, call it bhakti—the names differ. Surrender everything. If this one principle takes root, you will meet no obstruction. Where you are miserly, there you stop. In non-miserliness there is flow. And flow, one day, certainly reaches Madhusudan.
If the seed sprouts, then naturally and inevitably it will become a tree. But there may be obstacles, accidents. An animal may come and graze it; if no fence is put up, no protection; a child may break it in play. So a fence will be needed. For a few days it will need protecting. Very soon the moment will come when the tree can stand in its own strength; then no fence is needed; not even a gardener is needed.
And when there is a tree, and the nourishment is right, then one day flowers will bloom and fruits will set. All this happens effortlessly.
The energy of preeti must become bhakti. Preeti is born to become bhakti. In other words, man is born to become divine. Humanity must transform into godliness; that is its intrinsic nature.
Who is it that does not want lordship? One may try to gain it in a wrong way—seeking lordship through wealth. It is not found through wealth, but the aspiration is true. One may try to gain it through position. It is not found through position; the direction is wrong, but the urge is true.
Each person wants to be a lord. Without lordship there is no rest. Wherever your sovereignty is hurt, there you burn. Wherever someone makes you mean and small, there is pain, there the thorn pricks. You want supreme lordship. You want supreme freedom. You want no barriers upon you. That is the search of religion.
So whether we say that man wants to be God, or that the energy of preeti wants to become bhakti—it is one and the same. Only when preeti becomes bhakti does the individual become the whole.
But there are many obstacles on the way. The real question is of obstacles. You do not even get to pass through sneh, prem, and shraddha. Even your sneh is tainted; so it gets stuck. Your sneh lacks purity to fly toward the sky. Your sneh has no wings; stones are tied to it. Even when you love with sneh, you do it stingily. That very stinginess consumes it; that very miserliness devours it. The more miserly the sneh, the less the possibility that it can become prem.
Then in prem too there is much jealousy, much hatred. Your love is not pure. It lacks sanctity. In the fire of your love there is much smoke; the flame is not pure. So you are halted there. You become entangled there, drift in that so-called whirlpool of love, and perish there. Shraddha cannot be born. If sneh is pure it becomes prem; if prem is pure it becomes shraddha; and if shraddha is pure it becomes bhakti. You will have to hold fast to the thread of purity.
You love your son. If you love him because he is yours, the love is impure. Then it is not love for the son at all—it is love for your own ego: “my son.” It is the I that has been loved, by a circuitous route. You worship your ego through the medium of the son. Tomorrow, leafing through old books, a letter turns up and you suspect that when this child was conceived your wife loved someone else—suspicion surges, and in that very instant your sneh vanishes. Was that sneh at all? There was no relationship with the child; now that the ego is no longer gratified, the matter ends.
You love your wife. Because she is “mine”?
Where “mine” becomes heavy, a rock falls across the seed’s path. The ego is the greatest rock. Until it breaks, no seed will sprout. Even if it sprouts, it will not become a tree. Even if it becomes a tree, it will not flower. Even if it flowers, it will not fruit. At a thousand levels the ego obstructs. Beyond it there is no other obstacle.
The woman you love can be loved in two ways. One, because she is “mine.” The other, because the beauty of the Divine has manifested—she is God’s. The Divine has shimmered there. A son is born in your home—God Himself has come as a guest. Welcome him, honor him. Do not bind him with the ropes of attachment. Let the son be free. And until the father respects the son, the expectation that the son should respect the father will one day bring deep sorrow. Respect comes in answer to respect.
It makes no difference that you are older. The child has just come from the house of God, fresh. The touch of God is still upon him; the fragrance of God still clings to him. That is why all children are beautiful—an ugly child is hard to find. They are still immersed. They have come, but have not fully arrived in the world; it will take time. They will learn the world’s language, arithmetic, tricks, deceptions; it will take time. For now they are blank pages. Give respect, welcome, affection. But not because they are “mine”; because God has descended upon earth again.
If you can see God in your child, would you need to go worship some Krishna, some Bal Gopal? Bal Gopal comes to your house every day, and you run to Surdas for refuge to worship him? Empty-headed! When you read Surdas—“anklets tinkling on his feet, Krishna toddles along”—you are thrilled; and in your own house Krishna’s anklets are tinkling right now as he toddles—not in song, in reality! Not in a dream, not in a poet’s poem, but in fact! Yet there you see nothing. There a stone labeled “mine” lies on your heart. Because of “mine,” the anklets tied to those little feet are not heard. Your ears have gone deaf. You are like a wall. Your mirror reflects nothing.
You are moved hearing Surdas; and all around how many Bal Gopals are playing—yet seeing them you only get angry: “Don’t make noise! Run away from here! I’m reading the newspaper; don’t come near! I’m doing my accounts; I’m writing my ledger! I’m performing my worship! Children are forbidden to enter!” What worship will you do? Your eyes are of stone. You see nothing. In every child Krishna is present as much as he was in Krishna—only the seeing eye is needed. In every stone a statue is hidden—the eye that seeks is needed. He dwells in every speck.
The moment you can see Krishna—or Rama, or Christ—in a small child, in that moment sneh is purified. Sneh has grown wings. Now sneh cannot be kept to the earth; the seed has cracked, an offshoot has emerged, rising upward. Do you see the transformation? So long as it was a seed, it could not rise upward; it could only fall downward—no ascent, only descent. It could sink into the deepest pits, but not rise even an inch. Do you see the revolution? The seed breaks and sprouts—revolution happens—and the shoot begins to rise; a miracle.
You know the story: Newton discovered the law of gravitation sitting in a garden. An apple ripened and fell. Seeing the fruit fall, a question arose in his mind: why does everything fall downward? A stone thrown upward returns down. You leap, and before the leap is even complete you are back on the ground. Everything returns to the earth. From this he deduced the law of gravitation: the earth pulls things toward itself.
That is a half law. If I ever meet Newton, I would say to him: you asked that question, but there was a deeper one—how did the fruit get up there? We planted the seed in the ground, dropped it into a hole; yet the fruit appeared in the sky! How did it climb? It is true that the fruit, when it detaches, falls down—so one law is certain: the earth pulls. But there must be some force that pulls upward too; otherwise how would the tree rise at all?
It is a miracle that the tree rises. It should not be so; it is against the rule. Yet the stream of water reaches even the topmost twig—no pump attached. The sap climbs to the very tip—climbs by breaking the law of gravity.
Someone pulls downward; someone else pulls upward. Where you get pulled depends on you. If the seed does not break, it goes downward; if it breaks, it goes upward. If the ego does not break, it carries you downward—on a journey to hell. If the ego breaks, the whole heaven is yours; it has been waiting for you—pulling you upward. If the ego does not break, it is stone—a rock hung on the chest—how will you fly? If the ego breaks, wings appear. Then great flight is possible.
So remove ego from sneh; bid farewell to “mine-ness,” and you have strained out the poison. Then sneh will turn into prem. Then watch that the ego does not slip back into prem from behind; otherwise the joy of love becomes poisoned.
You see lovers—they seem to get more sorrow than joy. In the name of love, joy comes rarely; sorrow comes daily. Nowhere else does one receive as much sorrow as in love. So many clever people decide not to get entangled in the hassle of love at all. Once in a hundred times there is joy; in ninety-nine times, pain. Once a flower blooms; ninety-nine times thorns prick. The chest becomes burned and blistered. You find lovers weeping; do you find them laughing? Hatred arises, jealousy arises, discord appears—ownership brings obstruction. “My wife!” Now you must raise a wall around “my wife,” so that no one’s eye may fall on her. Raise such walls that she sees no one else—she cannot even see. Great fear arises in you—today she is yours; tomorrow she might belong to someone else!
Who is anyone’s here? All are strangers. On the road two have gone together for two moments—river and boat have met by chance. Who can belong to whom? This claim of ownership! In that claim the ego enters. The moment you said, “my wife, my husband,” the ego came in. And when the ego comes, the wings are cut. The ego comes, and the journey begins toward hell. Now anxiety comes, worry comes, fear arises; you sit in the office and think of the home—“Is my wife laughing and talking with someone?” A thousand anxieties surround you. And you stand guard twenty-four hours.
Husband and wife stand guard over each other. That becomes their work—free-of-charge watchmen! Their profession becomes this. The husband is late coming home, and the wife bursts into flame; she is ready, about to pounce. The husband walks home along the road, inventing a thousand stories—What will I say? How will I escape? There was extra work at the office; I was forced to stay; I met a friend—searching a thousand excuses.
Is this love? There is no trust in it—what kind of love is this? There is not even an iota of respect for each other—only insult. There is deep condemnation of the other—eagerly seeking the other’s smallness. Then you are stuck. You will not reach bhakti. And if you do not reach bhakti, where is God? Argue as you like, think as you like, read scriptures as you like—it is all futile.
Let love be purified. Free love from ego. Let the feeling of mine-and-thine not arise. Do not raise the question of ownership.
You see, we call the husband “swami”—master. And though the wife calls herself a “dasi”—a slave—who believes it? What wife truly takes herself to be a slave? It is just a manner of speaking. Even in calling herself a slave is her way of being master—a feminine way of mastery. The psychologies differ. If a man wants to grab the neck, he grabs the neck; if a woman wants to grab the neck, she grabs the feet. Different ways. If a man gets angry, he beats the woman. If a woman gets angry, she beats herself. Different psychologies. But in beating herself, she is beating the man.
When a woman beats her child, look closely: she is beating the neighbor’s child, not her own. If the neighbor has complained, she falls upon her own child—but in truth she is punishing the neighbor’s. Since she cannot beat the neighbor’s child, she beats her own.
Since a hand cannot be raised on the husband, women beat themselves; they tear their hair. When a husband grows angry, he thinks, “I will kill this wife.” When a wife grows angry, she thinks, “I will kill myself.” These are differences of language. But violence, anger, enmity—stand there in full.
No, if love is entangled like this in ego, it will not rise. Free love, renounce ownership. Do not erect bars over each other. Do not make cages. Birds are beautiful when they fly in the sky. It was precisely seeing a bird flying in the sky that enchanted you. Then you locked that bird in a cage and believed you had shown great love; you made the cage of gold and believed you had shown great love; you studded the cage with jewels and believed you had shown great love—but a cage is a cage; it is not the sky.
Then you will find that the bird sitting in the cage has become sad, and you grow restless. You think again and again, “What happened? The same beauty is not there! This woman does not seem as beautiful as she did!” But then she was an open bird in the sky; now she is your wife, imprisoned in your cage. Then she was a woman; now she is a wife. Woman has a certain beauty; wife has none. Then he was a man; now he is a husband. Where is the beauty in a husband?
It is said: however great the husband, however magnificent, before his wife he is neither great nor magnificent. Even Alexander becomes henpecked there. If you want to know the truth of a husband, ask the wife. No wife respects her husband. She cannot.
And however much a husband praises his wife’s beauty, it is hollow, formal, false. He does not see beauty anymore. Once perhaps he did. Now the thoughts that arise are: “This woman has deceived me! Was her beauty only decoration? Because now she does not appear beautiful.” Which husband finds his own wife beautiful? Many times it happens that a very ordinary woman in the street looks more beautiful than one’s own most beautiful wife. Why? There is freedom there. Your wife is within your fist. Whatever is held in your fist is worth two pennies. The one who is flying in the open sky... A parrot locked in your cage and a parrot flitting from one mango tree to another—do you see any difference between them? The difference is freedom.
Love liberates. And when love liberates, love has wings. And when love liberates, then if not today, tomorrow it will transform into shraddha. But if love becomes dependency, it will not reach shraddha.
So give freedom to love. The one you have loved, set them free; give them freedom. And the degree of freedom you can give to your beloved, to that degree your beloved will be able to give you freedom. The more you enslave your beloved, the more enslaved you will become. Remember: whenever you make someone a slave, you are becoming a slave too. Slavery is never one-sided; it is double. Make someone a slave and you become the slave of a slave. Set someone free, and in that very freedom is your freedom. Then the element of shraddha is born.
Shraddha means: within this world the sapling of preeti has risen as high as it can. The plant has attained its full height. There is no further height to go beyond. When the plant attains its full height, the sources of sap that were engaged in rising now become flowers and fruits. So long as the plant is striving to grow upward, all its energy is absorbed in rising. Flowers and fruits cannot be formed then. Flowers and fruits are formed from abundance, from overflow. When there is so much, and no further use for it—when the growth is complete—then that very energy fills and returns in fruits to the earth.
When shraddha has arrived, the sapling of preeti has reached its full height. Now on this very tree the flowers of bhakti, the fruits of bhakti will appear. You carry flowers to the temple—those are only symbols; they are not the real flowers. The real flowers are bhakti; they bloom on the tree of shraddha. The flowers you pluck from trees and offer at the temple are mere signs, pointers. Let your own tree grow and someday offer your own flowers—keep that hope, kindle that resolve: someday may I offer my own flowers. On that day prayer is fulfilled.
After shraddha, bhakti is born. And all this happens naturally and inevitably. It does not happen by your doing—but you certainly can create obstacles. In this world your doing amounts to only one thing: obstruction. You can create obstacles; and you are not needed otherwise—if you do not obstruct, everything is happening by itself. And when you see that you are putting up an obstacle, step aside, remove the obstruction.
“The honey of body and mind has all been poured out; now sweetness remains only in Madhusudan.
All my days I lavishly shared affection—absorbed, enraptured—
I squandered the essence of my very life, washing it again and again in the inner waters.
So much rasa surged within that neither shore nor end was seen;
It seemed I could fill every cup, it seemed I could fill every house.
Now talk of rasa has run its course; now rasa remains only in the Son of Rasa.
Do not, my friend, speak of honey; now honey is only in Madhusudan.
Touching this image, the restless, burning play of my dreams has been drenched;
In the spell of this form-conquering One my consciousness is bound.
Who has seen this treasure of lila—unceasing, unhindered—
Sees nothing else thereafter; his very rootedness becomes aloneness.
Beauty itself has taken form in this magnetic radiance of light.
Where is honey left in songs? Now honey is only in Madhusudan.
Now my love is for that rain of nectar, that ever-new, life-affirming One.
No tale of honey remains; now honey is only in Madhusudan.”
But it is a long journey—a pilgrimage—from sneh to bhakti. Prem and shraddha are the way-stations. Do not mistake these stops for the destination; do not halt until you have reached Madhusudan.
“The honey of body and mind has all been poured out; now honey remains only in Madhusudan.”
Pour everything out—in sneh, in prem, in shraddha. Give it all; do not save. What is hoarded rots; what is shared is saved. Ladle it out, with both hands ladle it out.
If you pour out sneh completely, you will find prem ripened. If you pour out prem completely, you will find shraddha ripened. If you pour out shraddha completely, you will find bhakti ripened. Whoever is stingy in sneh gets stuck at sneh. Whoever is stingy in prem gets stuck at prem. Wherever you become miserly, there you stop. Do not be miserly—that alone I call sannyas: do not be stingy. As the Lord has given you—unconditionally—so give. Whatever you have received, distribute it. Let there be no thought of taking anything from here—let there be only the feeling of giving everything here. Then no one will be able to stop you; if not today, tomorrow you will come to that moment when you can say—
“Now my love is for that rain of nectar, that ever-new, life-affirming One.
No tale of honey remains; now honey is only in Madhusudan.”
One day the only sweetness left is in God. For in every sweetness you had been seeing a glimpse of Him. In sneh you saw Him behind seven veils. In prem you saw Him with fewer veils. In shraddha you saw Him—only one veil remained. That is why the scriptures say, “Guru is God”—gurur brahma—because between shraddha and bhakti there is but a single veil; between the guru and the Brahman there is but a single step. It is a diaphanous veil—like clean glass. Thus in the guru a slight glimpse of God begins to appear.
But pouring yourself out without remainder is the method. Call it yajna, call it tapas, call it bhakti—the names differ. Surrender everything. If this one principle takes root, you will meet no obstruction. Where you are miserly, there you stop. In non-miserliness there is flow. And flow, one day, certainly reaches Madhusudan.
Second question:
Osho, of that which is indescribable—by speaking of it, why would a Shandilya place a stone before humanity?
Osho, of that which is indescribable—by speaking of it, why would a Shandilya place a stone before humanity?
Had Shandilya not said that it is indescribable, you would never even know that it is indescribable. Had he not said that it cannot be expressed in words, you would not even know that it cannot be expressed in words.
It is true that it cannot be said in words—but gestures can be made. The word does not contain truth. But within the word there are pointers. Catch the pointers. If you clutch the word, stones will fall onto your path. Then you will become Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—then your path is full of stones. If you do not cling to the word but catch the gesture... there is a great difference. Think of milestones along a road—you don’t sit clinging to a milestone. No milestone is meant to be clung to; an arrow on it points: move on.
A Zen master, Rinzai, was asked, “What is the most important thing worth learning in this world?”
Rinzai said, “Walk on! Move ahead.”
The questioner was startled—“Move on!” Is this man annoyed with me, telling me to move on? Or is he saying: there is only one thing worth learning—move on?
Seeing him become pensive, Rinzai said, “Look, you’ve grabbed even this. You couldn’t move beyond even this.”
Do not hold on to anything in the world—keep moving. One day you reach the place we call God. This world is a pilgrimage path. There are many milestones on it. But people have grabbed the milestones. When the British first installed milestones in India, there was great trouble. Villagers would see a stone painted red and think—Hanuman! They began to offer flowers, apply vermilion, and worship. Whatever arrows and distances were marked there—so many miles to such-and-such—they ruined it all by plastering sindoor and turning it into Hanuman. They say for years the British had to struggle to explain, “This is a milestone, not Hanuman! Don’t worship it.” Such blind habit of worship!
If you cling to what Shandilya has said, it becomes a stone; if you understand it, it becomes liberation. It depends on you; Shandilya did not lay stones in your path. And even if stones were laid, it was so you could make steps out of them. When you turn a stone into a step, it ceases to be a stone—because of it you rise higher; your vision becomes wider.
Climb upon the scriptures; don’t carry them on your head. Make the scriptures your steps so that you can rise higher, so that your vision grows vast, so that the vastness can be seen. Use the scriptures—don’t worship them. If you worship, you turn to stone. People do not exactly worship stones; I tell you: whatever you worship becomes a stone. In the very act of worship, it turns to stone. In the very moment of worship, you destroy everything. Understand what Shandilya has said—and forget it.
People come to me and say, “When you say it, we understand for a while, but then we forget.” I tell them: then there is no need to remember; if you have understood, the matter is finished. Why remember?
A miserly mind, a stingy mind, wants to remember everything. It is less concerned with understanding than with memorizing. If you have understood, it is assimilated; it mixes with your blood, joins your marrow. It becomes a part of you; when needed, it will work. Tomorrow when someone abuses you, anger will not arise as it did before—that is when it has worked. Tomorrow sorrow will come and yet you will remain unperturbed—that is when it has worked. If you remember what I said word for word—there’s no exam to sit. You are not going to a university examination to go and vomit what you crammed, spilling it over the pages and then taking a certificate.
The university exam is regurgitation, mere vomiting. That’s why no one returns from the university truly intelligent—people go in with some intelligence and come out less wise. When they went, there was a little understanding; when they return, they are downright fools. It is only with great difficulty that anyone returns from the university with his intelligence intact.
This is no university. No education is being given here. Awakening is being given—not information. Awareness is being given—not memory. Signals are being given, an alarm is being sounded: Wake up!
Understand the difference. Early morning—you’re snuggled in a blanket on a sweet, cold dawn—the alarm rings. You start counting how many times it rings—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... You count them all, remember, “It rang fifty times,” then you turn over and go back to sleep! You remembered, but you missed the pointer. The bell wasn’t ringing to be counted. It was ringing to wake you up.
If you remember what I say word by word, take mental notes, and then when someone asks you, you rattle off all the answers—it is of no use. Wake up! Let it enter your life-process. You will find your very sensitivity changing. Now when someone abuses you, the sting is not what it was—that shows it has worked. Now when you love, the feeling of “me and mine” is thinning—that shows it has worked. Whether you remember that I said the “mine-ness” should thin out is of no value. But if the “mine-ness” starts thinning, that is the point. Understanding transforms instantly. Memory does not transform. Memory is a record of what you heard—you can repeat it. Understanding is life—you begin to live what you heard.
I pointed a finger toward the moon. You remembered the finger, photographed it from all sides, made portraits, started worshiping them—and you never even lifted your eyes to the moon. That is memory. Or I raised a finger, you saw where it pointed, and you saw the moon—and forgot the finger. If you see the moon, how will you go on seeing the finger? You cannot see both at once. When the moon is seen, what need remains of the finger? The matter is finished; the finger has served its purpose. If tomorrow someone asks you, “Was the finger fair or dark? Old or young?” you will say, “I don’t remember. I saw the moon—and it was lovely. It was wondrous! I bathed in its light; every pore was delighted, I danced; the finger I do not recall.” Only a fool clings to the finger; the wise look at the moon.
Now you ask, “Of that which is indescribable—by speaking of it, why would Shandilya set a stone before humanity?”
Shandilya built steps, he pointed. If you grip them hard, they turn into stones. If you stop there, you become stone. But remember—the fault is yours, not Shandilya’s.
Yet there is another thing hidden in your question—if it cannot be said, then why say anything?
Precisely so that you remember there is something in life that can be known but cannot be said. Precisely so that you do not forget that what is said is not the end—keep the search for the unsaid alive. Whatever gets bound in words—do not take that as the end of life. Whatever gets bound in words—remember: neti-neti, not this, not this. If it is bound in a word, it cannot be That. This too is bound in a word—so this too cannot be That. Let remembrance be alive within you; let inquiry continue, let a questioning flame burn—a lamp within you that one day you must know That which cannot be bound in words. That alone is truth.
And when you know, you too will speak—you will have to. And you will not be able to speak; you will stutter. All the knowers have stuttered—the greater the knower, the more he stutters. The ignorant do not need to stutter; whatever they know can be said. Only the wise get into a bind. They have known something that cannot be brought into language. It is so vast it will not fit into words. Words are small, narrow. It is so immense that if you try to say it, you do it injustice. And it is so paradoxical that whenever you put it into words, only half comes through. And half is injustice.
Understand: someone says, “God is light.” That is half. Another says, “God is darkness.” That too is half. God is both. One who has known has known both aspects of God, both polarities. But how to say this in language? Either you say light, and you have denied half of God—injustice. Or you say darkness, and again deny half—injustice. Or you say, “both darkness and light,” and then you have said something illogical, for you have presented a contradiction. Then someone will ask, “How can it be both light and darkness?” You will be dragged into argument. Someone will say, “Then show us—make this room both light and dark at once!” It cannot be. Either light or darkness. How will you prove that it is both? Or there is a fourth way: say, “It is neither light nor darkness.” Then the questioner will ask, “Then what is it? It must be one of the two. Our experience is of two; it must be one of the two. If it is neither, why are you trying to say anything?” Neither love nor hate; neither matter nor consciousness; neither light nor darkness; neither life nor death—then what is it? Why pose riddles? Can there be something that is neither life nor death? Either it will be life or it will be death.
However you speak, there are only four ways of saying it. These are the four corners, the four modes. But whichever mode you choose, that very mode becomes wrong. And restlessness arises. If you don’t speak, if you remain silent, then you are harsh toward humanity; you have not shown compassion.
When Buddha attained, he remained silent for seven days. The gods were distressed. They came and said, “Please speak.” For only after ages does someone attain buddhahood, only after ages does someone become divine—and millions are groping in the dark. Even a few words from you will serve as direction signs for them. Show compassion to them.
Understand the difference. If Buddha looks only toward truth, he feels, “Whatever I say will be incomplete, wrong, unjust.” If he looks toward humanity, toward those coming behind, among whom he too lived, he feels it would be harsh not to speak. They are waiting; they look to him—say something. “You have reached the goal; we are blind—call out to us, awaken us. We have been wandering, seeking. Now that you have reached, bring a little of your awakening to us—even a little. A thread in our hands, and we will inch our way to the goal. One ray, and we will find the sun. At least give us a ray. The sun cannot be given—we are not asking for the sun; we are not yet worthy of it. But let one ray shower on us. If not the ocean, let one drop touch our throat. Then the taste will come. Confidence will arise that water is. If we keep searching, we will find it. If a drop can be found, an ocean too can be found. If there is a drop, there must be an ocean.” From the drop comes trust, reverence; urgency comes to the search; life comes into it—strength, self-confidence is born. “We are not wandering in vain. There is a goal. People do arrive. Sooner or later we too will arrive. Legs that were growing weary, wavering, thinking of stopping—will move again. The current of consciousness will flow again.”
So the gods said to Buddha, “You are right that truth cannot be said—but you are looking only toward truth, not toward those groping in darkness. Look toward them as well! Let a little injustice be done to truth—truth will not be hurt by it. Let a little injustice be done to God—no harm will come to God. It is as if doing injustice.”
And if the choice is between God and these wandering ones—let no injustice be done to these wanderers. That is why Shandilya speaks. That is why Buddha had to speak. It is their great compassion. They have not placed stones in your way; they have given the key to turn those stones into steps. And at least do not be unjust to Shandilya by making such a charge. For Shandilya is not telling you to drop affection; he is saying, purify affection—stone becomes a step. Shandilya is not telling you to drop love; he is saying, love can become a step—purify it, it becomes devotion, and you will rise. Shandilya is not telling you to renounce the world; he is saying, do not hate the world—otherwise that very hatred will become the obstacle. Shandilya does not preach dispassion-as-aversion, asceticism, grim austerity—he is opening the doors of the temple of love. And you say: stones on the path...!
No, I understand your difficulty—it is something else, perhaps not clear to you either. Shandilya’s sutras make you restless. They stir the remembrance that what you are doing is all petty coin. You have not yet done the one thing worth doing. You have not sought what is worth seeking. That is why anger arises. That is why people crucified Jesus, gave Socrates hemlock. Those who have known—toward them we have always been cruel. Why?
Their very presence becomes a disturbance. Their presence causes pain. When Christ walks past you, you feel—my life is being wasted. This man has attained—what am I doing? Am I just sitting in my shop, piling up silver trinkets? Will I go on hoarding these and die? Will I die like this—without receiving even a single ray of God, without lighting even a single lamp of samadhi? And within this man—only light upon light! It is unbearable. Either change yourself, or finish him off, remove him—if he is not there, the restlessness ends. That is why Jesus was nailed to the cross. It brings relief. You feel reassured.
Have you noticed how much pleasure a newspaper gives you? What is that pleasure?
The same thing—the other side of it. Seeing a Christ, a Buddha, a Shandilya gives you sorrow. It shouldn’t, but it does. Reading the newspaper gives pleasure! If you haven’t read the morning paper, a certain unease lingers. Why? You read how many robberies, how many murders, how many thefts—reading all this, a feeling rises in you: “We are better than most! We aren’t so bad!” The newspaper gives you great consolation. It tells you that you are the good ones. Your worry dissolves. The inner pricking of conscience quiets down. You stole a little yesterday—who isn’t stealing? You lied a little—who isn’t lying? You picked someone’s pocket—who isn’t doing that? You were a little dishonest—who isn’t? You bribed someone, flattered someone—this all weighed on you; reading the paper, the weight lifts. “We are not doing anything special—there are huge disturbances out there!” From peon to president, everyone is corrupt! The weight drops from your heart.
The morning paper is a necessity. Read it, and you feel at ease for the day. Steal freely, be dishonest freely—your conscience won’t hurt. The whole world is doing it; you alone are not. Humanity does it; it must be done; there is no other way to live.
But when a Buddha passes by, or Shandilya’s words touch your ears, then restlessness arises. Then you feel: what we are doing is not worth doing. The worth-while thing is something else, which we are missing. Shandilya has done it. Anger arises toward this man—“We missed and you attained? We won’t allow it! We will not concede it.”
That is why so many in the world are unbelieving. They say, “These things do not really happen; they are just talk. Samadhi, devotion, feeling—just talk. They don’t exist.”
See how much influence Freud had upon the world. In this century, no one has had a greater impact than Sigmund Freud. Why did he have such impact? Because he gave acceptance to man’s lowest impulses and rejected the highest. He said, “There is no God, no soul, no samadhi—nonsense. The real thing is sex.”
Millions breathed a sigh of relief. They were exhausted by all the talk of samadhi; now, at ease, they lay back in their beds and said, “All that is rubbish. What we are doing is right. The Buddhas misled us needlessly, tangled us. They don’t let us live in peace. Earn money—they block the way; chase a woman—they block the way; seek position—they block the way. They made life difficult.” Freud came like a savior, a deliverer! He immediately lightened the mind: “This is what man does and has always done. And whoever doesn’t is either mad, or a fraud, or self-deluded.” A heavy burden dropped. Those stones—you say Shandilya put them there—Freud removed them. Freud said, “Do what you are doing—wholeheartedly.” Freud—the savior, the messiah!
But do you see the result?
Humanity never fell as low as it fell after Freud. The very talk of rising higher became false. When the talk of ascent itself is false, who will make the effort? If Everest does not exist, who will climb? If it exists, there is a challenge. If it does not, the challenge is gone. If diamond mines do not exist, who will dig? Then each tends his own trash. As if there were no diamond mines—yet diamond mines are the real mines.
After Freud there came an unprecedented decline in human consciousness. It had never happened before. Two men bear responsibility for bringing about this fall—Freud and Marx. One said: sexual desire is all; the other said: wealth, the lust for money, is all. Both set you free—free from religion. They freed you from Shandilya and Narada and Buddha and Mahavira and Krishna. They said: only two things are worth doing—gratify sex and gain wealth; beyond these, there is no aim, no truth. Naturally, man went mad after both. He was already sinking in a pit—now no possibility of release remained.
Therefore, when you hear Shandilya, you feel: why these stones, why these obstacles? Why raise challenges? Where is the mountain? Why summon us to climb mountains? We enjoy descending into pits. There is a convenience in going downhill—you need do nothing at all. Have you ever come down a mountain? No effort is needed—down you go, even tumble if you like. Climbing is an obstacle; ascent is hard.
Your use of the word “stone” shows this: if you understand Shandilya, the uphill appears, peaks stand before you. If you do not climb, you grow restless; if you climb, it is difficult. He has created a predicament.
But I tell you: it is great compassion—of people like Shandilya. There lies your little hope. Perhaps some word may fall upon your ear, some seed may drop into your heart, and you may set out in search of that which cannot be grasped by intellect, cannot be bound by words; which is inexpressible, indefinable, beyond description. The search for That is life.
It is true that it cannot be said in words—but gestures can be made. The word does not contain truth. But within the word there are pointers. Catch the pointers. If you clutch the word, stones will fall onto your path. Then you will become Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—then your path is full of stones. If you do not cling to the word but catch the gesture... there is a great difference. Think of milestones along a road—you don’t sit clinging to a milestone. No milestone is meant to be clung to; an arrow on it points: move on.
A Zen master, Rinzai, was asked, “What is the most important thing worth learning in this world?”
Rinzai said, “Walk on! Move ahead.”
The questioner was startled—“Move on!” Is this man annoyed with me, telling me to move on? Or is he saying: there is only one thing worth learning—move on?
Seeing him become pensive, Rinzai said, “Look, you’ve grabbed even this. You couldn’t move beyond even this.”
Do not hold on to anything in the world—keep moving. One day you reach the place we call God. This world is a pilgrimage path. There are many milestones on it. But people have grabbed the milestones. When the British first installed milestones in India, there was great trouble. Villagers would see a stone painted red and think—Hanuman! They began to offer flowers, apply vermilion, and worship. Whatever arrows and distances were marked there—so many miles to such-and-such—they ruined it all by plastering sindoor and turning it into Hanuman. They say for years the British had to struggle to explain, “This is a milestone, not Hanuman! Don’t worship it.” Such blind habit of worship!
If you cling to what Shandilya has said, it becomes a stone; if you understand it, it becomes liberation. It depends on you; Shandilya did not lay stones in your path. And even if stones were laid, it was so you could make steps out of them. When you turn a stone into a step, it ceases to be a stone—because of it you rise higher; your vision becomes wider.
Climb upon the scriptures; don’t carry them on your head. Make the scriptures your steps so that you can rise higher, so that your vision grows vast, so that the vastness can be seen. Use the scriptures—don’t worship them. If you worship, you turn to stone. People do not exactly worship stones; I tell you: whatever you worship becomes a stone. In the very act of worship, it turns to stone. In the very moment of worship, you destroy everything. Understand what Shandilya has said—and forget it.
People come to me and say, “When you say it, we understand for a while, but then we forget.” I tell them: then there is no need to remember; if you have understood, the matter is finished. Why remember?
A miserly mind, a stingy mind, wants to remember everything. It is less concerned with understanding than with memorizing. If you have understood, it is assimilated; it mixes with your blood, joins your marrow. It becomes a part of you; when needed, it will work. Tomorrow when someone abuses you, anger will not arise as it did before—that is when it has worked. Tomorrow sorrow will come and yet you will remain unperturbed—that is when it has worked. If you remember what I said word for word—there’s no exam to sit. You are not going to a university examination to go and vomit what you crammed, spilling it over the pages and then taking a certificate.
The university exam is regurgitation, mere vomiting. That’s why no one returns from the university truly intelligent—people go in with some intelligence and come out less wise. When they went, there was a little understanding; when they return, they are downright fools. It is only with great difficulty that anyone returns from the university with his intelligence intact.
This is no university. No education is being given here. Awakening is being given—not information. Awareness is being given—not memory. Signals are being given, an alarm is being sounded: Wake up!
Understand the difference. Early morning—you’re snuggled in a blanket on a sweet, cold dawn—the alarm rings. You start counting how many times it rings—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten... You count them all, remember, “It rang fifty times,” then you turn over and go back to sleep! You remembered, but you missed the pointer. The bell wasn’t ringing to be counted. It was ringing to wake you up.
If you remember what I say word by word, take mental notes, and then when someone asks you, you rattle off all the answers—it is of no use. Wake up! Let it enter your life-process. You will find your very sensitivity changing. Now when someone abuses you, the sting is not what it was—that shows it has worked. Now when you love, the feeling of “me and mine” is thinning—that shows it has worked. Whether you remember that I said the “mine-ness” should thin out is of no value. But if the “mine-ness” starts thinning, that is the point. Understanding transforms instantly. Memory does not transform. Memory is a record of what you heard—you can repeat it. Understanding is life—you begin to live what you heard.
I pointed a finger toward the moon. You remembered the finger, photographed it from all sides, made portraits, started worshiping them—and you never even lifted your eyes to the moon. That is memory. Or I raised a finger, you saw where it pointed, and you saw the moon—and forgot the finger. If you see the moon, how will you go on seeing the finger? You cannot see both at once. When the moon is seen, what need remains of the finger? The matter is finished; the finger has served its purpose. If tomorrow someone asks you, “Was the finger fair or dark? Old or young?” you will say, “I don’t remember. I saw the moon—and it was lovely. It was wondrous! I bathed in its light; every pore was delighted, I danced; the finger I do not recall.” Only a fool clings to the finger; the wise look at the moon.
Now you ask, “Of that which is indescribable—by speaking of it, why would Shandilya set a stone before humanity?”
Shandilya built steps, he pointed. If you grip them hard, they turn into stones. If you stop there, you become stone. But remember—the fault is yours, not Shandilya’s.
Yet there is another thing hidden in your question—if it cannot be said, then why say anything?
Precisely so that you remember there is something in life that can be known but cannot be said. Precisely so that you do not forget that what is said is not the end—keep the search for the unsaid alive. Whatever gets bound in words—do not take that as the end of life. Whatever gets bound in words—remember: neti-neti, not this, not this. If it is bound in a word, it cannot be That. This too is bound in a word—so this too cannot be That. Let remembrance be alive within you; let inquiry continue, let a questioning flame burn—a lamp within you that one day you must know That which cannot be bound in words. That alone is truth.
And when you know, you too will speak—you will have to. And you will not be able to speak; you will stutter. All the knowers have stuttered—the greater the knower, the more he stutters. The ignorant do not need to stutter; whatever they know can be said. Only the wise get into a bind. They have known something that cannot be brought into language. It is so vast it will not fit into words. Words are small, narrow. It is so immense that if you try to say it, you do it injustice. And it is so paradoxical that whenever you put it into words, only half comes through. And half is injustice.
Understand: someone says, “God is light.” That is half. Another says, “God is darkness.” That too is half. God is both. One who has known has known both aspects of God, both polarities. But how to say this in language? Either you say light, and you have denied half of God—injustice. Or you say darkness, and again deny half—injustice. Or you say, “both darkness and light,” and then you have said something illogical, for you have presented a contradiction. Then someone will ask, “How can it be both light and darkness?” You will be dragged into argument. Someone will say, “Then show us—make this room both light and dark at once!” It cannot be. Either light or darkness. How will you prove that it is both? Or there is a fourth way: say, “It is neither light nor darkness.” Then the questioner will ask, “Then what is it? It must be one of the two. Our experience is of two; it must be one of the two. If it is neither, why are you trying to say anything?” Neither love nor hate; neither matter nor consciousness; neither light nor darkness; neither life nor death—then what is it? Why pose riddles? Can there be something that is neither life nor death? Either it will be life or it will be death.
However you speak, there are only four ways of saying it. These are the four corners, the four modes. But whichever mode you choose, that very mode becomes wrong. And restlessness arises. If you don’t speak, if you remain silent, then you are harsh toward humanity; you have not shown compassion.
When Buddha attained, he remained silent for seven days. The gods were distressed. They came and said, “Please speak.” For only after ages does someone attain buddhahood, only after ages does someone become divine—and millions are groping in the dark. Even a few words from you will serve as direction signs for them. Show compassion to them.
Understand the difference. If Buddha looks only toward truth, he feels, “Whatever I say will be incomplete, wrong, unjust.” If he looks toward humanity, toward those coming behind, among whom he too lived, he feels it would be harsh not to speak. They are waiting; they look to him—say something. “You have reached the goal; we are blind—call out to us, awaken us. We have been wandering, seeking. Now that you have reached, bring a little of your awakening to us—even a little. A thread in our hands, and we will inch our way to the goal. One ray, and we will find the sun. At least give us a ray. The sun cannot be given—we are not asking for the sun; we are not yet worthy of it. But let one ray shower on us. If not the ocean, let one drop touch our throat. Then the taste will come. Confidence will arise that water is. If we keep searching, we will find it. If a drop can be found, an ocean too can be found. If there is a drop, there must be an ocean.” From the drop comes trust, reverence; urgency comes to the search; life comes into it—strength, self-confidence is born. “We are not wandering in vain. There is a goal. People do arrive. Sooner or later we too will arrive. Legs that were growing weary, wavering, thinking of stopping—will move again. The current of consciousness will flow again.”
So the gods said to Buddha, “You are right that truth cannot be said—but you are looking only toward truth, not toward those groping in darkness. Look toward them as well! Let a little injustice be done to truth—truth will not be hurt by it. Let a little injustice be done to God—no harm will come to God. It is as if doing injustice.”
And if the choice is between God and these wandering ones—let no injustice be done to these wanderers. That is why Shandilya speaks. That is why Buddha had to speak. It is their great compassion. They have not placed stones in your way; they have given the key to turn those stones into steps. And at least do not be unjust to Shandilya by making such a charge. For Shandilya is not telling you to drop affection; he is saying, purify affection—stone becomes a step. Shandilya is not telling you to drop love; he is saying, love can become a step—purify it, it becomes devotion, and you will rise. Shandilya is not telling you to renounce the world; he is saying, do not hate the world—otherwise that very hatred will become the obstacle. Shandilya does not preach dispassion-as-aversion, asceticism, grim austerity—he is opening the doors of the temple of love. And you say: stones on the path...!
No, I understand your difficulty—it is something else, perhaps not clear to you either. Shandilya’s sutras make you restless. They stir the remembrance that what you are doing is all petty coin. You have not yet done the one thing worth doing. You have not sought what is worth seeking. That is why anger arises. That is why people crucified Jesus, gave Socrates hemlock. Those who have known—toward them we have always been cruel. Why?
Their very presence becomes a disturbance. Their presence causes pain. When Christ walks past you, you feel—my life is being wasted. This man has attained—what am I doing? Am I just sitting in my shop, piling up silver trinkets? Will I go on hoarding these and die? Will I die like this—without receiving even a single ray of God, without lighting even a single lamp of samadhi? And within this man—only light upon light! It is unbearable. Either change yourself, or finish him off, remove him—if he is not there, the restlessness ends. That is why Jesus was nailed to the cross. It brings relief. You feel reassured.
Have you noticed how much pleasure a newspaper gives you? What is that pleasure?
The same thing—the other side of it. Seeing a Christ, a Buddha, a Shandilya gives you sorrow. It shouldn’t, but it does. Reading the newspaper gives pleasure! If you haven’t read the morning paper, a certain unease lingers. Why? You read how many robberies, how many murders, how many thefts—reading all this, a feeling rises in you: “We are better than most! We aren’t so bad!” The newspaper gives you great consolation. It tells you that you are the good ones. Your worry dissolves. The inner pricking of conscience quiets down. You stole a little yesterday—who isn’t stealing? You lied a little—who isn’t lying? You picked someone’s pocket—who isn’t doing that? You were a little dishonest—who isn’t? You bribed someone, flattered someone—this all weighed on you; reading the paper, the weight lifts. “We are not doing anything special—there are huge disturbances out there!” From peon to president, everyone is corrupt! The weight drops from your heart.
The morning paper is a necessity. Read it, and you feel at ease for the day. Steal freely, be dishonest freely—your conscience won’t hurt. The whole world is doing it; you alone are not. Humanity does it; it must be done; there is no other way to live.
But when a Buddha passes by, or Shandilya’s words touch your ears, then restlessness arises. Then you feel: what we are doing is not worth doing. The worth-while thing is something else, which we are missing. Shandilya has done it. Anger arises toward this man—“We missed and you attained? We won’t allow it! We will not concede it.”
That is why so many in the world are unbelieving. They say, “These things do not really happen; they are just talk. Samadhi, devotion, feeling—just talk. They don’t exist.”
See how much influence Freud had upon the world. In this century, no one has had a greater impact than Sigmund Freud. Why did he have such impact? Because he gave acceptance to man’s lowest impulses and rejected the highest. He said, “There is no God, no soul, no samadhi—nonsense. The real thing is sex.”
Millions breathed a sigh of relief. They were exhausted by all the talk of samadhi; now, at ease, they lay back in their beds and said, “All that is rubbish. What we are doing is right. The Buddhas misled us needlessly, tangled us. They don’t let us live in peace. Earn money—they block the way; chase a woman—they block the way; seek position—they block the way. They made life difficult.” Freud came like a savior, a deliverer! He immediately lightened the mind: “This is what man does and has always done. And whoever doesn’t is either mad, or a fraud, or self-deluded.” A heavy burden dropped. Those stones—you say Shandilya put them there—Freud removed them. Freud said, “Do what you are doing—wholeheartedly.” Freud—the savior, the messiah!
But do you see the result?
Humanity never fell as low as it fell after Freud. The very talk of rising higher became false. When the talk of ascent itself is false, who will make the effort? If Everest does not exist, who will climb? If it exists, there is a challenge. If it does not, the challenge is gone. If diamond mines do not exist, who will dig? Then each tends his own trash. As if there were no diamond mines—yet diamond mines are the real mines.
After Freud there came an unprecedented decline in human consciousness. It had never happened before. Two men bear responsibility for bringing about this fall—Freud and Marx. One said: sexual desire is all; the other said: wealth, the lust for money, is all. Both set you free—free from religion. They freed you from Shandilya and Narada and Buddha and Mahavira and Krishna. They said: only two things are worth doing—gratify sex and gain wealth; beyond these, there is no aim, no truth. Naturally, man went mad after both. He was already sinking in a pit—now no possibility of release remained.
Therefore, when you hear Shandilya, you feel: why these stones, why these obstacles? Why raise challenges? Where is the mountain? Why summon us to climb mountains? We enjoy descending into pits. There is a convenience in going downhill—you need do nothing at all. Have you ever come down a mountain? No effort is needed—down you go, even tumble if you like. Climbing is an obstacle; ascent is hard.
Your use of the word “stone” shows this: if you understand Shandilya, the uphill appears, peaks stand before you. If you do not climb, you grow restless; if you climb, it is difficult. He has created a predicament.
But I tell you: it is great compassion—of people like Shandilya. There lies your little hope. Perhaps some word may fall upon your ear, some seed may drop into your heart, and you may set out in search of that which cannot be grasped by intellect, cannot be bound by words; which is inexpressible, indefinable, beyond description. The search for That is life.
Third question:
Osho, is the experience of the Divine different for each person?
Osho, is the experience of the Divine different for each person?
The experience is not different; the expression is different. The experience cannot be different—because the Divine is one, not two, not three.
And when someone comes to the moment of experiencing the Divine, all the distinctions of personality dissolve—the very causes by which differences could arise. Imagine you all wear glasses of different colors; if you walk into this garden, you will see the flowers in different hues because of your glasses. The mind is that pair of glasses; the mind means thoughts, the mind means veils. The experience of the Divine happens only when the mind has ended—when all glasses are taken off, all viewpoints removed, all scriptures bid farewell, all words vanish—and what remains is emptiness. Emptiness is not of two kinds. Minds are of many kinds. No two minds are the same.
You spoke of color—
Colors bind the mind,
and forms do too.
But sounds
grip me more:
like the sound of waves breaking
on the shore,
or the sound born of the wind
in a lone peepal,
a banyan,
or in bamboo,
or, that day,
of your breath and mine, quickened.
You spoke of color—
colors and forms
ensnare the mind;
but more than these,
it is sounds
that seize me!
People are different. Someone is seized by sound, someone by form, someone by color. One who is seized by sound becomes a musician—his ears are extraordinary; he practically is all ears. His eyes are not of the same kind.
That is why you see that blind people become proficient in music. A blind person’s hold on sound grows deep. The energy that would have flowed out through the eyes no longer flows that way; it finds its way through the ears. The ears become powerful. A blind person hears as you have never heard.
And a deaf person sees as you have never seen. A deaf person even sees the vibrations of your lips. He catches the flicker of your eye, he sees your expressions—because that is what comes within his grasp; nothing else does. All his “ears” pour themselves into his eyes.
One who loves sound becomes a musician. If such a musician comes to know the Divine, he will know it musically—as sound, as the nada, as Omkar. A painter is a lover of form and color. He sees depths in color that you do not see. If someone reaches the Divine in the way of a painter, the bewitching beauty of the Beloved will be caught—its dear loveliness will be felt.
But by the time you reach there, you are no longer a painter, nor a musician, nor a poet, nor a shopkeeper—because these are all states of the mind. By the time you arrive, only one thing remains: you become a zero, emptiness. Only the one who becomes empty reaches there. What differences can there be in emptiness?
The Divine is one—there is no difference in That. And the one who arrives, arrives by becoming empty. When emptiness and the Full meet—this is the meeting with the Divine; this is God-realization. You became empty, and That is the Full; the Full descends into the empty. Experiences cannot be different. In truth, even to say “the experience of the Divine” is not quite right—because for experience there must be an experiencer; for experience the mind is needed. When even the experiencer is no more, then if “it” happens, how will you call it an experience?
For this reason we have two words—anubhav and anubhuti. No other language has two separate words for “experience.” In English there is only “experience.” The work gets done with one, so why a second? Since Krishnamurti speaks in English, he had to coin a word for anubhuti—he calls it “experiencing.” Linguistically it may not be precise, but something had to be said to distinguish it from experience.
We have two words—anubhav and anubhuti. Anubhav means: you are present, and an experience is happening. Someone plays the vina, you are delighted, and you say, “It was so blissful, so full of rasa”—that is anubhav. But if someone plays the vina and you drown in it—only the music remains and you are not; the experiencer is gone, emptied—then what will you say when you return? You will stand speechless; nothing will come. Your voice will be choked. Perhaps tears will flow, perhaps a smile will hover on your lips—but what can you say? There was no one there to speak, no one there to grasp—you were dissolved. That is anubhuti. In anubhav you remain; the bookkeeper remains to tally. In anubhuti you are not; emptiness remains.
So even to call it the “experience” of the Divine is not right. What “experience” can emptiness have? And yet only emptiness “has” it; therefore call it anubhuti. It cannot be different for different people—because differences were the mind’s doing, and the mind is gone.
Think of it this way: you have built a house. Your neighbor has another house. How many houses there are! House upon house! Each house is built in the same sky, but each has a different architecture—someone makes round rooms, someone square, someone something else. Such is the condition of the mind. Emptiness is in everyone, but in some it seems “square,” in some “triangular,” in some “octagonal.”
Samadhi means: the mind is removed. You demolish the house; you take away the walls. When you bring down the house, the emptiness within does not disappear—only the walls are removed; the inner emptiness meets the outer sky. The sky was outside, the sky was inside—you had put up walls between them; the walls go, and the sky meets the sky. Our mind is an architecture. You have fashioned a mind one way, the neighbor another way. The mind is our house, our dwelling. Someone likes high ceilings, someone low; these are preferences. But you do not live in the high ceiling or the low; you live in the emptiness within the house. You do not live in the round wall or the square wall; you live in the space between the walls. You live in that open expanse inside. And yet houses differ; minds differ.
Samadhi is one. All the houses collapse, the architecture goes, the walls go. Imagine you sit in your room. When you were in the room, round walls were all around. You remain seated just as you are, and the round walls are removed—nothing else changes; as you sit, so you remain, only the walls are taken away. Think of a tent—pull it down; you are sitting where you were. With the tent’s removal, the whole sky merges into your little sky. All the moon and stars come within you. Earlier they were “outside” the tent; now they are “inside.” Now the whole sky has become your tent. In that moment, no differences remain.
The experience of the Divine is one; but expressions are certainly different. Because expression means you must again use the mind. The Buddha knew and returned; Shandilya knew and returned; Jesus knew and returned; Mohammed knew and returned—they came back into the marketplace to speak to you. And when it has to be said, the mind must be used again; language must be brought in. Languages will differ. Mohammed has his language; in that, and in Mahavira’s, there is a great difference. But in the realization there is not the slightest difference.
Think of it like this: you go home from this garden, and your children say, “Tell us—what was the garden like?” A painter might tell you by making a painting: “It was like this.” A poet will write a poem—of the trees, of the winds passing through them, of the sun filtering between their leaves. Now a poem and a painting differ greatly. Or perhaps someone is a musician; he will not even write a poem—he will lift his vina. Why write? The winds passed through the trees and there was sound and resonance—he will reproduce that resonance on the vina. The colors in the trees he will translate into tones. The sun and shade he will pour into music. He will play the garden on his vina. Another will write a poem; another will render it on paper.
The three expressions will differ. And if you look only at the three expressions, you might not even be able to say they speak of the same place. How could you say it? One is playing a vina, one has written a poem, one has painted a picture.
And perhaps someone is a mathematician; he will set out proportions, say something in mathematics. Perhaps in this garden he noticed symmetry, balance—so he writes, “two equals two”—such was the garden: everything proportioned, in harmony. Or a geometer might draw lines and explain it through geometry. The differences will multiply. There can be a thousand kinds of people. Perhaps a sweetmaker comes…
A friend is here—only yesterday he took sannyas; he keeps a sweet shop—Swami Vishnu Bharati. If you ask him, “What did you find there?” he will place a lump of sugar-candy in your mouth and say, “Taste it yourself! It was sweet—very sweet.”
All are right. All speak of the One. And yet the telling becomes many. The expressions differ; the realization is one.
And when someone comes to the moment of experiencing the Divine, all the distinctions of personality dissolve—the very causes by which differences could arise. Imagine you all wear glasses of different colors; if you walk into this garden, you will see the flowers in different hues because of your glasses. The mind is that pair of glasses; the mind means thoughts, the mind means veils. The experience of the Divine happens only when the mind has ended—when all glasses are taken off, all viewpoints removed, all scriptures bid farewell, all words vanish—and what remains is emptiness. Emptiness is not of two kinds. Minds are of many kinds. No two minds are the same.
You spoke of color—
Colors bind the mind,
and forms do too.
But sounds
grip me more:
like the sound of waves breaking
on the shore,
or the sound born of the wind
in a lone peepal,
a banyan,
or in bamboo,
or, that day,
of your breath and mine, quickened.
You spoke of color—
colors and forms
ensnare the mind;
but more than these,
it is sounds
that seize me!
People are different. Someone is seized by sound, someone by form, someone by color. One who is seized by sound becomes a musician—his ears are extraordinary; he practically is all ears. His eyes are not of the same kind.
That is why you see that blind people become proficient in music. A blind person’s hold on sound grows deep. The energy that would have flowed out through the eyes no longer flows that way; it finds its way through the ears. The ears become powerful. A blind person hears as you have never heard.
And a deaf person sees as you have never seen. A deaf person even sees the vibrations of your lips. He catches the flicker of your eye, he sees your expressions—because that is what comes within his grasp; nothing else does. All his “ears” pour themselves into his eyes.
One who loves sound becomes a musician. If such a musician comes to know the Divine, he will know it musically—as sound, as the nada, as Omkar. A painter is a lover of form and color. He sees depths in color that you do not see. If someone reaches the Divine in the way of a painter, the bewitching beauty of the Beloved will be caught—its dear loveliness will be felt.
But by the time you reach there, you are no longer a painter, nor a musician, nor a poet, nor a shopkeeper—because these are all states of the mind. By the time you arrive, only one thing remains: you become a zero, emptiness. Only the one who becomes empty reaches there. What differences can there be in emptiness?
The Divine is one—there is no difference in That. And the one who arrives, arrives by becoming empty. When emptiness and the Full meet—this is the meeting with the Divine; this is God-realization. You became empty, and That is the Full; the Full descends into the empty. Experiences cannot be different. In truth, even to say “the experience of the Divine” is not quite right—because for experience there must be an experiencer; for experience the mind is needed. When even the experiencer is no more, then if “it” happens, how will you call it an experience?
For this reason we have two words—anubhav and anubhuti. No other language has two separate words for “experience.” In English there is only “experience.” The work gets done with one, so why a second? Since Krishnamurti speaks in English, he had to coin a word for anubhuti—he calls it “experiencing.” Linguistically it may not be precise, but something had to be said to distinguish it from experience.
We have two words—anubhav and anubhuti. Anubhav means: you are present, and an experience is happening. Someone plays the vina, you are delighted, and you say, “It was so blissful, so full of rasa”—that is anubhav. But if someone plays the vina and you drown in it—only the music remains and you are not; the experiencer is gone, emptied—then what will you say when you return? You will stand speechless; nothing will come. Your voice will be choked. Perhaps tears will flow, perhaps a smile will hover on your lips—but what can you say? There was no one there to speak, no one there to grasp—you were dissolved. That is anubhuti. In anubhav you remain; the bookkeeper remains to tally. In anubhuti you are not; emptiness remains.
So even to call it the “experience” of the Divine is not right. What “experience” can emptiness have? And yet only emptiness “has” it; therefore call it anubhuti. It cannot be different for different people—because differences were the mind’s doing, and the mind is gone.
Think of it this way: you have built a house. Your neighbor has another house. How many houses there are! House upon house! Each house is built in the same sky, but each has a different architecture—someone makes round rooms, someone square, someone something else. Such is the condition of the mind. Emptiness is in everyone, but in some it seems “square,” in some “triangular,” in some “octagonal.”
Samadhi means: the mind is removed. You demolish the house; you take away the walls. When you bring down the house, the emptiness within does not disappear—only the walls are removed; the inner emptiness meets the outer sky. The sky was outside, the sky was inside—you had put up walls between them; the walls go, and the sky meets the sky. Our mind is an architecture. You have fashioned a mind one way, the neighbor another way. The mind is our house, our dwelling. Someone likes high ceilings, someone low; these are preferences. But you do not live in the high ceiling or the low; you live in the emptiness within the house. You do not live in the round wall or the square wall; you live in the space between the walls. You live in that open expanse inside. And yet houses differ; minds differ.
Samadhi is one. All the houses collapse, the architecture goes, the walls go. Imagine you sit in your room. When you were in the room, round walls were all around. You remain seated just as you are, and the round walls are removed—nothing else changes; as you sit, so you remain, only the walls are taken away. Think of a tent—pull it down; you are sitting where you were. With the tent’s removal, the whole sky merges into your little sky. All the moon and stars come within you. Earlier they were “outside” the tent; now they are “inside.” Now the whole sky has become your tent. In that moment, no differences remain.
The experience of the Divine is one; but expressions are certainly different. Because expression means you must again use the mind. The Buddha knew and returned; Shandilya knew and returned; Jesus knew and returned; Mohammed knew and returned—they came back into the marketplace to speak to you. And when it has to be said, the mind must be used again; language must be brought in. Languages will differ. Mohammed has his language; in that, and in Mahavira’s, there is a great difference. But in the realization there is not the slightest difference.
Think of it like this: you go home from this garden, and your children say, “Tell us—what was the garden like?” A painter might tell you by making a painting: “It was like this.” A poet will write a poem—of the trees, of the winds passing through them, of the sun filtering between their leaves. Now a poem and a painting differ greatly. Or perhaps someone is a musician; he will not even write a poem—he will lift his vina. Why write? The winds passed through the trees and there was sound and resonance—he will reproduce that resonance on the vina. The colors in the trees he will translate into tones. The sun and shade he will pour into music. He will play the garden on his vina. Another will write a poem; another will render it on paper.
The three expressions will differ. And if you look only at the three expressions, you might not even be able to say they speak of the same place. How could you say it? One is playing a vina, one has written a poem, one has painted a picture.
And perhaps someone is a mathematician; he will set out proportions, say something in mathematics. Perhaps in this garden he noticed symmetry, balance—so he writes, “two equals two”—such was the garden: everything proportioned, in harmony. Or a geometer might draw lines and explain it through geometry. The differences will multiply. There can be a thousand kinds of people. Perhaps a sweetmaker comes…
A friend is here—only yesterday he took sannyas; he keeps a sweet shop—Swami Vishnu Bharati. If you ask him, “What did you find there?” he will place a lump of sugar-candy in your mouth and say, “Taste it yourself! It was sweet—very sweet.”
All are right. All speak of the One. And yet the telling becomes many. The expressions differ; the realization is one.
The last question:
Osho, do prayers reach God?
Osho, do prayers reach God?
The very purpose of prayer is not to reach God. Prayer is the feeling of your heart. When a flower blossoms, whether its fragrance reaches someone’s nostrils or not is not the point. If it reaches, fine; if it doesn’t, fine. It makes no difference to the flower.
Your prayer should be like the fragrance of a flower. You have made your offering; your joy should be in the very act of offering. Anything beyond that means there is a hidden demand inside—you are asking for something. Hence the worry: does it reach or not? Only if it reaches will your demand be fulfilled; and if it doesn’t, what’s the point of all the effort? Prayer is no longer prayer the moment there is asking in it. The moment you ask, you have killed prayer, strangled it. Prayer is prayer only when there is no desire in it. It is prayer precisely because it is free of desire—that is its sanctity. If you keep even the slightest desire in prayer—even the desire to attain God—then your ego is speaking, and the language of ego is not prayer. Let the ego not speak at all; let egolessness be stirred.
Prayer is joy.
The cuckoo sings its cooing song, the peacock dances, the river murmurs, there is the fragrance of flowers, the rays of the sun—nowhere is there any purpose; it is an expression of joy. Let your prayer be like that. God has given you so much; prayer should be your thank-you—your gratitude.
But your prayer is a demand. You do not go to the temple to say, “O Lord, you have given so much—thank you! I am unworthy, and yet you have given me so much! I have no qualification, and you are the great giver, lavish beyond measure—you have given so much! I have earned nothing, and you go on giving; there is no end to your gifts.” When you go to give thanks, that is prayer. Whether it reached or not is not the question.
The Sufi fakir Jalaluddin Rumi has said: people pray in order to change God. Your wife is ill. If not a leaf stirs but by His command, then by His command your wife is ill. You go to pray to offer a little suggestion: change this intention—my wife should not be ill—please correct this oversight! You go to deliver an ultimatum: otherwise there will be no one worse than me! “My faith has begun to waver now. Either my wife gets well, or I will never again be able to trust that you exist. If you do, give proof! Let me reach home and find my wife cured. I am poor—give me money. I am standing in elections—this time make me win.”
If you ask for something, it means you have gone to change God—His intention should follow mine. Is that prayer? Do you take yourself to be wiser than God? Are you giving Him advice? That is an insult. That is atheism, not theism. The theist says: Your will is right. Your will alone is right. Do not listen to my will at all. I am weak, and sometimes some wish arises, but do not listen to me—if you listen to me, everything will go wrong. What do I understand anyway? You just go on doing as You do. Whatever You do is right. There is no other definition of rightness; whatever You do is right.
Jalaluddin Rumi has said: people go to pray in order to change God. And he also said: real prayer is that which changes you, not God.
This is to be understood. Real prayer is that which changes you. In praying, you change. Whether God hears or not is not the concern; did you hear it? If your own prayer reaches your heart—if you hear it—then transformation happens.
There is no answer to prayer.
Perhaps our words
to the wind
set the sky
trembling;
yet we receive no reply.
And still
we do not stop praying,
we do not let it grow faint.
The rhythm
of our prostrations,
slowly,
not only morning and evening
but every moment—
may the feeling of prayer
stay awake in us.
Such a grace befalls us
that the thorny bush
of the body blossoms,
the very life-breath is transformed;
then it no longer utters words—
it sings entrancing tones.
Therefore I do not abandon prayer,
I do not tie it to any answer.
Prayer is your natural mood of joy. Prayer is not a means; it is the end. Prayer is sufficient in itself—complete, perfect.
Dance, sing, express your delight, celebrate. That is the joy. That very joy will transform you. That joy is alchemy. Being steeped in that joy you will find: ah—whether it reaches God or not, what does it matter? I have changed! I am new! Prayer is a bath for the soul. Through it you will be purified; you will be polished. And one day you will find that prayer kept refining you and refining you, until suddenly, with a start, you discover that you yourself are God. Prayer polishes you so much that one day you find you yourself are God.
And until it is known that I am God, nothing is known—or whatever is known is insubstantial.
Enough for today.
Your prayer should be like the fragrance of a flower. You have made your offering; your joy should be in the very act of offering. Anything beyond that means there is a hidden demand inside—you are asking for something. Hence the worry: does it reach or not? Only if it reaches will your demand be fulfilled; and if it doesn’t, what’s the point of all the effort? Prayer is no longer prayer the moment there is asking in it. The moment you ask, you have killed prayer, strangled it. Prayer is prayer only when there is no desire in it. It is prayer precisely because it is free of desire—that is its sanctity. If you keep even the slightest desire in prayer—even the desire to attain God—then your ego is speaking, and the language of ego is not prayer. Let the ego not speak at all; let egolessness be stirred.
Prayer is joy.
The cuckoo sings its cooing song, the peacock dances, the river murmurs, there is the fragrance of flowers, the rays of the sun—nowhere is there any purpose; it is an expression of joy. Let your prayer be like that. God has given you so much; prayer should be your thank-you—your gratitude.
But your prayer is a demand. You do not go to the temple to say, “O Lord, you have given so much—thank you! I am unworthy, and yet you have given me so much! I have no qualification, and you are the great giver, lavish beyond measure—you have given so much! I have earned nothing, and you go on giving; there is no end to your gifts.” When you go to give thanks, that is prayer. Whether it reached or not is not the question.
The Sufi fakir Jalaluddin Rumi has said: people pray in order to change God. Your wife is ill. If not a leaf stirs but by His command, then by His command your wife is ill. You go to pray to offer a little suggestion: change this intention—my wife should not be ill—please correct this oversight! You go to deliver an ultimatum: otherwise there will be no one worse than me! “My faith has begun to waver now. Either my wife gets well, or I will never again be able to trust that you exist. If you do, give proof! Let me reach home and find my wife cured. I am poor—give me money. I am standing in elections—this time make me win.”
If you ask for something, it means you have gone to change God—His intention should follow mine. Is that prayer? Do you take yourself to be wiser than God? Are you giving Him advice? That is an insult. That is atheism, not theism. The theist says: Your will is right. Your will alone is right. Do not listen to my will at all. I am weak, and sometimes some wish arises, but do not listen to me—if you listen to me, everything will go wrong. What do I understand anyway? You just go on doing as You do. Whatever You do is right. There is no other definition of rightness; whatever You do is right.
Jalaluddin Rumi has said: people go to pray in order to change God. And he also said: real prayer is that which changes you, not God.
This is to be understood. Real prayer is that which changes you. In praying, you change. Whether God hears or not is not the concern; did you hear it? If your own prayer reaches your heart—if you hear it—then transformation happens.
There is no answer to prayer.
Perhaps our words
to the wind
set the sky
trembling;
yet we receive no reply.
And still
we do not stop praying,
we do not let it grow faint.
The rhythm
of our prostrations,
slowly,
not only morning and evening
but every moment—
may the feeling of prayer
stay awake in us.
Such a grace befalls us
that the thorny bush
of the body blossoms,
the very life-breath is transformed;
then it no longer utters words—
it sings entrancing tones.
Therefore I do not abandon prayer,
I do not tie it to any answer.
Prayer is your natural mood of joy. Prayer is not a means; it is the end. Prayer is sufficient in itself—complete, perfect.
Dance, sing, express your delight, celebrate. That is the joy. That very joy will transform you. That joy is alchemy. Being steeped in that joy you will find: ah—whether it reaches God or not, what does it matter? I have changed! I am new! Prayer is a bath for the soul. Through it you will be purified; you will be polished. And one day you will find that prayer kept refining you and refining you, until suddenly, with a start, you discover that you yourself are God. Prayer polishes you so much that one day you find you yourself are God.
And until it is known that I am God, nothing is known—or whatever is known is insubstantial.
Enough for today.