Chapter #23
Even Bein Gawd Ain T A Bed Of Roses #23
Date:
1979-10-23
(pm)
Place:
Chuang Tzu Auditorium
Osho's Commentary
[MS PAGES 18?-188 MISSING, OCTOBER 23RD 1979)
ANNA MEANS MERCY...
OSHO: Mercy can be of two kinds. It can be very egoistic, then it only appears as mercy but is not; unless mercy is absolutely egoless it is not authentic. And the difference is very subtle: from the outside there is no difference at all but one can feel the difference inside.
If mercy arises out of your bliss then it can never be an ego trip. If you share your bliss you feel thankful to the person who receives it, you feel humble. Bliss never makes anybody egoistic; on the contrary, dropping of the ego is the basic requirement of being blissful. Unless one drops the ego one is never blissful. Bliss happens within you like a flame of light and mercy is the radiation of it. When your bliss starts reaching to others it is mercy, compassion.
But the false and the pseudo coin which is cheaper to attain is also there. And thats's what so many religious people go on doing -- the Christian missionaries, et cetera. Their mercy is not out of joy, out of ecstasty; their mercy is a means. They are using mercy as a means of attaining something in this life or in the other life -- but it is not an end.
The person who is merciful towards the poor, the starving, the ill, and is using it as a means of attaining heaven, of attaining God's grace, is exploiting these people. In fact this type of man will never like the world without the poor, without the ill, without the starved, because where will he show his mercy then? And how will he attain to paradise? -- his whole ladder to paradise will be lost.
So these people who go on serving the poor and the ill are the people who would like the poor and the ill to remain forever. They would not like the world to be really happy because the happy person does not need your mercy. They would not like the pain to disappear totally, the suffering to be gone forever -- then who will need you? Then you will feel absolutely futile. That was the meaning of your life; you were dependent on those people.
In fact one of the so-called Indian saints -- his name is Karpatri, he is very famous in the Hindu world -- has written a book against socialism. The most fundamental argument that he places against socialism is that if nobody is poor then what will happen to service? If nobody is poor then what will happen to charity? Without charity nobody can enter into paradise, so the poor are absolutely needed. He is, in a way, a sincere man -- that he das said so. Mother Teresa of Calcutta won't say so, she is not so sincere. But the reason is very clear: the religious people would not like the world to be a really happy place.
If the world is happy and people are enjoying themselves and are blissful, who cares about the other world and heaven? -- we can make heaven here. Hence all these religious people are against me because my whole effort is to make you blissful here and now. I don't teach any service to the poor and I don't teach any service to the ill and the starved. I only teach bliss, and if out of bliss service comes it is beautiful. If out of bliss you start serving people that is spontaneous; there is no goal to it, it is unmotivated. And when it is unmotivated it is beautiful.
Just recently Mother Teresa got the Nobel prize: everybody is praising her -- and the whole thing is stupid! How has she contributed to world peace I am unable to understand. By serving the poor of Calcutta, the beggars and the widows and the orphans, how has she served world peace, the cause of peace? By serving them, by helping them to continue to live, the world war is not postponed. And by serving them the poverty is not destroyed either.
In fact these are the people who function as agents of the status quo, of the vested interest. They go on consoling the poor -- thats is the only way to avoid the revolution. Console the poor, serve the poor, give them little bits and they remain as they are. Tell them "You are suffering because of your past karmas," tell them "You are suffering because God is testing you," tell them "You are suffering because God is purifying you". These are beautiful strategies to keep the poor poor and to keep the rich rich.
It is not an accident that Krishnamurti has not got the Nobel prize -- and he will never get it, yet he is one of the men who has served the cause of world peace most. Gurdjieff never got the Nobel prize, he would have never got it. Ramana Maharshi never got the Novel prize. There is no possibility for such people ever to get Nobel prizes because they don't serve the vested interest. They really create great vibrations for peace, love, joy; they create great light, great understanding in the world. But the vested interest -- the politicians, the rich, the priests -- are not interested in these people; they would not like them to exist at all. They are interested in people who console the poor because that is an anti-revolutionary act, consoling the poor. The consoled poor can never rebel. And the mercy that is shown by such people is a strategy for them too: by serving the poor they are trying to reach heaven.
I don't teach service -- I simply teach bliss. Be blissful and out of that much is going to happen. But that will be natural, so there is no need to talk about it at all; it is going to be a by-product. Service, compassion, love -- these are by-products of being blissful.
OSHO (TO CARL): Be strong in meditation. It needs great courage, guts, strength to go into the unknown -- and meditation is the door to the unknown. On this side of meditation is knowledge. If you enter meditation you enter into the world of no knowledge, the world of experience -- existential, not intellectual. On this side is intellect; on the other side of the door is existence itself. On this side people argue about, discuss, think, guess, what truth is, what God is; on the other side people simply taste, know -- not as knowledge, but as experience.
God can never be known as an object of knowledge, God is known only as your own subjectivity. God is known as the knower, never as the known... and so is truth and so is beauty and so is bliss. All that is significant is part of your interiority, of your inner being. These are different aspects of your subjectivity -- you cannot know them in the scientific way. The scientist remains a spectator, outside, and goes on experimenting.
Meditation is a totally different kind of activity to science. Science is mind activity, concentration of the mind, trying to get some secrets out of the objective world. Meditation is dropping the mind, moving into no-mind and feeling your own being. But to feel one's own being is to feel the being of all because at the centre we are all one. To know oneself is enough, more than enough: you have known the whole mystery of existence. But let me repeat: it is not knowledge. It is a kind of knowing but closer to love than to knowledge, closer to feeling than to thinking.
The only door that one has to pass through from the known into the unknown is meditation; there is no other door. By "meditation" I mean getting out of the grip of the mind, becoming more and more thoughtless, desireless, creating a space around yourself where nothing moves -- no thought, no feeling.
One day it happens: there is pure space surrounding you, infinite space, and you are just like an island in that infinite space. That moment, when you are utterly alone -- no thought is with you, no desire, no emotion, when you are absolutely alone in that absolute emptiness -- meditation has happened. You have crossed the barrier; you have entered into God.
OSHO (TO PREM ANANDO): Remember these two words. They are two keys for you, two fundamental laws to be followed, to be lived. These two words are going to constitute your whole lifestyle, your very religion. If you can attain to two things, love and bliss, there is no need to search for God; God will come searching for you.
And these two things are not difficult to attain, they are simple, very simple. One just needs a little courage because the basic requirement for both is the droppig of the ego. The idea of separation, the idea that "I am separate from the world, from existence," is the root cause of all misery and the root cause of all hate, anger, rage.
Love and bliss are two sides of the same coin. If you dissolve your ego, if you melt and merge into existence you will be surprised: from one side love is arising in you, from another side great bliss is overflowing. They happen simultaneously. But the only demand is to drop the idea of separation. It is simple if one has courage; if one is cowardly it is the most difficult thing in the world.
Surrender the ego -- that's what sannyas is all about. Give it to me. I don't ask for anything else: just give your ego to me. And once you have given the ego things start happening which you have never imagined; because the rock is removed mysteries start opening their doors to you. Then the whole temple of existence is yours. The ego is a false entity, a toy created by us, and we become so entangled with our own toy that we forget what is real; the unreal becomes the real.
From this very moment remeber that you are not separate from existence. And don't only remember, experiment. Being one with the tree ou are sitting beside, being one with the river you are swimming in, being one with the person whose hand you are holding... Slowly slowly experiment. Being one with the rock you are sitting on, being one with the faraway star you are looking at the night. Slowly slowly the knack of immediately merging into the object is learned. The observer becomes the observed, the knower becomes the known. Then watching a rose flower you become a rose flower, there is no separation. In that moment you will come to know two things, love and bliss -- bliss for yourself, love for all.
OSHO (to Sarito): To be blissful needs only one thing: the art of being in the present. Drop that which is no more. Because it is no more you are unneccessarily clinging and wasting your time with shadows. And don't get involved with that which is not yet, because it is not yet there is no point in being worried about it. But people are crushed between these two rocks: the past and the future, the no longer and the not yet. The present is just a small moment between the two, sandwiched between the two. And it is so small that unless you are really alert and awake you will miss it. It is so quick , so fast that if you are not aware, by the time you do become aware it is no more. It has already slipped by, it has already become the past.
One has to be quick of foot to keep pace with the present. It is a movement, it is a fast-flowing river. If one can remain in touch with the present, moment to moment, bliss goes on showering like rainfall. There is no need to hold onto it, there is no need to plan about it; all that is needed is to enjoy it in the moment, and each moment brings it so why be worried about holding it?
Man is the only animal on the earth who goes on missing something very essential, very essential for growth, very essential for understanding; and man is the only animal who can understand and who can grow. No other animal can understand and grow so they miss the opportunity. The tree is never concernend with the leaves of the past year... it is always growing new leaves. it is only man who goes on counting the leaves which are no more; even when they have fallen from the tree he goes on accumulating them. It is all rubbish.
Why not grow new leaves every moment? Because you become so covered with the old leaves you destroy and kill the new leaves. You don't allow them space to grow. The tree is not concerned with the future spring, this moment is enough; hence there is no worry, no tension. The tree is dancing in the wind and in the sun and in the rain.
A sannyasin has to be like that: dancing in the rain, in the wind, in the sun. To be free from the past and from the future is to be free from world. That is true renunciation. that is transcendence, and that's what I teach.: transcendence -- not of the world but of time. Time consists of past and future. Present is not part of time, present is part of eternity: a ray of eternity penetrating the darkness of time.
Live in the light of that ray and you live with God and you walk with God and you breathe God in and out. Then life is a constant celebration, an ecstasy.
AVINASH AND AVABHASHA, MARRIED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, WITH THEIR TEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, BINU, WHO HAS'T MET OSHO BEFORE.
Osho's Commentary
ANNA MEANS MERCY...
OSHO: Mercy can be of two kinds. It can be very egoistic, then it only appears as mercy but is not; unless mercy is absolutely egoless it is not authentic. And the difference is very subtle: from the outside there is no difference at all but one can feel the difference inside.
If mercy arises out of your bliss then it can never be an ego trip. If you share your bliss you feel thankful to the person who receives it, you feel humble. Bliss never makes anybody egoistic; on the contrary, dropping of the ego is the basic requirement of being blissful. Unless one drops the ego one is never blissful. Bliss happens within you like a flame of light and mercy is the radiation of it. When your bliss starts reaching to others it is mercy, compassion.
But the false and the pseudo coin which is cheaper to attain is also there. And thats's what so many religious people go on doing -- the Christian missionaries, et cetera. Their mercy is not out of joy, out of ecstasty; their mercy is a means. They are using mercy as a means of attaining something in this life or in the other life -- but it is not an end.
The person who is merciful towards the poor, the starving, the ill, and is using it as a means of attaining heaven, of attaining God's grace, is exploiting these people. In fact this type of man will never like the world without the poor, without the ill, without the starved, because where will he show his mercy then? And how will he attain to paradise? -- his whole ladder to paradise will be lost.
So these people who go on serving the poor and the ill are the people who would like the poor and the ill to remain forever. They would not like the world to be really happy because the happy person does not need your mercy. They would not like the pain to disappear totally, the suffering to be gone forever -- then who will need you? Then you will feel absolutely futile. That was the meaning of your life; you were dependent on those people.
In fact one of the so-called Indian saints -- his name is Karpatri, he is very famous in the Hindu world -- has written a book against socialism. The most fundamental argument that he places against socialism is that if nobody is poor then what will happen to service? If nobody is poor then what will happen to charity? Without charity nobody can enter into paradise, so the poor are absolutely needed. He is, in a way, a sincere man -- that he das said so. Mother Teresa of Calcutta won't say so, she is not so sincere. But the reason is very clear: the religious people would not like the world to be a really happy place.
If the world is happy and people are enjoying themselves and are blissful, who cares about the other world and heaven? -- we can make heaven here. Hence all these religious people are against me because my whole effort is to make you blissful here and now. I don't teach any service to the poor and I don't teach any service to the ill and the starved. I only teach bliss, and if out of bliss service comes it is beautiful. If out of bliss you start serving people that is spontaneous; there is no goal to it, it is unmotivated. And when it is unmotivated it is beautiful.
Just recently Mother Teresa got the Nobel prize: everybody is praising her -- and the whole thing is stupid! How has she contributed to world peace I am unable to understand. By serving the poor of Calcutta, the beggars and the widows and the orphans, how has she served world peace, the cause of peace? By serving them, by helping them to continue to live, the world war is not postponed. And by serving them the poverty is not destroyed either.
In fact these are the people who function as agents of the status quo, of the vested interest. They go on consoling the poor -- thats is the only way to avoid the revolution. Console the poor, serve the poor, give them little bits and they remain as they are. Tell them "You are suffering because of your past karmas," tell them "You are suffering because God is testing you," tell them "You are suffering because God is purifying you". These are beautiful strategies to keep the poor poor and to keep the rich rich.
It is not an accident that Krishnamurti has not got the Nobel prize -- and he will never get it, yet he is one of the men who has served the cause of world peace most. Gurdjieff never got the Nobel prize, he would have never got it. Ramana Maharshi never got the Novel prize. There is no possibility for such people ever to get Nobel prizes because they don't serve the vested interest. They really create great vibrations for peace, love, joy; they create great light, great understanding in the world. But the vested interest -- the politicians, the rich, the priests -- are not interested in these people; they would not like them to exist at all. They are interested in people who console the poor because that is an anti-revolutionary act, consoling the poor. The consoled poor can never rebel. And the mercy that is shown by such people is a strategy for them too: by serving the poor they are trying to reach heaven.
I don't teach service -- I simply teach bliss. Be blissful and out of that much is going to happen. But that will be natural, so there is no need to talk about it at all; it is going to be a by-product. Service, compassion, love -- these are by-products of being blissful.
OSHO (TO CARL): Be strong in meditation. It needs great courage, guts, strength to go into the unknown -- and meditation is the door to the unknown. On this side of meditation is knowledge. If you enter meditation you enter into the world of no knowledge, the world of experience -- existential, not intellectual. On this side is intellect; on the other side of the door is existence itself. On this side people argue about, discuss, think, guess, what truth is, what God is; on the other side people simply taste, know -- not as knowledge, but as experience.
God can never be known as an object of knowledge, God is known only as your own subjectivity. God is known as the knower, never as the known... and so is truth and so is beauty and so is bliss. All that is significant is part of your interiority, of your inner being. These are different aspects of your subjectivity -- you cannot know them in the scientific way. The scientist remains a spectator, outside, and goes on experimenting.
Meditation is a totally different kind of activity to science. Science is mind activity, concentration of the mind, trying to get some secrets out of the objective world. Meditation is dropping the mind, moving into no-mind and feeling your own being. But to feel one's own being is to feel the being of all because at the centre we are all one. To know oneself is enough, more than enough: you have known the whole mystery of existence. But let me repeat: it is not knowledge. It is a kind of knowing but closer to love than to knowledge, closer to feeling than to thinking.
The only door that one has to pass through from the known into the unknown is meditation; there is no other door. By "meditation" I mean getting out of the grip of the mind, becoming more and more thoughtless, desireless, creating a space around yourself where nothing moves -- no thought, no feeling.
One day it happens: there is pure space surrounding you, infinite space, and you are just like an island in that infinite space. That moment, when you are utterly alone -- no thought is with you, no desire, no emotion, when you are absolutely alone in that absolute emptiness -- meditation has happened. You have crossed the barrier; you have entered into God.
OSHO (TO PREM ANANDO): Remember these two words. They are two keys for you, two fundamental laws to be followed, to be lived. These two words are going to constitute your whole lifestyle, your very religion. If you can attain to two things, love and bliss, there is no need to search for God; God will come searching for you.
And these two things are not difficult to attain, they are simple, very simple. One just needs a little courage because the basic requirement for both is the droppig of the ego. The idea of separation, the idea that "I am separate from the world, from existence," is the root cause of all misery and the root cause of all hate, anger, rage.
Love and bliss are two sides of the same coin. If you dissolve your ego, if you melt and merge into existence you will be surprised: from one side love is arising in you, from another side great bliss is overflowing. They happen simultaneously. But the only demand is to drop the idea of separation. It is simple if one has courage; if one is cowardly it is the most difficult thing in the world.
Surrender the ego -- that's what sannyas is all about. Give it to me. I don't ask for anything else: just give your ego to me. And once you have given the ego things start happening which you have never imagined; because the rock is removed mysteries start opening their doors to you. Then the whole temple of existence is yours. The ego is a false entity, a toy created by us, and we become so entangled with our own toy that we forget what is real; the unreal becomes the real.
From this very moment remeber that you are not separate from existence. And don't only remember, experiment. Being one with the tree ou are sitting beside, being one with the river you are swimming in, being one with the person whose hand you are holding... Slowly slowly experiment. Being one with the rock you are sitting on, being one with the faraway star you are looking at the night. Slowly slowly the knack of immediately merging into the object is learned. The observer becomes the observed, the knower becomes the known. Then watching a rose flower you become a rose flower, there is no separation. In that moment you will come to know two things, love and bliss -- bliss for yourself, love for all.
OSHO (to Sarito): To be blissful needs only one thing: the art of being in the present. Drop that which is no more. Because it is no more you are unneccessarily clinging and wasting your time with shadows. And don't get involved with that which is not yet, because it is not yet there is no point in being worried about it. But people are crushed between these two rocks: the past and the future, the no longer and the not yet. The present is just a small moment between the two, sandwiched between the two. And it is so small that unless you are really alert and awake you will miss it. It is so quick , so fast that if you are not aware, by the time you do become aware it is no more. It has already slipped by, it has already become the past.
One has to be quick of foot to keep pace with the present. It is a movement, it is a fast-flowing river. If one can remain in touch with the present, moment to moment, bliss goes on showering like rainfall. There is no need to hold onto it, there is no need to plan about it; all that is needed is to enjoy it in the moment, and each moment brings it so why be worried about holding it?
Man is the only animal on the earth who goes on missing something very essential, very essential for growth, very essential for understanding; and man is the only animal who can understand and who can grow. No other animal can understand and grow so they miss the opportunity. The tree is never concernend with the leaves of the past year... it is always growing new leaves. it is only man who goes on counting the leaves which are no more; even when they have fallen from the tree he goes on accumulating them. It is all rubbish.
Why not grow new leaves every moment? Because you become so covered with the old leaves you destroy and kill the new leaves. You don't allow them space to grow. The tree is not concerned with the future spring, this moment is enough; hence there is no worry, no tension. The tree is dancing in the wind and in the sun and in the rain.
A sannyasin has to be like that: dancing in the rain, in the wind, in the sun. To be free from the past and from the future is to be free from world. That is true renunciation. that is transcendence, and that's what I teach.: transcendence -- not of the world but of time. Time consists of past and future. Present is not part of time, present is part of eternity: a ray of eternity penetrating the darkness of time.
Live in the light of that ray and you live with God and you walk with God and you breathe God in and out. Then life is a constant celebration, an ecstasy.
AVINASH AND AVABHASHA, MARRIED TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, WITH THEIR TEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, BINU, WHO HAS'T MET OSHO BEFORE.
OSHO: Do you have something to say to me?
BINU: Love you-oo! (TEARS AND LAUGHTER BOTH)