Prem Nadi Ke Teera #7
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
As I see it, a sannyasin would not go around saying, “I am a sannyasin,” would he?
Yes, he would not. That is exactly my point: this overemphasis brings a twofold loss. The one who truly had the capacity for it might hang back or simply fall silent.
So does it mean that the more sannyasins there are, the more hypocrites there will be among them?
There isn’t even the possibility of there being many. Sannyas is such a flower that it is difficult for it to bloom in great numbers. Humanity as it is right now isn’t even capable of blooming on a vast scale. It’s difficult—arduous. That’s why... India has five million sannyasins. If a country truly had five million sannyasins, the life of that land would be filled with fragrance. But many among them are of no consequence, and the great majority are what I would call “uniformed sannyasins.” Their function is that of the uniformed sannyasin; they accomplish that much.
The third thing is this: our insistence that we are very spiritual is the outcome of an inferiority complex. The truth is, we are not spiritual; and we failed to become truly material either. We fell short. Our movement toward materialism did not happen as it should have. We are neither prosperous nor powerful. In every way we are poor and abject. We have lived through a thousand years of slavery. So one thing is settled: we cannot lay claim to materialism; we are out of court there. What remains is to make the reverse claim.
And the irony is, if you claim materialism, it can be tested—whether it holds true or not. Spiritualism has no such validity, no experiment is available. If a man says, “I am rich,” there can be inquiry—“Are you?” If a man says, “I am strong,” we can put him in the ring—“Are you?” But if a man says, “I am spiritual,” it can be a hollow statement. It is such an inner matter that it can’t be examined—how much is there and how much is not.
For the last two thousand years or so, India has had to live in deep impoverishment, and its ego has been badly wounded. That ego needs a substitute outlet. So the lower we fell over these two thousand years, the more loudly we proclaimed that we are a spiritual people. It’s the old story: when we can’t get the grapes, we begin to call them sour. That is our state of mind.
We started denying materialism because it did not come to us. And those to whom it did come, we began to call “worldly.” We even started to condemn their success. This gave our hearts great relief. But we, too, needed some claim to make. So we began claiming that we are spiritual. The truths are inverted—completely inverted. If today we were to set out in the world to find spiritual quality, we would find the least of it in India. I am not speaking of the uniform.
That quality of the human being—as an example, let me tell you... There was an English writer named George Mite. He came to India. He got down at Delhi station. A sardar-ji, an astrologer, grabbed his hand and said, “I will read your palm.” The man said, “But I don’t want my palm read. I neither trust it nor believe in it. So please let go of my hand. Because if I have to wrench my hand free it will be discourteous.” But the astrologer held tight and began to read anyway. The man kept saying, “Please let go. If I have to pull away, it will be rude. And I have no faith, nor do I want your services.” Still the astrologer held his hand firmly and started proclaiming loudly. A handful of people gathered around. After two or four minutes, when he had said his piece, the man said, “Now forgive me, let me go.” The astrologer said, “My fee is two rupees.” George Mite said, “All right, take these two rupees—though it’s an imposition, because I refused and you kept telling me by force, so I am not obliged to pay. Still, you worked, so take them.” As soon as he gave the two rupees, the astrologer began to say more. The man said, “Look, now I won’t pay you any more. Please don’t go on.” But by then another one-rupee fee had accrued. George Mite wrote about this in his book. He said, “I told him I wouldn’t pay any more because this is an imposition.” The man flung his hand away harshly and said, “You run after money—you are a worldly man!” The astrologer called him worldly. Mite wrote, “I wondered which of us was worldly.”
This is our mental condition. Today we neither have the character to match any other nation, nor the ethics, nor the spirituality. But we certainly have a five-thousand-year-old legacy. We do have some scriptures. Such books exist everywhere in the world—they are not unique to us. Many times I am amazed that compared with our two-thousand-year-old texts, Greek texts of the same period seem superior, more evolved. Because our books, like the Upanishads, often make bare statements—no arguments, no development. Someone says, “Brahman is, and Brahman is all”—a mere statement. But if you read Socrates from two thousand years ago, you don’t find only statements; you find logical reasons as well. If he says “God is,” he tries to give proofs, to offer arguments, to refute counter-arguments.
Put both sets of books side by side on a time scale and you’ll see the Greek texts appear to be written by a more developed intellect. Our books are poetic, not instructional or dialectical. Yes, we have a great poetic tradition, and we claim to be its inheritors. But spirituality has nothing to do with books. Krishna is enough to produce the Gita; fifty thousand or fifty million people don’t need to be spiritual for that. One Jesus is enough to create the Bible. One Socrates is enough. It is true that we had a Krishna; we had a Buddha; we had a Mahavira. We have their utterances. But from that it does not follow that we are a spiritual people.
If an Einstein is born in Germany, it does not make Germany a nation of scientists. If a Buddha is born, that does not make us spiritual. These sweeping claims are false. It is an individual affair. Everyone need not claim it. But our minds have a reason to claim: we have become so inferior that every claim gives us pleasure. That’s why Vivekananda pleased us so much—he fed our ego. In India no one even noticed him before he went to America. Nobody knew he even existed. This man may have walked through your own village—he did walk all over North India—and yet nobody knew him. Had he lived and died here, none of us would have known him. We discovered him because he went to America and gratified our ego. His prestige felt like our prestige. Then we said he is divine. When he returned, we made a great hullabaloo. But the amusing thing is that within fifteen days it died down. For a fortnight after his arrival there were receptions and ceremonies—and then all was quiet again.
Vivekananda had thought he would do great work in India. Nothing happened. In fact, we didn’t even give him the respect he got elsewhere. And in Calcutta, as soon as he arrived, our so-called spiritual men began to distribute pamphlets against him. We immediately started finding faults: “Why is he dressed like this? Why has Nivedita come with him?” You may be surprised to know: it was Nivedita who did all the work in the West. Whatever spread of the Ramakrishna Mission happened there was through her. And what did India give her in return? After Vivekananda’s death, Nivedita was expelled from the Ramakrishna Ashram. When she died, she was not in the Ashram; she died in a separate house.
Our mind is such that where our ego is gratified, we are ready to proclaim anything. But when our reality is exposed, we prove very petty. I do not accept that this country is spiritual. Yes, it has placed an emphasis on spirituality—and that has done a double harm. We did not become spiritual; and because of that false emphasis—false because I call any emphasis false—I am in favor of life being simple.
If a man can be a poet, let him be a poet; but let him not try to impose poetry upon life. If a man can be a scientist, let him be a scientist; but let science not be made into a total way of life. If a man can be spiritual, let him be so by all means; but do not try to drape life in the cloak of spirituality. Let life be simple; let whatever can happen, happen. Let us be accepting of all things. I call that country broad-minded whose emphasis is on nothing in particular. Because whenever we put emphasis on one thing, we must de-emphasize something else.
If we stress spirituality too much, science will lag behind. If we stress science too much, spirituality will lag behind. If we stress poetry too much, reality will fall behind. If we stress reality too much, life will be emptied of imagination and poetry. Life is an integration of all things. My view is: let all flowers bloom. Culture should be non-emphatic—let us not put our full weight behind any single thing. Let whatever arises be supported. If a Buddha is born, we are delighted. But we would not want a Buddha to be born at the cost of murdering an Einstein. The being of Einstein is just as necessary. If a man is an engineer, it is very useful; but we would not want poetry to die out of life. The engineer can build a house, but those who live in that house need poetry too.
So my view is that cultures that tie themselves to any one thing end up doing harm. There is no need to emphasize anything. Life is multi-dimensional, and all its dimensions should be embraced. The richer its variety, the more juice it has. That’s why a kind of boredom has arisen in India. Today, when one hears a spiritualist speak, it feels boring. The same thing, repeated again and again—we have heard it too many times. So the listener gradually breaks down. There are many spiritualists in the country today, but no one to listen to them—or only dead listeners, corpses, who are asleep and don’t need to listen at all.
Any culture will create boredom if it becomes one-sided. It is a coordination of all. Even in an individual life there are moments, phases, differences. Today poetry may be delightful; tomorrow it may not be. Today science may seem everything; tomorrow it may not. I would say the person in whose life such moments of change occur will, in the end, depart the world richer.
So I don’t believe there should be a single note in life, that from childhood to old age a person’s personality should be the same. There should be many tones—and among these many tones there should be a harmony, not a conflict. I do not want emphasis in society, nor do I want emphasis in the individual. Diversity is my love.
It seems to me that the greater the variety, the greater the difference, the more beautiful everything becomes. All colors—let there be all colors in life. In my understanding, the culture developing in the West today is more multi-dimensional than India’s. Sooner or later we too will have to become multi-dimensional. To pour all movement into one dimension brings a thousand kinds of damage. Our entire talent has turned toward sannyas—all of it.
Take someone like Dignaga, or Nagarjuna—people of astonishing talent. But in the desert of renunciation, so much gets lost. Yes, some people do have the talent to be sannyasins; that’s another matter. But if an entire nation turns toward sannyas, then the diversity a nation needs, the other directions of search that should open up—all will be shut. So I am emphatically against emphasis. I prefer that diversity come into life. It should be present. And perhaps I would call that society spiritual which gives all kinds of people the freedom, appreciation, and support to become what they can be.
For me, the soul is a vast thing, and it can manifest in many forms. If we do not let a poet be a poet, that person will never attain to his soul—because for him the path to the soul is poetry itself. If we do not let a dancer dance, we shall never allow him to reach the soul—because his path to the soul is dancing. Ravi Shankar will seek his soul through the sitar. If we make him fast and sit in a temple, he will never find his soul. His soul has its own path.
Now what should I call spirituality? I call spiritual that attitude which accepts all paths and allows people to reach, by their own roads, that which they were born to be. You must become that which you were born to become—that is the attainment of your soul. Through that you will know the truth of life.
My own approach is broader still. I do not say that the truth of life is some fixed thing kept somewhere that you can reach by opening some door. I don’t accept that. The truth of life is a process. And what is truth for me may not necessarily be truth for you. Though the day I attain to my truth, and you attain to yours, our journeys will have been different, but the fulfillment will be the same. That fulfillment—that sense of completion—will be the same.
A mathematician, when he enters wholly into his world of mathematics, is in no way behind a meditator. He arrives at the same place. And when a painter paints and pours himself wholly into the painting, he too is in no way behind one who prays—that is what I would say. So for me, spirituality means something more. The search for the soul means something more. And for me the whole matter is individual. The most dangerous and violent people are those who impose themselves on others.
Therefore, I consider no one more violent than gurus. Because if I am your guru, I accept that I will make you like myself. And if you become a disciple, you do so to swear that you will become like me. There is bound to be danger in this—because no two persons are alike. If I impose myself upon you, I will harm you. And if you drape me over yourself, you will harm yourself. And the result may be nothing but a perverted personality—and nothing else.
The third thing is this: our insistence that we are very spiritual is the outcome of an inferiority complex. The truth is, we are not spiritual; and we failed to become truly material either. We fell short. Our movement toward materialism did not happen as it should have. We are neither prosperous nor powerful. In every way we are poor and abject. We have lived through a thousand years of slavery. So one thing is settled: we cannot lay claim to materialism; we are out of court there. What remains is to make the reverse claim.
And the irony is, if you claim materialism, it can be tested—whether it holds true or not. Spiritualism has no such validity, no experiment is available. If a man says, “I am rich,” there can be inquiry—“Are you?” If a man says, “I am strong,” we can put him in the ring—“Are you?” But if a man says, “I am spiritual,” it can be a hollow statement. It is such an inner matter that it can’t be examined—how much is there and how much is not.
For the last two thousand years or so, India has had to live in deep impoverishment, and its ego has been badly wounded. That ego needs a substitute outlet. So the lower we fell over these two thousand years, the more loudly we proclaimed that we are a spiritual people. It’s the old story: when we can’t get the grapes, we begin to call them sour. That is our state of mind.
We started denying materialism because it did not come to us. And those to whom it did come, we began to call “worldly.” We even started to condemn their success. This gave our hearts great relief. But we, too, needed some claim to make. So we began claiming that we are spiritual. The truths are inverted—completely inverted. If today we were to set out in the world to find spiritual quality, we would find the least of it in India. I am not speaking of the uniform.
That quality of the human being—as an example, let me tell you... There was an English writer named George Mite. He came to India. He got down at Delhi station. A sardar-ji, an astrologer, grabbed his hand and said, “I will read your palm.” The man said, “But I don’t want my palm read. I neither trust it nor believe in it. So please let go of my hand. Because if I have to wrench my hand free it will be discourteous.” But the astrologer held tight and began to read anyway. The man kept saying, “Please let go. If I have to pull away, it will be rude. And I have no faith, nor do I want your services.” Still the astrologer held his hand firmly and started proclaiming loudly. A handful of people gathered around. After two or four minutes, when he had said his piece, the man said, “Now forgive me, let me go.” The astrologer said, “My fee is two rupees.” George Mite said, “All right, take these two rupees—though it’s an imposition, because I refused and you kept telling me by force, so I am not obliged to pay. Still, you worked, so take them.” As soon as he gave the two rupees, the astrologer began to say more. The man said, “Look, now I won’t pay you any more. Please don’t go on.” But by then another one-rupee fee had accrued. George Mite wrote about this in his book. He said, “I told him I wouldn’t pay any more because this is an imposition.” The man flung his hand away harshly and said, “You run after money—you are a worldly man!” The astrologer called him worldly. Mite wrote, “I wondered which of us was worldly.”
This is our mental condition. Today we neither have the character to match any other nation, nor the ethics, nor the spirituality. But we certainly have a five-thousand-year-old legacy. We do have some scriptures. Such books exist everywhere in the world—they are not unique to us. Many times I am amazed that compared with our two-thousand-year-old texts, Greek texts of the same period seem superior, more evolved. Because our books, like the Upanishads, often make bare statements—no arguments, no development. Someone says, “Brahman is, and Brahman is all”—a mere statement. But if you read Socrates from two thousand years ago, you don’t find only statements; you find logical reasons as well. If he says “God is,” he tries to give proofs, to offer arguments, to refute counter-arguments.
Put both sets of books side by side on a time scale and you’ll see the Greek texts appear to be written by a more developed intellect. Our books are poetic, not instructional or dialectical. Yes, we have a great poetic tradition, and we claim to be its inheritors. But spirituality has nothing to do with books. Krishna is enough to produce the Gita; fifty thousand or fifty million people don’t need to be spiritual for that. One Jesus is enough to create the Bible. One Socrates is enough. It is true that we had a Krishna; we had a Buddha; we had a Mahavira. We have their utterances. But from that it does not follow that we are a spiritual people.
If an Einstein is born in Germany, it does not make Germany a nation of scientists. If a Buddha is born, that does not make us spiritual. These sweeping claims are false. It is an individual affair. Everyone need not claim it. But our minds have a reason to claim: we have become so inferior that every claim gives us pleasure. That’s why Vivekananda pleased us so much—he fed our ego. In India no one even noticed him before he went to America. Nobody knew he even existed. This man may have walked through your own village—he did walk all over North India—and yet nobody knew him. Had he lived and died here, none of us would have known him. We discovered him because he went to America and gratified our ego. His prestige felt like our prestige. Then we said he is divine. When he returned, we made a great hullabaloo. But the amusing thing is that within fifteen days it died down. For a fortnight after his arrival there were receptions and ceremonies—and then all was quiet again.
Vivekananda had thought he would do great work in India. Nothing happened. In fact, we didn’t even give him the respect he got elsewhere. And in Calcutta, as soon as he arrived, our so-called spiritual men began to distribute pamphlets against him. We immediately started finding faults: “Why is he dressed like this? Why has Nivedita come with him?” You may be surprised to know: it was Nivedita who did all the work in the West. Whatever spread of the Ramakrishna Mission happened there was through her. And what did India give her in return? After Vivekananda’s death, Nivedita was expelled from the Ramakrishna Ashram. When she died, she was not in the Ashram; she died in a separate house.
Our mind is such that where our ego is gratified, we are ready to proclaim anything. But when our reality is exposed, we prove very petty. I do not accept that this country is spiritual. Yes, it has placed an emphasis on spirituality—and that has done a double harm. We did not become spiritual; and because of that false emphasis—false because I call any emphasis false—I am in favor of life being simple.
If a man can be a poet, let him be a poet; but let him not try to impose poetry upon life. If a man can be a scientist, let him be a scientist; but let science not be made into a total way of life. If a man can be spiritual, let him be so by all means; but do not try to drape life in the cloak of spirituality. Let life be simple; let whatever can happen, happen. Let us be accepting of all things. I call that country broad-minded whose emphasis is on nothing in particular. Because whenever we put emphasis on one thing, we must de-emphasize something else.
If we stress spirituality too much, science will lag behind. If we stress science too much, spirituality will lag behind. If we stress poetry too much, reality will fall behind. If we stress reality too much, life will be emptied of imagination and poetry. Life is an integration of all things. My view is: let all flowers bloom. Culture should be non-emphatic—let us not put our full weight behind any single thing. Let whatever arises be supported. If a Buddha is born, we are delighted. But we would not want a Buddha to be born at the cost of murdering an Einstein. The being of Einstein is just as necessary. If a man is an engineer, it is very useful; but we would not want poetry to die out of life. The engineer can build a house, but those who live in that house need poetry too.
So my view is that cultures that tie themselves to any one thing end up doing harm. There is no need to emphasize anything. Life is multi-dimensional, and all its dimensions should be embraced. The richer its variety, the more juice it has. That’s why a kind of boredom has arisen in India. Today, when one hears a spiritualist speak, it feels boring. The same thing, repeated again and again—we have heard it too many times. So the listener gradually breaks down. There are many spiritualists in the country today, but no one to listen to them—or only dead listeners, corpses, who are asleep and don’t need to listen at all.
Any culture will create boredom if it becomes one-sided. It is a coordination of all. Even in an individual life there are moments, phases, differences. Today poetry may be delightful; tomorrow it may not be. Today science may seem everything; tomorrow it may not. I would say the person in whose life such moments of change occur will, in the end, depart the world richer.
So I don’t believe there should be a single note in life, that from childhood to old age a person’s personality should be the same. There should be many tones—and among these many tones there should be a harmony, not a conflict. I do not want emphasis in society, nor do I want emphasis in the individual. Diversity is my love.
It seems to me that the greater the variety, the greater the difference, the more beautiful everything becomes. All colors—let there be all colors in life. In my understanding, the culture developing in the West today is more multi-dimensional than India’s. Sooner or later we too will have to become multi-dimensional. To pour all movement into one dimension brings a thousand kinds of damage. Our entire talent has turned toward sannyas—all of it.
Take someone like Dignaga, or Nagarjuna—people of astonishing talent. But in the desert of renunciation, so much gets lost. Yes, some people do have the talent to be sannyasins; that’s another matter. But if an entire nation turns toward sannyas, then the diversity a nation needs, the other directions of search that should open up—all will be shut. So I am emphatically against emphasis. I prefer that diversity come into life. It should be present. And perhaps I would call that society spiritual which gives all kinds of people the freedom, appreciation, and support to become what they can be.
For me, the soul is a vast thing, and it can manifest in many forms. If we do not let a poet be a poet, that person will never attain to his soul—because for him the path to the soul is poetry itself. If we do not let a dancer dance, we shall never allow him to reach the soul—because his path to the soul is dancing. Ravi Shankar will seek his soul through the sitar. If we make him fast and sit in a temple, he will never find his soul. His soul has its own path.
Now what should I call spirituality? I call spiritual that attitude which accepts all paths and allows people to reach, by their own roads, that which they were born to be. You must become that which you were born to become—that is the attainment of your soul. Through that you will know the truth of life.
My own approach is broader still. I do not say that the truth of life is some fixed thing kept somewhere that you can reach by opening some door. I don’t accept that. The truth of life is a process. And what is truth for me may not necessarily be truth for you. Though the day I attain to my truth, and you attain to yours, our journeys will have been different, but the fulfillment will be the same. That fulfillment—that sense of completion—will be the same.
A mathematician, when he enters wholly into his world of mathematics, is in no way behind a meditator. He arrives at the same place. And when a painter paints and pours himself wholly into the painting, he too is in no way behind one who prays—that is what I would say. So for me, spirituality means something more. The search for the soul means something more. And for me the whole matter is individual. The most dangerous and violent people are those who impose themselves on others.
Therefore, I consider no one more violent than gurus. Because if I am your guru, I accept that I will make you like myself. And if you become a disciple, you do so to swear that you will become like me. There is bound to be danger in this—because no two persons are alike. If I impose myself upon you, I will harm you. And if you drape me over yourself, you will harm yourself. And the result may be nothing but a perverted personality—and nothing else.
Osho, as you have just said, life is multidimensional. What do you think should be our attitude toward the... Whether we know that what our parents... and what should be our attitude toward our family? Toward our...
There are two or three points in this. First, this is not a “should” question. The moment we say, “What should my attitude be toward mother and father?” the whole thing goes wrong. In fact, if the mother is a mother, a certain attitude is already implied; if the father is a father, a certain attitude is already implied. Their very being mother and father has already defined a way of relating. There is no room for “should” in it.
No one asks me, “What should my attitude be toward my beloved?” No one asks this; so far, no one has. The reason is: with a beloved the attitude is already there. But we ask about the mother because there is no real attitude; about the father, because there is none. So we look for some formal imposition. It becomes a question. This question never arises about a beloved; it arises about a wife: “What should be my attitude toward my wife?” Which simply means love has died.
So the moment we make it a “should,” the moment we say, “What should my attitude be toward my father?” I would say the matter is already finished. He is no longer truly a father, you are no longer truly a son. Recognize this first: that the being-father-and-son has departed. Now it will have to be kept going with effort. Now the relationship will be one of duty, not of love—an obligation.
So my first suggestion is: understand clearly that, in this sense, it has ended. And if it has ended, there is no way to bring it back to life. Only acting is possible—only playacting. And when with your father you act out his being the father and your being the son, it will feel like a burden.
If it has come to this, I would call the first duty this: tell your father that this has happened—the first duty. With those who are close to us, I consider it wrong to act. The first step of truth is to say that this is how it is. Accept it with humility: now there is no other way; at most I can fulfill my duty. This acceptance will bring many benefits.
If this acceptance comes, many entanglements in life will lessen—because many of our expectations will lessen. If I can say plainly to my wife that what remains between us now is a relationship of duty, so don’t expect from me what one expects from a lover—and I will not expect from you what one expects from a beloved—then everything will be smooth; things can move straight. Because expectations will create trouble; expectations will weave webs. What is wanted will never be fulfilled; what is asked will never be given; what is called for we will not be able to give—and the web will go on growing. And as the web grows, we will act even more; more lies, more hypocrisy—there will be turmoil.
So my understanding is this: it is not specifically about the father; not specifically about the mother; not about wife, friend, or anyone in particular. My understanding is: always keep your relationships clear and truthful. Make them clear—whatever a relationship is, reveal it as it is—so that wrong expectations do not form. If there are no occasions for disillusionment, there will be no frustration.
If I feel that the friendship between us has ended, then I should not go on carrying it unnecessarily. This too should be the final act of my friendship: to tell you that it is over. Now we can only be two acquaintances. And I do not know—when friendship has ended, I cannot say that tomorrow even acquaintance will end. Nor can I say that tomorrow friendship may not return. If it returns, I will tell you.
What is our difficulty? Our difficulty is that life is changing twenty-four hours a day, and we keep giving the appearance of not having changed. Yesterday morning I told you, “I cannot live a single moment without you,” and today it seems to me that it is difficult to live even a single moment with you. Yet I go on maintaining the same deception. Inside, my mind is saying it is difficult to live even a single moment with you, and outwardly I still go on saying that I cannot live without you. Then life becomes very complex and tangled.
No one asks me, “What should my attitude be toward my beloved?” No one asks this; so far, no one has. The reason is: with a beloved the attitude is already there. But we ask about the mother because there is no real attitude; about the father, because there is none. So we look for some formal imposition. It becomes a question. This question never arises about a beloved; it arises about a wife: “What should be my attitude toward my wife?” Which simply means love has died.
So the moment we make it a “should,” the moment we say, “What should my attitude be toward my father?” I would say the matter is already finished. He is no longer truly a father, you are no longer truly a son. Recognize this first: that the being-father-and-son has departed. Now it will have to be kept going with effort. Now the relationship will be one of duty, not of love—an obligation.
So my first suggestion is: understand clearly that, in this sense, it has ended. And if it has ended, there is no way to bring it back to life. Only acting is possible—only playacting. And when with your father you act out his being the father and your being the son, it will feel like a burden.
If it has come to this, I would call the first duty this: tell your father that this has happened—the first duty. With those who are close to us, I consider it wrong to act. The first step of truth is to say that this is how it is. Accept it with humility: now there is no other way; at most I can fulfill my duty. This acceptance will bring many benefits.
If this acceptance comes, many entanglements in life will lessen—because many of our expectations will lessen. If I can say plainly to my wife that what remains between us now is a relationship of duty, so don’t expect from me what one expects from a lover—and I will not expect from you what one expects from a beloved—then everything will be smooth; things can move straight. Because expectations will create trouble; expectations will weave webs. What is wanted will never be fulfilled; what is asked will never be given; what is called for we will not be able to give—and the web will go on growing. And as the web grows, we will act even more; more lies, more hypocrisy—there will be turmoil.
So my understanding is this: it is not specifically about the father; not specifically about the mother; not about wife, friend, or anyone in particular. My understanding is: always keep your relationships clear and truthful. Make them clear—whatever a relationship is, reveal it as it is—so that wrong expectations do not form. If there are no occasions for disillusionment, there will be no frustration.
If I feel that the friendship between us has ended, then I should not go on carrying it unnecessarily. This too should be the final act of my friendship: to tell you that it is over. Now we can only be two acquaintances. And I do not know—when friendship has ended, I cannot say that tomorrow even acquaintance will end. Nor can I say that tomorrow friendship may not return. If it returns, I will tell you.
What is our difficulty? Our difficulty is that life is changing twenty-four hours a day, and we keep giving the appearance of not having changed. Yesterday morning I told you, “I cannot live a single moment without you,” and today it seems to me that it is difficult to live even a single moment with you. Yet I go on maintaining the same deception. Inside, my mind is saying it is difficult to live even a single moment with you, and outwardly I still go on saying that I cannot live without you. Then life becomes very complex and tangled.
Osho, why is it so?
It is because we have accepted certain principles that are false. For example, we have assumed that we can make promises about the future; that is false. Promises cannot be made for the future. We cannot promise anything about tomorrow. To promise, “I will love you tomorrow,” is itself dangerous. Such a promise can never truly be fulfilled, because today I cannot say anything about tomorrow. It is not even certain that tomorrow I will be the same “me.” Yet the kind of life we have built rests on making promises to the future. Those become our bonds. And once we make promises, the ego clings to them. It says, “But yesterday I said I could not live without you—how can I speak differently now?” Now I am bound. So I begin to do two things at once: inside I know one thing, outside I do another. Then the whole web keeps spreading.
It is because we have accepted certain principles that are false. For example, we have assumed that we can make promises about the future; that is false. Promises cannot be made for the future. We cannot promise anything about tomorrow. To promise, “I will love you tomorrow,” is itself dangerous. Such a promise can never truly be fulfilled, because today I cannot say anything about tomorrow. It is not even certain that tomorrow I will be the same “me.” Yet the kind of life we have built rests on making promises to the future. Those become our bonds. And once we make promises, the ego clings to them. It says, “But yesterday I said I could not live without you—how can I speak differently now?” Now I am bound. So I begin to do two things at once: inside I know one thing, outside I do another. Then the whole web keeps spreading.
In the principles man has fixed for himself, there are some fundamental mistakes. My view is that any promise regarding the future is always tied to a perhaps. We should know this. When I say to you, “I will love you tomorrow,” what I am really saying is: today it seems to me that it would be good if I could love you tomorrow. This is my present thought. Right now it feels that loving you tomorrow would be wonderful. But what I will feel tomorrow, I cannot say. How could I? There is no way to say anything before tomorrow arrives.
So first: our habit of deciding for the future is dangerous. I am not saying do not decide—you will have to decide; to live is to decide. But if decisions are always taken with the awareness of this uncertainty, then when a decision breaks tomorrow you will not be disturbed—one.
Second, we all manufacture an image of ourselves that we are not. We strive to appear good; we do not strive to appear true. From childhood we are taught, “Be a good person.” No one teaches, “Be a true person.” Our whole education is about becoming good. So from childhood a notion is created in us: be good. Then we create a picture of what a good person is. A “good son” is one who respects his father. We’ve been told since childhood that a good son respects his father. We were never told that a true son is one who, so long as there is respect, respects—and when it is no longer there, can frankly say to his father, “My respect has departed; it is no longer there.” Instead, a good son is one who, come what may, respects till his dying breath! A “good wife” is one who, even if the husband frequents prostitutes, still regards him as God! This idea we are attaching to the good wife is dangerous. It is not the idea of a true wife; it is the idea of a good wife.
And I distinguish between good and true. In my view, only the true is truly good. What have we done? The images we impose on every child turn out to be costly. They seize our lives like a shell. Then we are forced to live within those molds our whole lives. It is as if one wore pyjamas in childhood and had to keep living in the same pair into old age. If the pyjamas tear, it’s a problem; if you try to take them off, it’s a problem; if you try to change them, it’s a problem. But the clothes on the body can be changed; the clamps placed on the soul remain fixed. All these are fundamental falsehoods. Alongside them, there are other crucial points we fail to see.
A father loves his son, and from this he assumes the son should love the father in the same way—this is a mistake. A mother loves her son and assumes the son should love her just as much—this is a mistake. It is unscientific. Let me explain: the very word “duty” is foul. Without exception. What really happens? A mother loves her son, and naturally she expects the son to love her in the same manner. But she doesn’t see that in the same manner the son will love his son. That is how life is arranged.
Ask this very mother: did you love your mother as much as you now love your son? The difference will be clear. A father wants from his son as much love as he gave. Ask him: did you love your father that much? You did not. In life, the stream of love flows forward, not backward. It cannot flow backward; if it did, it would be dangerous—because life has to move ahead. If a son loved his father so much that he could not love his own son as much, the world would suffer.
No, in the biological order of life the current flows forward. A mother will love her son; the son will love his son—that is how love is repaid. There is no other way. There is no way to pay it back upstream. But a mother may expect that the son love her as much as she loved him. If the son does that, he will not be able to love his wife.
Therefore, when sons love their mothers too much, their married life becomes difficult—because the whole stream of love needs to flow toward the wife, otherwise things go wrong. That is why, as soon as the wife enters the home, the mother gets troubled. She immediately senses that the son is no longer hers. The current that until yesterday reassured her is now flowing toward the wife. Now the son prefers to sit in privacy with his wife, not with his mother. He wants to go out alone with his wife, not with his mother. And here is the irony: this very mother had been anxious about bringing this wife home—“Get married, get married!” She celebrated, there were bands and fireworks—yet tomorrow she will be the one most troubled. She did not know this. The reason she did not know is that she is not fully aware of the science of human nature.
In fact, the mother should understand that her task is complete. The woman has arrived toward whom the son’s love will now flow. The trust she held in safekeeping has been given to another woman; now she should step aside. Now she can remain only in the corner, in the shadow; she cannot remain at the center. Now, sometimes the son may love her—if she does not demand it. If she demands it, then even that “sometimes” becomes difficult. If the mother demands love, then even offering a little becomes hard. If she becomes entirely non-demanding—she should—quietly withdraw into the background: if the son remembers, that is another matter. And if the son sits with her too long, she herself should say, “No, there is no need to sit this long with me now; life has to move forward.” Then the son will be able to love his mother.
And the son too should have this much understanding. We have no understanding of life; we have only principles—whereas understanding life is a different matter altogether.
The son should know that the mother who raised him never imagined that one day another woman would snatch away his love like this. It was outside her imagination. And when the whole current of the son’s love flows toward his wife, then if the son has even a little understanding—he will know that toward the place from which love has now shifted he can offer at least sympathy.
I do not say love; I do not say duty; I say sympathy. The mother who raised him and loved him—suddenly the current of love from his side has changed. Now he can only be sympathetic, compassionate; not loving in the same way. And if there is no sympathy, then only duty remains—what you call duty. That duty means: since she is my mother and gave me birth, it is my obligation to care for her, to respect her, to touch her feet now and then.
But duty is a very official word. Duty is like what we do in an office because we draw a salary. It is an act for that time-slot. Duty means what has to be done—not what is worthy of being done, but what you are compelled to do: that which is to be done. And when our relationship with mother and father becomes such that something has to be done, then even sympathy is no longer there.
My view is: because parents demand love, sons are able to give only duty. If parents were to ask only for sympathy, sons could give sympathy. Sympathy is the middle ground. It is neither love nor duty. Sympathy simply means that we can feel what it would be like if we were in their place—and that we can also feel that tomorrow we ourselves will reach their place, because we too will have sons.
Now, if the daughter-in-law who has entered the house can understand that tomorrow her own daughter-in-law will come, and her son too will one day detach from her in the same way—what will she feel then? In the same way she is separating some other woman’s son; what must that woman be feeling now? If she can feel this, there will be sympathy. If instead she says, “All right, she is my husband’s mother, so out of duty I feed her, I press her feet—this is my duty, though I have nothing to do with her,” she does not see that duty becomes a burden.
No—sympathy means to be in another’s place. Sympathy means simply this: I can stand where you stand and see what has happened. I raised a son; made him twenty; taught him; sat up nights; I went hungry so he could eat; I went without clothes so he could be clothed—and suddenly one day a girl arrives, a stranger, unknown, with whom I had no relation, and she becomes everything, and I become nothing. The capacity to place oneself in that position is sympathy.
So if you cannot give your father the same love he gave you, this should be accepted. The day society accepts this, it will become very healthy. We should simply know that it is not possible—because we cannot be our father’s father. That is the only reason. We can only be sons. Therefore, we cannot return to our father the love he gave us. We will pass it on to our own sons. That is all that will happen; nothing else. We will not be able to give it back to our father. So to feel the father’s inner state—that is sympathy.
My view is that our relationships are of three kinds:
1) Relationships of love. Where there is love, no questions arise. There are no questions in love.
2) When love ends, questions begin. At that point you can do one of two things: either you stand with the other person in their present state and feel it—that becomes sympathy. Then, though questions remain, the answers will be found; you will not have to go searching elsewhere.
3) If sympathy does not arise, only duty remains. And in duty there are only questions and never any answers—because it is merely a burden to be carried.
So first: our habit of deciding for the future is dangerous. I am not saying do not decide—you will have to decide; to live is to decide. But if decisions are always taken with the awareness of this uncertainty, then when a decision breaks tomorrow you will not be disturbed—one.
Second, we all manufacture an image of ourselves that we are not. We strive to appear good; we do not strive to appear true. From childhood we are taught, “Be a good person.” No one teaches, “Be a true person.” Our whole education is about becoming good. So from childhood a notion is created in us: be good. Then we create a picture of what a good person is. A “good son” is one who respects his father. We’ve been told since childhood that a good son respects his father. We were never told that a true son is one who, so long as there is respect, respects—and when it is no longer there, can frankly say to his father, “My respect has departed; it is no longer there.” Instead, a good son is one who, come what may, respects till his dying breath! A “good wife” is one who, even if the husband frequents prostitutes, still regards him as God! This idea we are attaching to the good wife is dangerous. It is not the idea of a true wife; it is the idea of a good wife.
And I distinguish between good and true. In my view, only the true is truly good. What have we done? The images we impose on every child turn out to be costly. They seize our lives like a shell. Then we are forced to live within those molds our whole lives. It is as if one wore pyjamas in childhood and had to keep living in the same pair into old age. If the pyjamas tear, it’s a problem; if you try to take them off, it’s a problem; if you try to change them, it’s a problem. But the clothes on the body can be changed; the clamps placed on the soul remain fixed. All these are fundamental falsehoods. Alongside them, there are other crucial points we fail to see.
A father loves his son, and from this he assumes the son should love the father in the same way—this is a mistake. A mother loves her son and assumes the son should love her just as much—this is a mistake. It is unscientific. Let me explain: the very word “duty” is foul. Without exception. What really happens? A mother loves her son, and naturally she expects the son to love her in the same manner. But she doesn’t see that in the same manner the son will love his son. That is how life is arranged.
Ask this very mother: did you love your mother as much as you now love your son? The difference will be clear. A father wants from his son as much love as he gave. Ask him: did you love your father that much? You did not. In life, the stream of love flows forward, not backward. It cannot flow backward; if it did, it would be dangerous—because life has to move ahead. If a son loved his father so much that he could not love his own son as much, the world would suffer.
No, in the biological order of life the current flows forward. A mother will love her son; the son will love his son—that is how love is repaid. There is no other way. There is no way to pay it back upstream. But a mother may expect that the son love her as much as she loved him. If the son does that, he will not be able to love his wife.
Therefore, when sons love their mothers too much, their married life becomes difficult—because the whole stream of love needs to flow toward the wife, otherwise things go wrong. That is why, as soon as the wife enters the home, the mother gets troubled. She immediately senses that the son is no longer hers. The current that until yesterday reassured her is now flowing toward the wife. Now the son prefers to sit in privacy with his wife, not with his mother. He wants to go out alone with his wife, not with his mother. And here is the irony: this very mother had been anxious about bringing this wife home—“Get married, get married!” She celebrated, there were bands and fireworks—yet tomorrow she will be the one most troubled. She did not know this. The reason she did not know is that she is not fully aware of the science of human nature.
In fact, the mother should understand that her task is complete. The woman has arrived toward whom the son’s love will now flow. The trust she held in safekeeping has been given to another woman; now she should step aside. Now she can remain only in the corner, in the shadow; she cannot remain at the center. Now, sometimes the son may love her—if she does not demand it. If she demands it, then even that “sometimes” becomes difficult. If the mother demands love, then even offering a little becomes hard. If she becomes entirely non-demanding—she should—quietly withdraw into the background: if the son remembers, that is another matter. And if the son sits with her too long, she herself should say, “No, there is no need to sit this long with me now; life has to move forward.” Then the son will be able to love his mother.
And the son too should have this much understanding. We have no understanding of life; we have only principles—whereas understanding life is a different matter altogether.
The son should know that the mother who raised him never imagined that one day another woman would snatch away his love like this. It was outside her imagination. And when the whole current of the son’s love flows toward his wife, then if the son has even a little understanding—he will know that toward the place from which love has now shifted he can offer at least sympathy.
I do not say love; I do not say duty; I say sympathy. The mother who raised him and loved him—suddenly the current of love from his side has changed. Now he can only be sympathetic, compassionate; not loving in the same way. And if there is no sympathy, then only duty remains—what you call duty. That duty means: since she is my mother and gave me birth, it is my obligation to care for her, to respect her, to touch her feet now and then.
But duty is a very official word. Duty is like what we do in an office because we draw a salary. It is an act for that time-slot. Duty means what has to be done—not what is worthy of being done, but what you are compelled to do: that which is to be done. And when our relationship with mother and father becomes such that something has to be done, then even sympathy is no longer there.
My view is: because parents demand love, sons are able to give only duty. If parents were to ask only for sympathy, sons could give sympathy. Sympathy is the middle ground. It is neither love nor duty. Sympathy simply means that we can feel what it would be like if we were in their place—and that we can also feel that tomorrow we ourselves will reach their place, because we too will have sons.
Now, if the daughter-in-law who has entered the house can understand that tomorrow her own daughter-in-law will come, and her son too will one day detach from her in the same way—what will she feel then? In the same way she is separating some other woman’s son; what must that woman be feeling now? If she can feel this, there will be sympathy. If instead she says, “All right, she is my husband’s mother, so out of duty I feed her, I press her feet—this is my duty, though I have nothing to do with her,” she does not see that duty becomes a burden.
No—sympathy means to be in another’s place. Sympathy means simply this: I can stand where you stand and see what has happened. I raised a son; made him twenty; taught him; sat up nights; I went hungry so he could eat; I went without clothes so he could be clothed—and suddenly one day a girl arrives, a stranger, unknown, with whom I had no relation, and she becomes everything, and I become nothing. The capacity to place oneself in that position is sympathy.
So if you cannot give your father the same love he gave you, this should be accepted. The day society accepts this, it will become very healthy. We should simply know that it is not possible—because we cannot be our father’s father. That is the only reason. We can only be sons. Therefore, we cannot return to our father the love he gave us. We will pass it on to our own sons. That is all that will happen; nothing else. We will not be able to give it back to our father. So to feel the father’s inner state—that is sympathy.
My view is that our relationships are of three kinds:
1) Relationships of love. Where there is love, no questions arise. There are no questions in love.
2) When love ends, questions begin. At that point you can do one of two things: either you stand with the other person in their present state and feel it—that becomes sympathy. Then, though questions remain, the answers will be found; you will not have to go searching elsewhere.
3) If sympathy does not arise, only duty remains. And in duty there are only questions and never any answers—because it is merely a burden to be carried.
But should one consider it a burden? When a small child is born, the parents bring him up—enduring troubles themselves to make him grow. If they raise him, for what do they raise him?
This notion of ours—that parents endure hardship to raise a child—is our delusion. If parents truly had to suffer, no child could ever grow up. This is our mistake; it is the parents’ claim, and it is a false claim. If a mother were really suffering, no child in the world could grow up. What is being endured is not for the child’s sake. It is the mother’s own nature, her joy; that is why she endures. Though later she will claim, “I suffered for you,” that claim is untrue.
The truth is: the mother is enjoying the very process of bringing the child up; therefore she endures. This is a biological truth. There is no difference here between a human mother and an animal mother. The mother is taking delight even in what we call suffering. The so‑called suffering is what a third person sees—that the mother sat by her child the whole night and went through such pain. That “pain” exists only in the third person’s idea. The mother is quite pleased. She will feel pain only when there is no child by her side for whom she can remain awake all night.
That is why a woman who cannot become a mother remains in great distress. A woman who cannot become a mother is left with some basic need unfulfilled. She needed someone for whom she could stay awake; someone for whom she could go hungry; someone for whom she could cry and be perturbed. That too is her basic need; it is her fulfillment. Therefore no mother has borne hardships for her son—I am saying this on behalf of the mother, not the son.
That is to say, as far as the mother is concerned: no mother has suffered. Nurses and the like suffer; mothers do not. Therefore, if someday we could produce children who cause absolutely no trouble to the mother—who in no way make her suffer—then know for sure: the relationship between mother and son would come to an end.
The truth is: the mother is enjoying the very process of bringing the child up; therefore she endures. This is a biological truth. There is no difference here between a human mother and an animal mother. The mother is taking delight even in what we call suffering. The so‑called suffering is what a third person sees—that the mother sat by her child the whole night and went through such pain. That “pain” exists only in the third person’s idea. The mother is quite pleased. She will feel pain only when there is no child by her side for whom she can remain awake all night.
That is why a woman who cannot become a mother remains in great distress. A woman who cannot become a mother is left with some basic need unfulfilled. She needed someone for whom she could stay awake; someone for whom she could go hungry; someone for whom she could cry and be perturbed. That too is her basic need; it is her fulfillment. Therefore no mother has borne hardships for her son—I am saying this on behalf of the mother, not the son.
That is to say, as far as the mother is concerned: no mother has suffered. Nurses and the like suffer; mothers do not. Therefore, if someday we could produce children who cause absolutely no trouble to the mother—who in no way make her suffer—then know for sure: the relationship between mother and son would come to an end.
That will of course happen when you say so.
No, what I mean is—what I mean is that all those pains are part of becoming a mother. They are the pain of her being a mother. There is nothing in them for the son; everything is because she is a mother.
The day we understand this, no mother will say to her son, “I suffered for your sake.” And when we ask why she suffered, even then we are speaking in error. In our thinking there are two notions that we often confuse: cause and purpose. We ask, “For what?”—and by “for what” we mean, “What was the end?”
The truth is, no end is ever in a mother’s mind for which she is enduring pain. That “end” arises later, when she suddenly finds that the son for whom she suffered—this itself is a retrospective idea; it was not there when she suffered. It is the thought that comes on the day another woman draws her son toward herself. That day, for the first time, she becomes conscious: “All the pains I endured for this son were actually for this woman—that this boy should go to her.” And on the day the son does not bring her money, does not serve her in old age, that day she becomes conscious: “I suffered so that my son would feed me in my old age.”
But no mother has ever thought, “I am enduring these pains so that when he grows up my son will feed me.” This is completely false. This is not an original purpose; it is an afterthought—a notion that comes later. But neither the mother knows this fully, nor the son. And we have kept such things hidden away. Neither can the son tell his mother, “You are mistaken; you did not suffer for me,” nor can the mother tell the son the truth: “I did not suffer for you; I suffered for my own reasons. You are not at fault.” If these two points were made clear, sympathy could arise. When a mother says, “I suffered for you,” it does not create sympathy in the son’s heart—only anger. So this goes on and on.
I know a young man who said to his mother, “When did I ever ask you to suffer for me? Was there any agreement? When did I tell you to endure pain for me? If you had asked me, ‘We are going to suffer for you—will you do so many things in return, or not?’ When did I tell you to give birth to me? In a matter in which I was not even a party, you cannot make a claim on me. If I was not a party—if you suffered, you must have suffered out of your own delight; if you bore me, you must have done so out of your own delight. But one day, about a matter in which I was not a party at all, I will be trapped—tomorrow you will file a case against me saying, ‘I did this for you.’”
No—no mother has ever done that, nor is there any question of a claim. But this does not mean I am telling the son to deny his mother. I am not saying that. I am saying that if mothers would drop these claims, sons would be more capable of sympathy. Because mothers make these claims, sons become filled with anger. Anger is bound to arise, for I am being claimed for something to which I never agreed. I never said, “If you educate me, I will bring you money in your old age.” I never said that. Even if this was your expectation, you did not make it explicit to me. Otherwise I would have decided right then: if I must earn and bring it to you, I will study; otherwise I will not study, I will refuse. So when someone says such things, sons do not openly admit, “You are wrong.” Inwardly they think it; outwardly they say, “Yes, it is absolutely true—you suffered greatly for me.” But this only produces anger; sympathy becomes difficult.
In this world, no one suffers for anyone else. If someone is suffering, he is suffering for himself. If we become acquainted with this truth, fathers will be good fathers, mothers will be good mothers, sons will be good sons, wives will be good wives. But we go on deceiving everyone. The son too says to his mother, “You suffered so much for me.” This is utterly false. The mother also says, “I suffered so much for you.” These are fictions, not facts. And because of this we fall into great difficulties. The husband says to his wife, “How much I am suffering for you.” This is false. No one suffers for another.
If you love a woman, you do endure pains for her—because you love her. It is your joy to suffer for her. Nor does any wife suffer for her husband; to endure for the one she loves is her delight. But as long as love is there, these questions do not arise. When love takes leave, the difficulties begin. Then all the questions arise, and we keep bringing up things again and again. The wife says, “I am enduring so much for you,” and the husband says, “I have gone through so many troubles for you.” The day it comes to saying such things, know that love has ended; we have moved outside love.
But man is not truthful. We are never able to tell anyone that we have gone outside love. We do not gather the courage to say, “We are out of love.” From this, much falsehood arises. I am against all kinds of falsehood. And I hold that the more truthful we are about life... there will be a little pain, it will be difficult, because we are all living in lies. If, in the midst of that, a person begins to live a little in truth, at first he will make you very alert, very uneasy. But this is only for a couple of days; that person will himself be at ease, and he will put you at ease as well. And we will understand that the person is right in saying, “The matter is finished.” And it is finished. The more we can be truthful like this, the fewer false assurances we give, and the more we decide on the basis of truth rather than falsehood, the more pleasant it becomes. Then we can have sympathy.
If I love a girl, and truly today it seems to me that I can love her all my life, that is a feeling of this moment. That feeling tells only that at this moment I love her; it tells nothing about the future. It tells only this much: that in the state I am in at this moment, if I can sustain this state for life, it will be blissful. But tomorrow I suddenly find that that feeling has gone—it is no longer there. Then two paths lie before me. One path is that I go on deceiving. The more I deceive this woman, the more my hatred will grow. And the more I continue out of duty, the more the burden on my head will grow. And as the burden grows, hatred will grow, and my urge to deceive...
The day we understand this, no mother will say to her son, “I suffered for your sake.” And when we ask why she suffered, even then we are speaking in error. In our thinking there are two notions that we often confuse: cause and purpose. We ask, “For what?”—and by “for what” we mean, “What was the end?”
The truth is, no end is ever in a mother’s mind for which she is enduring pain. That “end” arises later, when she suddenly finds that the son for whom she suffered—this itself is a retrospective idea; it was not there when she suffered. It is the thought that comes on the day another woman draws her son toward herself. That day, for the first time, she becomes conscious: “All the pains I endured for this son were actually for this woman—that this boy should go to her.” And on the day the son does not bring her money, does not serve her in old age, that day she becomes conscious: “I suffered so that my son would feed me in my old age.”
But no mother has ever thought, “I am enduring these pains so that when he grows up my son will feed me.” This is completely false. This is not an original purpose; it is an afterthought—a notion that comes later. But neither the mother knows this fully, nor the son. And we have kept such things hidden away. Neither can the son tell his mother, “You are mistaken; you did not suffer for me,” nor can the mother tell the son the truth: “I did not suffer for you; I suffered for my own reasons. You are not at fault.” If these two points were made clear, sympathy could arise. When a mother says, “I suffered for you,” it does not create sympathy in the son’s heart—only anger. So this goes on and on.
I know a young man who said to his mother, “When did I ever ask you to suffer for me? Was there any agreement? When did I tell you to endure pain for me? If you had asked me, ‘We are going to suffer for you—will you do so many things in return, or not?’ When did I tell you to give birth to me? In a matter in which I was not even a party, you cannot make a claim on me. If I was not a party—if you suffered, you must have suffered out of your own delight; if you bore me, you must have done so out of your own delight. But one day, about a matter in which I was not a party at all, I will be trapped—tomorrow you will file a case against me saying, ‘I did this for you.’”
No—no mother has ever done that, nor is there any question of a claim. But this does not mean I am telling the son to deny his mother. I am not saying that. I am saying that if mothers would drop these claims, sons would be more capable of sympathy. Because mothers make these claims, sons become filled with anger. Anger is bound to arise, for I am being claimed for something to which I never agreed. I never said, “If you educate me, I will bring you money in your old age.” I never said that. Even if this was your expectation, you did not make it explicit to me. Otherwise I would have decided right then: if I must earn and bring it to you, I will study; otherwise I will not study, I will refuse. So when someone says such things, sons do not openly admit, “You are wrong.” Inwardly they think it; outwardly they say, “Yes, it is absolutely true—you suffered greatly for me.” But this only produces anger; sympathy becomes difficult.
In this world, no one suffers for anyone else. If someone is suffering, he is suffering for himself. If we become acquainted with this truth, fathers will be good fathers, mothers will be good mothers, sons will be good sons, wives will be good wives. But we go on deceiving everyone. The son too says to his mother, “You suffered so much for me.” This is utterly false. The mother also says, “I suffered so much for you.” These are fictions, not facts. And because of this we fall into great difficulties. The husband says to his wife, “How much I am suffering for you.” This is false. No one suffers for another.
If you love a woman, you do endure pains for her—because you love her. It is your joy to suffer for her. Nor does any wife suffer for her husband; to endure for the one she loves is her delight. But as long as love is there, these questions do not arise. When love takes leave, the difficulties begin. Then all the questions arise, and we keep bringing up things again and again. The wife says, “I am enduring so much for you,” and the husband says, “I have gone through so many troubles for you.” The day it comes to saying such things, know that love has ended; we have moved outside love.
But man is not truthful. We are never able to tell anyone that we have gone outside love. We do not gather the courage to say, “We are out of love.” From this, much falsehood arises. I am against all kinds of falsehood. And I hold that the more truthful we are about life... there will be a little pain, it will be difficult, because we are all living in lies. If, in the midst of that, a person begins to live a little in truth, at first he will make you very alert, very uneasy. But this is only for a couple of days; that person will himself be at ease, and he will put you at ease as well. And we will understand that the person is right in saying, “The matter is finished.” And it is finished. The more we can be truthful like this, the fewer false assurances we give, and the more we decide on the basis of truth rather than falsehood, the more pleasant it becomes. Then we can have sympathy.
If I love a girl, and truly today it seems to me that I can love her all my life, that is a feeling of this moment. That feeling tells only that at this moment I love her; it tells nothing about the future. It tells only this much: that in the state I am in at this moment, if I can sustain this state for life, it will be blissful. But tomorrow I suddenly find that that feeling has gone—it is no longer there. Then two paths lie before me. One path is that I go on deceiving. The more I deceive this woman, the more my hatred will grow. And the more I continue out of duty, the more the burden on my head will grow. And as the burden grows, hatred will grow, and my urge to deceive...
Osho's Commentary
To begin with, there is no country where Mahatmas have not appeared. But in coming to know of those Mahatmas there are two or three kinds of difficulties. One difficulty is that we know only about our own Mahatmas. If I ask you how many Mahatmas Christianity has produced, ordinarily the name of Jesus will come to mind. Those who know a little more may be able to mention Saint Francis or Augustine. But Christianity has produced thousands of saints of the highest order of whom we have no idea. Exactly in the same way, a Christian has no idea of your Mahatmas. Now the Muslims have produced Sufi faqirs in such abundance that it cannot be counted. Yet we can use one or two names like Rumi...two or four names in that manner. But people arose in their thousands.
In China a class so vast came into being that it is difficult even to estimate it. Yet besides the names of Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Chuang Tzu, even an ordinarily educated man cannot take a fourth name. Japan produced many sannyasins. In some cases it is like this… for example, Thailand. Thailand’s total population today is forty million. And even today there are two million sannyasins. But we have no awareness of this. So the first obstacle is that we do not have knowledge of all the world’s sannyasins. Leave aside distant lands.
If we ask an ordinarily educated Hindu: after Gautam the Buddha, which Mahatmas arose in India among the Buddhas? Forget about outside. Even this an ordinarily educated Hindu cannot answer. If at all any name is taken, perhaps Nagarjuna is one name that only a very educated person could produce. But he will not have heard the name of Vasubandhu; he will not have heard the name of Dignaga; he will not have heard the name of Dharmakirti; nor of Chandrakirti—he will not even have heard these names. And these people are of the same stature as Shankaracharya. But because Shankaracharya belongs to the Hindu tradition you remember his name. Otherwise, the truth is that whatever Shankaracharya said is, all of it, already said by Nagarjuna. The original man is Nagarjuna. But because he was a Buddhist, we forgot him.
If we ask a Hindu: how many Mahatmas have the Jains produced? He will perhaps not be able to name anyone except Mahavira. A Hindu cannot even name the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jains, except for Mahavira. As for the other twenty-three Tirthankaras—who were they? So leave aside foreign lands; we do not even know about those living next door. So many Mahatmas have appeared in the whole world that it is difficult to reckon them. For example, you may have no idea that even today the number of Catholic monks and nuns is twelve lakhs—1.2 million—throughout the world. The number of their sadhus and sadhvis is twelve lakhs, monks and nuns!
So unfamiliarity is the first great difficulty. Now, how many sannyasins have arisen in Tibet? A very educated person may be able to take two names—Marpa and Milarepa. That too, only a very educated person. But even he cannot tell what record there is of the thousands who arose besides them. So unfamiliarity is a very big obstacle. The second obstacle is that in each country the arrangement—the very order—of sannyas is different.
So the one you call your sannyasi—his arrangement is acceptable to you, that he is a sannyasi. Another’s sannyasi has a different arrangement. Now, understand this with the Jains. If someone is a Digambara Jain, he believes that the mark of a Mahatma is that he is naked. So his own Mahatma appears to him to be a Mahatma; another’s does not appear to be a Mahatma, because he does not fit his definition. He must be naked—that is his essential condition. So a Digambara Jain will say: in our religion there have been Mahatmas, but in another’s religion there have not been. He is not even ready to accept the Buddha as a Mahatma, because he wore clothes. He is not ready to accept Krishna as a Mahatma, because he is outside his definition.
Now, in the Jain definition ahimsa is essential. So Krishna is outside his definition, because he caused violence to happen. Ram is outside his definition, because he went to war; Jesus cannot come within his definition, Mohammed cannot come within his definition.
So the second basic difficulty is our definitions of Mahatma. For example, those Hindu Mahatmas who belong to the Vedas and the Upanishads cannot be accepted as Mahatmas by the Jains or the Buddhists, because they are all married. They are with wives. A Jain simply cannot conceive that Lord Ramchandra is standing with Sitaji and people are worshipping them—then how are they Mahatmas? Because in their share, in their definition, being without a wife is indispensable. I am not talking of right or wrong.
Now, a Catholic monk does not appear to you to be a sadhu. Because in the Hindu mind there is the idea that sadhus should wear saffron robes. A Catholic is not wearing saffron robes. If he passes on the road you will not understand that he is a sadhu.
So throughout the world each tradition has its own definition of a sadhu. He lives within that definition. Now take Guru Gobind Singh. A Sikh will accept that he is a Mahatma, but a Jain cannot. Because a Mahatma and a sword—this is beyond his frame. A Mahatma and he fights—beyond understanding. So the second difficulty is definition: whom do you call a Mahatma? And this creates the complication.
There is a third difficulty. And that difficulty is that in some countries the Mahatma is formal, and in some countries he is informal. In some countries the Mahatma is a formal profession—meaning, the man appears separate. His clothing is different, his way of living is different, his manner of life is different. Some countries have not produced formal Mahatmas; their Mahatmas are informal. They live in the home. As others live, he lives; as others walk, he walks; and yet he is a Mahatma. Then we are in still greater difficulty. For example, among the Sufis there are thousands whose stature is the same as that of some Shankaracharya, some Ramanandacharya. But some Sufi is a cobbler! And he keeps doing a cobbler’s work his whole life. Formally he never announces himself a Mahatma. Kabir, for instance, went on weaving his cloth. Formally he never became a Mahatma.
So the third trouble is this: where there are formal Mahatmas, in those lands they are visible. And where they are not formal—where they are dissolved, blended into life—in those lands they are not visible. Now if a man is wearing saffron robes, we will say, he is a Mahatma; if a man is wearing the clothing of the Jains, we will say he is a Mahatma; if that man is wearing coat and trousers, he will cease to be a Mahatma.
But what opposition is there between coat and trousers and being a Mahatma?
There is none—none at all—because being a Mahatma is a matter of inner quality. What you are wearing has no connection with it.
So these are all the difficulties. Because of these difficulties, every country has the facility to assume that Mahatmas happened here and not elsewhere. The second point is this: I do not accept that. Mahatmas have appeared all over the world. Because being a Mahatma is just like being a poet; just like being a painter; just like being a sculptor; a musician, a dancer. Being a Mahatma is some hidden capacity within the human being. It will manifest everywhere. What forms will it take?
They will be different. For example, Ramakrishna. Now, in Bengal Ramakrishna eats fish, and Vivekananda eats fish. And it never occurred to anyone—even outside Bengal all accepted them—that eating fish could be opposed to being a Mahatma. When Vivekananda first came out, then he came to know that this is a difficult matter. Because a Mahatma who eats fish—this becomes a bit difficult. These are troublesome considerations, but they have nothing to do with it. They have nothing to do with it.
We cannot even think that Jesus—and he drank wine? But in the country where Jesus lived, wine was an ordinary beverage. It was no sin. The idea would never even occur to him. We cannot even think that Mahavira or Buddha would drink wine. And if Mahavira were to drink wine, no one would be ready to accept him as a Mahatma. Because of all these difficulties, such differences appear to be there—they are not.
The second point is that the notion that India is more spiritual than other countries is an illusion. Spirituality is a dimension of every human being. One can move in it. And people have moved in it everywhere, all over the world. We can say only this much: that our emphasis on spirituality has perhaps been a little more than others’. They did not place as much emphasis on other dimensions of life as we placed on spirituality. The difference is of emphasis. The difference is not fundamental. It is a difference of emphasis. It is not that we are more spiritual.
We have held the most insistent attitude toward making life spiritual. No one else has insisted so much. And its result has been the reverse. The result has not been that we became spiritual; the result is that we became hypocrites. In truth, if too much emphasis is placed on any one thing, hypocrisy is born.
Suppose there is a society in which ten poets are born. Fine—poets are born—we accept it. But if some illusion grips a society that in our country everyone must be a poet, then false poets will be born in that country. Because being a poet is a capacity of the individual. But if you make certain that being a poet is necessary, then some people will become poets…not poets, only versifiers.
So my own understanding is that emphasis has not made India spiritual, rather it has produced false spirituality. Spirituality is one part of life, and some people will undertake the journey in it. But this struggle should remain non-emphatic. Then only those will go who ought to go. Otherwise, if you place too much emphasis, those will also go who should not go. And with great emphasis it may also happen that those who ought to go will hold back—because they will feel this is a whole commotion. “Let us hide in our homes and quietly do what needs to be done.”
Because of this, India has suffered harm, not benefit. In India thousands have become sannyasins who are thoroughly worldly. They have gone and made even sannyas into the world. A man runs away leaving his home. And if only a madness to become a sannyasi has mounted him—if sannyas is not his actual state—then he will go and set up an ashram. And in the ashram the same commotions will begin on a large scale that used to happen in the home on a small scale. If at home he kept money in a safe, in the ashram he will begin to accumulate property as well. If at home he litigated over land, he will also fight litigation for the land of the ashram. The man is the same—wherever he goes, he himself goes. He will carry all of himself there, and there all the commotions will begin.
Now is it not a great joke that Shankaracharyajis are present in court over land, and two Shankaracharyas occupy one and the same gaddi. And both declare, “I am the real one.” Then the High Court decides who is real. Now the real joke is this: the day it has to be decided by the High Court who the real sannyasi is—and when these two men go to get it decided in the High Court—then I say, the one who is a real sannyasi among them will run away. He will say, “Yes, I am not a sannyasi.” Because they will go to get it decided by the High Court?