How to be free of the evils surrounding the mind?

Another friend has asked in this regard: the mind gets surrounded by evils; how to be free of them?

Second point: why proceed with the notion “I must get rid of it”? Whoever holds “I must get rid of it” will never be rid of it. To say “I must get rid of it” means the verdict is already in: it is bondage, slavery. You begin from a decision; begin from impartiality. Decision should be the last thing—after knowing. But we are strange people: like the cheating schoolchildren who, when given a math problem, flip the book to the back to see the answer first. They see the conclusion first; then there is no need to learn the method. And another’s answer cannot become your answer. Cheating schoolchildren can be forgiven; but our entire society is cheating. We begin our lives with other people’s conclusions, and then the method is never undertaken. The mathematics Mahavira did, Buddha did, Krishna did—we don’t want to do. We flip the Gita to…

Osho, you have earlier said, “Live moment to moment, live in the present.” Now you are saying, “Return to the past.” What should we do?

So it is with the mind—there are ruts. The past means endless grooves. However much you understand, your intellect agrees, you make decisions, you resolve—at the moment of resolve you feel something is going to change. But not even an hour passes before your decision breaks. Then only self-condemnation is produced, nothing else. Your saints, your fakirs, your priests and pundits—most of the time they only succeed in producing self-condemnation in you, nothing else. Their words are logically correct. You cannot even say they are wrong; you have to admit they are right. In that admission you take a decision. But against what are you deciding? Inside are grooves carved since who knows when, deep tracks. Walking in them has become a habit. It is easy to walk in them. They will pull you again and again. The meaning of returning into the past is: these grooves must be erased.…

Osho, yesterday you described the cathartic practice of pillow‑beating to release anger. In the same way, what practices should be done for the cessation of lust, greed, attachment, and ego? Please shed some light on these.

The friend I mentioned yesterday—today his companion told me he actually pulled out a knife and ripped the pillow to shreds. I hadn’t even suggested that! It makes us laugh: how can someone stab a pillow? But when we can rip a living person apart, we don’t laugh—so what’s the difficulty in slicing a pillow? When someone tears a living person, the “juice” is in the tearing itself; the person is incidental. That same juice can arise with a pillow. In fact, more so—because with a pillow you need impose no limits at all. So shut yourself in your room, and when your root “disease” wants to show itself, let it show. Consider this meditation. Let it come out in every pore of your being. Shout, jump, do whatever is happening—let it happen. And watch from behind—you will even feel like laughing. You will be surprised: “I can do this?”…

Osho, since evil exists, how can we eradicate it by meditation alone?

It is like someone saying: There is illness—how will we get rid of it by merely taking medicine? Show me some direct way to remove the illness. A man says, I have a cough, a cold, a fever; I have TB, cancer. The doctor hands him a bottle. The man says, Have you gone mad? Here I am dying of cancer and you hand me a bottle? What will this bottle do? He says, I am dying of cancer and you give me red-colored water to hold? What will this red-colored water do? But it does not occur to him that cancer or disease is not going to be pulled out and placed outside directly. To remove cancer or illness, to bring about a change, something opposite has to be introduced. We are ill; by applying what is opposite to the illness, the illness will be cut off. It is…

Pragya has asked: “You and all the saints say the same...”

I don’t know about all the saints, because among your so‑called saints most are not saints at all. Out of a hundred of your saints, perhaps one is a saint; the other ninety‑nine are as sick as you are—and often far more chronically sick. But you understand the language of those ninety‑nine, because they speak the language of your disease. The one who is a real saint—you don’t understand his language. I am choosing to speak about those few, those one‑in‑a‑hundred saints, so I can sift for you who the real saints are. There are too many non‑saints; they’re not worth counting. I keep speaking on saints. They are not many. Your “all saints” are not saints—and certainly Pragya’s “all saints” cannot be. For her, those she calls saints will be the sick and deranged—because her mind, her way of thinking, her chain of logic is repression: anti‑body, anti‑world. “You…