Follow shared rules when with others, but when alone relax and be your natural self so no one is hurt and you stay free inside.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
This is a marxist, a christian theologian's question -- so many diseases together!
IN TRADITIONAL CHINA THERE WAS A SAYING,'CONFUCIAN IN OFFICE, TAOIST OUT OF OFFICE.' THIS REPRESENTED A DEEP DIVISION AND DILEMMA IN CHINESE SOCIETY, PERHAPS ALL SOCIETIES. CAN THERE BE AN ENLIGHTENED SOCIETY WHICH DOES NOT TEACH THE WAY OF THE EGO? OR IS SOCIETY BY NATURE OF ITS VERY ORDERED AND PATTERNED REALITY OF THE CALCULATING AND REPRESSIVE COLLECTIVE MIND OR EGO; IS SOCIETY, EVEN THAT OF ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUALS OR WOULD-BE ENLIGHTENED INDIVIDUALS, BY ITS VERY NATURE, OPPOSED TO ENLIGHTENMENT? First, the old saying is perfectly beautiful: A Taoist out of office, and a Confucian in the office. When you live with people, you have to follow certain rules. Those rules have no ultimacy about them; they are rules of a game. For example: if you walk on the road you have to walk to the right or to the left, as the society has decided. If you start walking…
Rajneesh ashram is operated with confucian and scientific attitudes and processes (planning, budgeting, accounting, rules, regulations). Would it be appropriate to acknowledge confucius and western science as part of the tao, and thereby spiritual?
Tao is vast -- science can be included in it. But science is not vast and Tao cannot be included in it. Science is a part of the vast mystery of life. If you take science as a part, then there is nothing wrong; but science pretends, claims, that it is the whole, thereby everything goes wrong. Exactly the same is the situation with intellect, calculation, arithmetic. Nothing is wrong with intellect if it functions as a part and does not start claiming 'I am the whole'. When the intellect claims 'I am the whole', then there is trouble. When the intellect says 'I am just a part of a vast entity, of a huge entity, and I do my work -- beyond that I don't know what is going on', then there is no problem. I am not against intellect as such. I am against the intellect which claims…
Tzu kung grew weary of study and told confucius 'I want to find rest.' 'there is no rest for the living.' 'then shall I never find it?' 'you shall. Look forward to the lofty and domed mound of your tomb and know where you shall find rest.' 'great is death! The gentleman finds rest in it, the mean man submits to it!' 'tzu kung, you have understood. All men understand the joy of being alive, but not its misery, the weariness of growing old, but not its ease, the ugliness of death, but not its repose.'
Now this standpoint -- that there is no rest for the living is based on a certain philosophy: that life is struggle, that life is action. that life is conflict, that life is a war to survive -- how can you rest? The same philosophy has become predominant in the West: Darwin, the philosophy of the survival of the fittest', and Nietzsche, 'the will to power'. Confucius is deeply understood in the West; he is a Western man. He was born in the East, but he is not Eastern at all. His attitude towards life is that of activity. It is a yang attitude, a male attitude -- fight, conflict, struggle, conquer, prove your will. You are here to prove your will, you have to show the world that you are somebody. You have to leave a mark on history, otherwise your life is meaningless. You have to compete, you…
On the decline of the great tao, the doctrines of humanity and justice arose. When knowledge and cleverness appeared, great hypocrisy followed in its wake. When the six relationships no longer lived at peace, there was (praise of) 'kind parents' and 'filial sons'. When a country fell into chaos and misrule, there was praise of 'loyal ministers'!
All good people ale dependent on bad people; and all bad people are dependent on good people. They are interdependent no one is independent. This dependence is hard to understand because since time immemorial, man has desired that goodness should prevail and there should be no evil, that there should be intelligent people and not dullards; that people should be moral and not immoral. We have always desired that there be light and more light. and darkness be banished forever. We have always wanted life without death, and happiness without unhappiness. All our efforts have been in vain says Lao Tzu, and they are bound to be. The more a man craves happiness, the more miserable he becomes. He who does not crave happiness finds unhappiness avoiding him. You can only escape unhappiness by not desiring happiness. If the craving for happiness is very strong, unhappiness increases to the same…
Confucius was looking at the cataract at luliang. It falls from a height of two hundred feet, and its foam reaches fifteen miles away. No scaly finny creature could survive therein.
YET CONFUCIUS SAW AN OLD MAN GO IN. THINKING THE OLD MAN WAS SUFFERING FROM SOME TROUBLE AND WAS THEREFORE DESIROUS OF ENDING HIS LIFE, CONFUCIUS BADE A DISCIPLE RUN ALONG THE BANK TO TRY TO SAVE HIM. THE OLD MAN EMERGED ABOUT A HUNDRED PACES OFF, AND WITH FLOWING HAIR, HE WENT CAROLING ALONG THE BANK. CONFUCIUS FOLLOWED HIM, AND WHEN HE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM HE SAID: I HAD THOUGHT, SIR, YOU WERE A SPIRIT, BUT NOW I SEE YOU ARE A MAN. KINDLY TELL ME, IS THERE ANY WAY TO DEAL THUS WITH THE WATER? NO, REPLIED THE MAN, I HAVE NO WAY; PLUNGING IN WITH THE WHIRL, I COME OUT WITH THE SWIRL. I ACCOMMODATE MYSELF TO THE WATER, NOT THE WATER TO ME. AND SO I AM ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT AFTER THIS FASHION. Falling in love means that now there is no way,…