every child is born innocent and brings with him a great message of the whole every child is a messenger of good tidings every child is a christ but before he can deliver the message we destroy it before he can utter a single word we start stuffing his mind with our cunningness before his heart opens and releases its fragrance we divert his energies from the heart to the head -- and the head is never innocent t is always calculating, cunning; it is a cheat the heart is always innocent hence only the heart can be in connection with the divine not the head the head is good in the marketplace but not in the temple but people who are full of the head are dominating the temples also
man has completely forgotten his heart his heartfulness, his innocence, his purity and the message that he had come to deliver
my effort here is to give you again the same innocence that you had before society sabotaged it before the society entered you and disrupted your whole inner being and nature
sannyas is not an effort to achieve some goal on the contrary it is a re-entry into the source
the white lily has a certain beauty, a certain grace which is unique because the white lily is very poor in every way it is not as rich as the rose not as rich as the lotus these are like kings and queens the white lily is very ordinary but In its ordinariness it has something
its very ordinariness, its simplicity its humbleness, its nobodiness is its source of grace it is unpretentious, it has no ego
the rose may have an ego -- it can afford it the white lily is just a nothingness and whenever one is in a nothingness grace arises grace is the by-product of being nobody of being just ordinary i exalt ordinariness because it is the source of all that is really beautiful, graceful, divine once you become nobody you become innocent
the very effort to be somebody makes people cunning and political the moment you drop the ambition to be somebody then all foolishness, then all idiocy then all egoistic desires are dropped simultaneously and suddenly there is an explosion of grace
and that grace has to be the flavour of my sannyasins
aristocracy can be defined in two ways one is the mundane aristocracy which is confined to a noble birth it is not of much value it has no spiritual significance but aristocracy can also be defined as a spiritual birth, a second birth the first birth is physiological -- aristocratic or not, it is the same the second birth happens only to those who are really innocent and who prepare for innocence who are ready to receive the gift from the beyond who are receptive that's what i mean by innocence a preparation
the first aristocracy is cunning it is part of a long exploitation one is born in a royal family -- that simply means one is born in a family of murderers, dacoits, criminals the longer the history of the family the bigger is their crime for thousands of years they have exploited people oppressed people, tortured people
their aristocracy is full of blood, it is ugly it is nothing to brag about it is something to be ashamed about
but when you are born anew through silence, innocence awareness, meditativeness when you give birth to yourself -- which has nothing to do with the past or your parents or history when it is your individual creativity, receptivity when you are individually involved with existence when you respond to existence without any ambition, desire, demand when you are open, available, like a mirror when in your innocence existence starts reflecting itself as it is without any distortion you are born anew that is real aristocracy
a sannyasin has to be an aristocrat but with my meaning
the word innocent is very significant to me it is a state of not-knowing the knowledgeable person is not innocent he cannot be: he already knows and that very knowing gives him the ego
knowledge is the most subtle nourishment for the ego far more than money, power, prestige because power can be taken away one day you are a napoleon another day you are a prisoner the power is not something very stable you cannot rely upon it one day you are rich the next day you are just a beggar
respectability can be lost very easily because it depends on other's opinions their opinions may change and they do change every day the man who was the prime minister of russia before the revolution, kerensky -- everybody has forgotten about him nobody even remembers his name he was the most significant man in russia before lenin then suddenly it were as if he disappeared after fifty years it became known that he was a grocer in new york and he died as a grocer when he died then the world became aware that kerensky had been alive for fifty years otherwise nobody had even taken any note of where he had gone, of what had happened to him
but knowledge is far more subtle it cannot be stolen, nobody can destroy it nobody ,can take it away from you it is far more significant for the ego than anything else hence the greatest problem in becoming innocent is the dropping of knowledge money can be dropped, power can be dropped prestige can be dropped respectability can be renounced but knowledge -- one clings to it
i have seen people who have renounced the world they have gone to the mountains and still they are hindus, mohammedans, christians i asked them, you have renounced the world but you have not renounced the knowledge that the world had given to you what kind of renunciation is this? you are still a christian? -- then how can you say you have renounced the world? you say you have renounced your parents, your wife, your children but you have not renounced all the nonsense that they have given to you you are still carrying it with you
they were not even aware of the fact that something of the world goes on inside them
knowledge is the penetration of the world within you and to drop it is the real renunciation so i don't say renounce the world i only say renounce knowledgeability the moment you renounce knowlegeability you are again a child and to be a child again is to be a sage a real sage, who knows nothing because he knows nothing he is full of wonder because he knows nothing his eyes are full of awe because he knows nothing everything surprises him now each moment is mysterious and miraculous
that's my way the way of innocence, the way of not-knowing the way of living in a mystery moment to moment and one has to remember that knowledge accumulates every day it is like dust gathering on the mirror even in the night when nothing is happening the mirror is gathering dust even in the night when nothing is being learned your mind is gathering dust through dreams, nightmares, fantasies so one has to be constantly cleaning each moment one has to die to the past so all that has been accumulated
up to that moment, is dropped -- again you are fresh, young, alive, childlike, innocent and then the whole world is yours then all the joys of it are yours then life is an eternal ecstasy then life is poetry, music then life is beauty, benediction all that is significant happens in innocence
the Sound of one hand Clapping
the eternal music is heard when there is nobody as a knower
when there is nobody, not even as an observer when one simply participates when the observer becomes the observed when you see the rainbow you are not there separate from it you become it when you see a beautiful sunset you are it it is the mind that divides when you see the sky full of stars it is within you, you are within it there is no distinction, no demarcation no fencing around you it is a dissolution, a melting, a merging a deep orgasmic unity and that is the very foundation of my message
the so-called saints i don't count as sages the so-called saints live a structured life according to certain prescriptions of others they are basically slaves they are performing certain rituals but doing it efficiently hence the people who believe in those rituals will call them saints so a christian saint may not be thought of as a saint by the hindus because their rituals differ their definitions differ
for example, no hindu has ever thought that saints should go and serve the poor -- that has not been part of their definition a saint has to be served he is not to be a servant a saint being a servant is sacrilege to the hindu but to the christian the saint is one who serves the poor, the down-trodden
there are three hundred religions in the world and three hundred definitions of saints all those definitions are manufactured according to certain tradition certain scripture, certain ideology and the man who lives according to such traditions ideologies and scriptures is not really a man what to say about his being a saint? -- he is not even a man he is just a robot; he has no guts
the sage is rebellious he is always outrageous to the traditional mind no tradition will respect him it cannot, because he will not fit with anybody's expectations and he does not care either a real sage lives in such joy who bothers whether people respect you or insult you? whether they crown you or crucify you? it doesn't matter, not in the least
a sage is one who lives according to his own innocent heart not according to anybody else's dictates it is an individual rebellion and only through individual rebellion do you attain to the ultimate soul the ultimate flowering of your being
be innocent that means be without any traditional garbage and be a rebel that means risk everything to be an individual and if one can gather that much courage then only does something meaningful happen in life otherwise it is just a long, long, slow suicide not life at all
it is possible only for the child to attain union with the whole because the child has not yet grown a hard core around himself he is flexible he has not yet got encapsulated in an ego but the way society exists, no child can manage it
because the child is helpless he depends on the parents and the parents are either christian hindus, mohammedans communists, fascists and what not and they are bound to stuff their nonsense into the mind of the child the child Is the most exploited person In the world
but there is a possibility it is the only possibility that later on when you become a little more independent when you can stand on your own feet you can discard all that has been forced upon you you can again become a child and that is the beginning of sannyas becoming a child again is the greatest experience in life
and then the second thing is very simple if you can discard the boundaries suddenly the dewdrop slips into the ocean and becomes the ocean or vice versa is also true the ocean slips into the dewdrop and becomes the dewdrop that meeting is called yoga and one who attains that union is a yogi
so don't go for the cheap third-rate definitions of a yogi somebody standing on his head thinks he is a yogi he is just stupid somebody distorting and contorting his body and doing gymnastics thinks he is doing yoga he is just deceiving himself by all these gymnastics one cannot attain to the ultimate union the only way to attain to that union is through innocence innocence is the door to god and there is no other door, remember
mind can never be contented that is not its nature its very working is through discontent mind means asking for more and more and more ad infinitum the mind is a beggar the mind is a bowl of a beggar and not an ordinary bowl either it has no bottom in it so you go on dropping things into it and they go on disappearing and the bowl remains as empty as ever
but the heart is an emperor because the heart already contains the kingdom of god within it it never asks for more -- it cannot ask because there is not anything more possible than it has already got
to know one's heart is to become contented utterly contented but to know the heart one has to become innocent one was born innocent hence one can again become innocent it is just a rediscovery of one's real nature it is not something that has to be achieved it is not far away it is just inside us, covered with junk that junk can be removed and it is so simple to remove it once you recognise it as junk the very recognition that it is all rubbish is enough and you start shovelling it away and the moment you discover your innocent core you have discovered the ultimate treasure of life call it god, nirvana. enlightenment but those are all words in fact it is so vast that it cannot be contained in any word at all
the sannyasin has to make just a small trip from the head to the heart
from the artificial to the natural from the arbitrary to the spontaneous from the social to the individual
i throw my sannyasins from their collective mind to their individual core and that to me is the greatest revolution no other revolution can be compared with it because it is only through this revolution that you attain a transcendental, ecstatic existence that you go beyond death that you go beyond time that for the first time you experience the eternal and that very experience is the whole purpose of life the whole and the sole purpose of life
we are living in a bondage of course the bondage is very subtle the walls of the prison are not outside you hence you cannot see them they are within you they have been implanted inside your skin but they are keeping your soul in a cage so you walk you go from one place to another place nobody prevents you and you never see that there are chains on your hands that there are guards who will not allow you to go beyond a certain boundary hence there is an illusory kind of freedom one goes on believing that one is free but the society has learned very cunning methods through millions of years of time
they have found ways to chain you from inside not with iron chains but by thought chains not with iron walls but by ideologies scriptures, philosophies, theologies, religions they have nailed you within and the most cunning thing is that they have put you on guard they call it conscience if you start doing something against what they want you to do somebody inside you, a voice says don't do it that is not your voice that is the voice of the collective mind and you feel afraid you feel as if god has spoken to you as if god is preventing you it is just a social trick, a very crafty phenomenon
it is not your conscience it has nothing to do with god but the society goes on manipulating you from within don't do this, don't do that, do this even against yourself you go on doing things and even if you want to do certain things you don't do them because the conscience prevents you and you believe that the conscience is yours
that is the first thing to be dropped by a sannyasin the conscience is not yours, it is your prison
the conscience is nothing but slavery once you drop your conscience then you discover your consciousness hidden behind the prison of conscience is the freedom of consciousness -- and consciousness is innocent the moment you discover your consciousness you discover your freedom and to know freedom is to know the greatest joy in life
meditation is only a method of undoing what the society has done to you sannyas is a change of gestalt from conscience to consciousness and the method is meditation
the society has used mind as the method to remove you from consciousness to conscience what i am trying to do here is just the opposite of it, the very reverse of it using meditation as a process of shifting you back towards your original nature towards your original face from conscience to consciousness from bondage to freedom
the innocent person does not have to cultivate simplicity if it is cultivated it is false anything cultivated is always false let that be a criterion to judge by never cultivate anything simplicity, humbleness, compassion, love, purity -- if you cultivate them you are creating something arbitrary they are not to be cultivated seek and search for the innocent within you seek for the source
that you had come with into the world go back to that original point
the moment you touch the original point of your being something starts radiating many rays start arising out of that centre those rays will contain the whole spectrum of simplicity, compassion love, joy, beauty, grace, godliness but they all come as a by-product as consequences of discovering one's own being
hence i don't give you any discipline i simply give you an insight into your being -- and that's enough the function of the master is fulfilled if he can give you the insight to see your spontaneous nature then everything else follows of its own accord and when things come of their own accord they have tremendous beauty then there is grace and grandeur and something of the virgin beyond
Osho's Commentary
and brings with him a great message of the whole
every child is a messenger of good tidings
every child is a christ
but before he can deliver the message
we destroy it
before he can utter a single word
we start stuffing his mind with our cunningness
before his heart opens and releases its fragrance
we divert his energies from the heart to the head --
and the head is never innocent
t is always calculating, cunning; it is a cheat
the heart is always innocent
hence only the heart can be in
connection with the divine
not the head
the head is good in the marketplace
but not in the temple
but people who are full of the head
are dominating the temples also
man has completely forgotten his heart
his heartfulness, his innocence, his purity
and the message that he had come to deliver
my effort here
is to give you again the same innocence
that you had before society sabotaged it
before the society entered you
and disrupted your whole inner being and nature
sannyas is not an effort to achieve some goal
on the contrary
it is a re-entry into the source
the white lily
has a certain beauty, a certain grace
which is unique
because the white lily is very poor in every way
it is not as rich as the rose
not as rich as the lotus
these are like kings and queens
the white lily is very ordinary
but In its ordinariness it has something
its very ordinariness, its simplicity
its humbleness, its nobodiness
is its source of grace
it is unpretentious, it has no ego
the rose may have an ego -- it can afford it
the white lily is just a nothingness
and whenever one is in a nothingness
grace arises
grace is the by-product of being nobody
of being just ordinary
i exalt ordinariness
because it is the source of all
that is really beautiful, graceful, divine
once you become nobody you become innocent
the very effort to be somebody
makes people cunning and political
the moment you drop the ambition to be somebody
then all foolishness, then all idiocy
then all egoistic desires are dropped simultaneously
and suddenly there is an explosion of grace
and that grace has to be the flavour
of my sannyasins
aristocracy can be defined in two ways
one is the mundane aristocracy
which is confined to a noble birth
it is not of much value
it has no spiritual significance
but aristocracy can also be defined
as a spiritual birth, a second birth
the first birth is physiological --
aristocratic or not, it is the same
the second birth happens only to those who are
really innocent and who prepare for innocence
who are ready to receive the gift from the beyond
who are receptive
that's what i mean by innocence
a preparation
the first aristocracy is cunning
it is part of a long exploitation
one is born in a royal family --
that simply means one is born in a family
of murderers, dacoits, criminals
the longer the history of the family
the bigger is their crime
for thousands of years they have exploited people
oppressed people, tortured people
their aristocracy is full of blood, it is ugly
it is nothing to brag about
it is something to be ashamed about
but when you are born anew
through silence, innocence
awareness, meditativeness
when you give birth to yourself --
which has nothing to do with the past
or your parents or history
when it is your individual creativity, receptivity
when you are individually involved with existence
when you respond to existence
without any ambition, desire, demand
when you are open, available, like a mirror
when in your innocence
existence starts reflecting itself as it is
without any distortion
you are born anew
that is real aristocracy
a sannyasin has to be an aristocrat
but with my meaning
the word innocent is very significant to me
it is a state of not-knowing
the knowledgeable person is not innocent
he cannot be: he already knows
and that very knowing gives him the ego
knowledge is the most subtle nourishment
for the ego
far more than money, power, prestige
because power can be taken away
one day you are a napoleon
another day you are a prisoner
the power is not something very stable
you cannot rely upon it
one day you are rich
the next day you are just a beggar
respectability can be lost very easily
because it depends on other's opinions
their opinions may change
and they do change every day
the man who was the prime minister of russia
before the revolution, kerensky --
everybody has forgotten about him
nobody even remembers his name
he was the most significant man in russia
before lenin
then suddenly it were as if he disappeared
after fifty years it became known
that he was a grocer in new york
and he died as a grocer
when he died then the world became aware
that kerensky had been alive for fifty years
otherwise nobody had even taken any note
of where he had gone, of what had happened to him
but knowledge is far more subtle
it cannot be stolen, nobody can destroy it
nobody ,can take it away from you
it is far more significant for the ego
than anything else
hence the greatest problem in becoming innocent
is the dropping of knowledge
money can be dropped, power can be dropped
prestige can be dropped
respectability can be renounced
but knowledge -- one clings to it
i have seen people who have renounced the world
they have gone to the mountains
and still they are hindus, mohammedans, christians
i asked them, you have renounced the world
but you have not renounced the knowledge
that the world had given to you
what kind of renunciation is this?
you are still a christian? --
then how can you say
you have renounced the world?
you say you have renounced
your parents, your wife, your children
but you have not renounced all the nonsense
that they have given to you
you are still carrying it with you
they were not even aware of the fact
that something of the world goes on inside them
knowledge is the penetration of the world within you
and to drop it is the real renunciation
so i don't say renounce the world
i only say renounce knowledgeability
the moment you renounce knowlegeability
you are again a child
and to be a child again is to be a sage
a real sage, who knows nothing
because he knows nothing he is full of wonder
because he knows nothing his eyes are full of awe
because he knows nothing everything surprises him
now each moment is mysterious and miraculous
that's my way
the way of innocence, the way of not-knowing
the way of living in a mystery moment to moment
and one has to remember
that knowledge accumulates every day
it is like dust gathering on the mirror
even in the night when nothing is happening
the mirror is gathering dust
even in the night when nothing is being learned
your mind is gathering dust
through dreams, nightmares, fantasies
so one has to be constantly cleaning
each moment one has to die to the past
so all that has been accumulated
up to that moment, is dropped --
again you are fresh, young, alive, childlike, innocent
and then the whole world is yours
then all the joys of it are yours
then life is an eternal ecstasy
then life is poetry, music
then life is beauty, benediction
all that is significant happens in innocence
the Sound
of one hand
Clapping
the eternal music is heard
when there is nobody as a knower
when there is nobody, not even as an observer
when one simply participates
when the observer becomes the observed
when you see the rainbow
you are not there separate from it
you become it
when you see a beautiful sunset you are it
it is the mind that divides
when you see the sky full of stars
it is within you, you are within it
there is no distinction, no demarcation
no fencing around you
it is a dissolution, a melting, a merging
a deep orgasmic unity
and that is the very foundation of my message
the so-called saints i don't count as sages
the so-called saints live a structured life
according to certain prescriptions of others
they are basically slaves
they are performing certain rituals
but doing it efficiently
hence the people who believe in those rituals
will call them saints
so a christian saint
may not be thought of as a saint by the hindus
because their rituals differ
their definitions differ
for example, no hindu has ever thought
that saints should go and serve the poor --
that has not been part of their definition
a saint has to be served
he is not to be a servant
a saint being a servant is sacrilege to the hindu
but to the christian the saint is one
who serves the poor, the down-trodden
there are three hundred religions in the world
and three hundred definitions of saints
all those definitions are manufactured
according to certain tradition
certain scripture, certain ideology
and the man who lives
according to such traditions
ideologies and scriptures
is not really a man
what to say about his being a saint? --
he is not even a man
he is just a robot; he has no guts
the sage is rebellious
he is always outrageous to the traditional mind
no tradition will respect him
it cannot, because he will not fit
with anybody's expectations
and he does not care either
a real sage lives in such joy
who bothers whether people respect you
or insult you?
whether they crown you or crucify you?
it doesn't matter, not in the least
a sage is one
who lives according to his own innocent heart
not according to anybody else's dictates
it is an individual rebellion
and only through individual rebellion
do you attain to the ultimate soul
the ultimate flowering of your being
be innocent
that means be without any traditional garbage
and be a rebel
that means risk everything to be an individual
and if one can gather that much courage
then only does something meaningful happen in life
otherwise it is just a long, long, slow suicide
not life at all
it is possible only for the child
to attain union with the whole
because the child
has not yet grown a hard core around himself
he is flexible
he has not yet got encapsulated in an ego
but the way society exists, no child can manage it
because the child is helpless
he depends on the parents
and the parents are either christian
hindus, mohammedans
communists, fascists and what not
and they are bound to stuff their nonsense
into the mind of the child
the child Is the most exploited person In the world
but there is a possibility
it is the only possibility
that later on
when you become a little more independent
when you can stand on your own feet
you can discard all that has been forced upon you
you can again become a child
and that is the beginning of sannyas
becoming a child again
is the greatest experience in life
and then the second thing is very simple
if you can discard the boundaries
suddenly the dewdrop slips into the ocean
and becomes the ocean
or vice versa is also true
the ocean slips into the dewdrop
and becomes the dewdrop
that meeting is called yoga
and one who attains that union is a yogi
so don't go for the cheap
third-rate definitions of a yogi
somebody standing on his head
thinks he is a yogi
he is just stupid
somebody distorting and contorting his body
and doing gymnastics
thinks he is doing yoga
he is just deceiving himself
by all these gymnastics
one cannot attain to the ultimate union
the only way to attain to that union
is through innocence
innocence is the door to god
and there is no other door, remember
mind can never be contented
that is not its nature
its very working is through discontent
mind means asking for more and more and more
ad infinitum
the mind is a beggar
the mind is a bowl of a beggar
and not an ordinary bowl either
it has no bottom in it
so you go on dropping things into it
and they go on disappearing
and the bowl remains as empty as ever
but the heart is an emperor
because the heart already contains
the kingdom of god within it
it never asks for more -- it cannot ask
because there is not anything more possible
than it has already got
to know one's heart is to become contented
utterly contented
but to know the heart one has to become innocent
one was born innocent
hence one can again become innocent
it is just a rediscovery of one's real nature
it is not something that has to be achieved
it is not far away
it is just inside us, covered with junk
that junk can be removed
and it is so simple to remove it
once you recognise it as junk
the very recognition that it is all rubbish is enough
and you start shovelling it away
and the moment you discover your innocent core
you have discovered the ultimate treasure of life
call it god, nirvana. enlightenment
but those are all words
in fact it is so vast
that it cannot be contained in any word at all
the sannyasin has to make just a small trip
from the head to the heart
from the artificial to the natural
from the arbitrary to the spontaneous
from the social to the individual
i throw my sannyasins from their collective mind
to their individual core
and that to me is the greatest revolution
no other revolution can be compared with it
because it is only through this revolution
that you attain
a transcendental, ecstatic existence
that you go beyond death
that you go beyond time
that for the first time you experience the eternal
and that very experience is the whole purpose of life
the whole and the sole purpose of life
we are living in a bondage
of course the bondage is very subtle
the walls of the prison are not outside you
hence you cannot see them
they are within you
they have been implanted inside your skin
but they are keeping your soul in a cage
so you walk
you go from one place to another place
nobody prevents you
and you never see
that there are chains on your hands
that there are guards
who will not allow you to go beyond
a certain boundary
hence there is an illusory kind of freedom
one goes on believing that one is free
but the society has learned very cunning methods
through millions of years of time
they have found ways to chain you from inside
not with iron chains but by thought chains
not with iron walls but by ideologies
scriptures, philosophies, theologies, religions
they have nailed you within
and the most cunning thing
is that they have put you on guard
they call it conscience
if you start doing something
against what they want you to do
somebody inside you, a voice says
don't do it
that is not your voice
that is the voice of the collective mind
and you feel afraid
you feel as if god has spoken to you
as if god is preventing you
it is just a social trick, a very crafty phenomenon
it is not your conscience
it has nothing to do with god
but the society goes on manipulating you
from within
don't do this, don't do that, do this
even against yourself you go on doing things
and even if you want to do certain things
you don't do them because
the conscience prevents you
and you believe that the conscience is yours
that is the first thing to be dropped
by a sannyasin
the conscience is not yours, it is your prison
the conscience is nothing but slavery
once you drop your conscience
then you discover your consciousness
hidden behind the prison of conscience
is the freedom of consciousness --
and consciousness is innocent
the moment you discover your consciousness
you discover your freedom
and to know freedom
is to know the greatest joy in life
meditation is only a method
of undoing what the society has done to you
sannyas is a change of gestalt
from conscience to consciousness
and the method is meditation
the society has used mind as the method
to remove you from consciousness to conscience
what i am trying to do here
is just the opposite of it, the very reverse of it
using meditation as a process of shifting you
back towards your original nature
towards your original face
from conscience to consciousness
from bondage to freedom
the innocent person
does not have to cultivate simplicity
if it is cultivated it is false
anything cultivated is always false
let that be a criterion to judge by
never cultivate anything
simplicity, humbleness, compassion, love, purity --
if you cultivate them
you are creating something arbitrary
they are not to be cultivated
seek and search for the innocent within you
seek for the source
that you had come with into the world
go back to that original point
the moment you touch
the original point of your being
something starts radiating
many rays start arising out of that centre
those rays will contain
the whole spectrum of simplicity, compassion
love, joy, beauty, grace, godliness
but they all come as a by-product
as consequences of discovering one's own being
hence i don't give you any discipline
i simply give you an insight into your being --
and that's enough
the function of the master is fulfilled
if he can give you the insight
to see your spontaneous nature
then everything else follows of its own accord
and when things come of their own accord
they have tremendous beauty
then there is grace and grandeur
and something of the virgin beyond