Asharan

Osho, Mahavira preached asharan—seek no refuge—and yet he also made disciples. Are these two not mutually contradictory?

They look contradictory; they are not. And whoever has been a truly awakened being in this world will always appear paradoxical. Life is paradoxical, so whoever mirrors life in its suchness will also appear paradoxical. Only the pundit is not paradoxical. The knower will always be paradoxical, because the knower does not prune life, he does not force a framework onto it. For him, life as it is, is accepted. He simply reflects life, and whatever is in life gets reflected in him. He functions as a mirror. Now Mahavira says, asharan—seek no refuge. Do not go into anyone’s shelter. Yet disciples come to Mahavira and say, “Siddhe sharanam pavajjhami.” O perfected one! We come to your refuge. “Arihante sharanam pavajjhami.” O victorious, realized one! We come to your refuge. Mahavira accepts them too. Then it seems all upside down: Mahavira says, “No refuge,” and yet those who seek refuge…

Osho, why could Mahavira not find any master or sect at whose feet he could surrender? What was Mahavira seeking?

And remember: one who bows to someone is always stiff before someone else. One who touches somebody’s feet is eager to have others touch his feet. I once went to the ashram of a great sannyasin. On a big platform the head sannyasin was seated; below him, on a smaller seat, sat another sannyasin; below that, others were sitting on the floor. The head sannyasin said to me, “Do you see who is sitting beside me?” I said, “I don’t need to know; someone is sitting, that’s enough.” He insisted, “Perhaps you don’t know—he is the Chief Justice of the High Court. Not an ordinary man! But very humble—he never sits on the platform with me, always on the smaller seat below.” I said, “That I can see. But below even that small seat some others are sitting—he is not humble towards them; he sits above them. And they are…

Osho, Mahavira refused to take anyone’s support—that is right. But along with that, a question arises: just as it is important not to take support, it should be equally important not to give support. Yet his way of expressing himself, and then the whole structure of shravaks and shramans and all that—this amounts to giving support to others. So why was this aspect not considered: if I do not take support, who am I to give support to another?

They would say… Sicily is a small island to the south. The Sophists offered an example: a man came from Sicily and, on arriving in Athens, said, “In Sicily, everyone is a liar.” Someone stood up and asked him, “Where are you from?” He said, “I am from Sicily.” The man said, “Now we are in trouble! You say everyone in Sicily is a liar, and you are from Sicily; so you are a liar—what shall we do with your statement? And if we accept that everyone in Sicily is a liar, then at least one person in Sicily must be telling the truth, and your statement becomes false. If we do not accept that everyone in Sicily is a liar—if we take you to be lying—again we land in a difficulty.” Someone stood up and said, “What shall we do?” Perhaps the man himself had no idea what to…

Osho, yesterday you said that when anger is watched consciously, it dissolves. But why is it that when sexual desire arises, even in awareness its intensity persists? Why is it so?

There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.” Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.”…