Habits

Why is it that the habits I judge bad for me -- smoking, overeating etc, are the most persistent?

That will be. If you judge them bad they will be persistent because you are creating a relationship with them. To call anything bad is to create a relationship with it. And whenever you call a thing bad, why do you call it bad? You call it bad because it defeats you. It is powerful. You call it bad because you are impotent before it; and by name-calling nobody is helped. So the first thing to do is: stop judging! If you want to smoke -- smoke! Smoke meditatively, forget what others say about it. Smoking can be such a beautiful meditation. Don't fight with it, smoke meditatively, create perfect rings, and enjoy the whole thing. And suddenly one day you will find the need has disappeared. The whole thing looks so foolish. Not that you judge, because when you judge then it is either good or bad. When you…

Question: Second question: Osho, can lifelong habits be dropped easily? Mulla Nasruddin and his son jumped across a stream. The old Mulla cleared it; the son fell in midstream. “Papa, this is too much! You’re old and you made it. I thought if you could, I could—and I fell.” Nasruddin laughed: “Son, there’s a secret.” He jingled his pocket—clink, clink. “I don’t understand,” said the son. “Coins must be in the pocket. Then a man can cross not just a stream but the sea. When I leave home I carry cash. It keeps me warm, puts strength in the life-breath. That’s a man’s true soul; no other soul. You jumped soulless—so you fell. Next time put coins in your pocket and see!” Money has a power. Invisible, but potent. Money kills—without killing. So if you escape in one area, the disease will erupt elsewhere.

Osho, my husband has the habit of chewing tobacco. How can he give it up? Asked by Geeta. First of all, trying to make someone else drop their habits is not a mark of decency. Let the other person understand for themselves. Acknowledge at least that your husband has intelligence. If there is to be a question, let your husband be the one to ask.

The weak always finds a tactic that appears right. Being weak, they must play a kind of politics that looks proper and cannot be easily refused. What will you say? The wife isn’t saying something bad. She says, “Your lungs will be ruined; if you smoke you’ll get TB.” She says it for your own good. The weak will always devise ways to torment you “for your own good.” And she isn’t factually wrong, so you cannot even argue. Husbands begin to enter their homes in fear. The home starts to feel like school for little children—that is how husbands feel about home: a classroom. Lessons are given there—where to take off the shoes, where to put the clothes, don’t smoke, don’t play the radio so loud—thousands of lessons. Slowly the wife becomes a schoolmistress and with her own hands breaks the delicate threads of love. The threads of love…

Osho, yesterday you told the story of Saint Peter and the three women. Please tell us what happened after that?

Saint Maharaj! Do use a little of your own intelligence. No story is ever told in full, because some trust must also be placed in your imagination—that you, too, can think a bit. You could have figured out for yourself what would happen next. The matter was so clear. My friend, what else could happen! What had to happen is exactly what happened. Saint Peter had barely dealt with those three women when three goddesses arrived. One had a white mouth-cloth tied over her face—she was a Jain nun. The second was a beautiful French model, and the third a Rajneesh sannyasin. Saint Peter first pointed toward the part below the French girl’s waist and asked, “What did you use this for?” Preening, the beauty replied, “I used it to revel with my eight wedded husbands and about a hundred and fifty lovers. I also used it to earn money…