Ideology

Even the words of someone as totally against ideology as yourself, contain a continuous if subtle ideology. Is it impossible to talk seriously without it?

In Zen they say it is like selling water by the river. The river is flowing, but you are blind and I have to sell water. And, of course, you pay for it -- and the river is absolutely free. It is like watering the garden when the rain is falling. Or, as in old Indian scriptures it is said: 'It is putting legs on a snake to help him walk!' Foolish, stupid -- because the snake walks perfectly well without any legs. In fact, legs will hinder. But what to do? The snake goes on saying: 'Help me.' Or as it is said in old Taoist scriptures: 'To talk about truth is as if to put a hat on a man who is already wearing one.' To put another hat on top of the hat -- useless. So what am I doing here? I am just giving you patience,…

Osho, perhaps through an ideological revolution you will succeed, because every new person creates revolution through a new ideology and succeeds. Perhaps you will awaken the inert mind, but how will you give it direction?

I do not want to show a direction. My point is that the inert mind needs to be shown a direction; the conscious mind sees the direction. That I do not want to point out. After becoming conscious, is there any possibility of falling back? Consciousness never falls back. Once thoughtfulness arises, you cannot become inert again. It is highly unlikely. A thoughtful person does not turn back. Only if dullness is not allowed to be broken does one remain dull.

Osho, if the primitive ideology had a primitive idea, then it led to stagnation. Today we even have paper clothes—people say, paper clothes have come; if it rains, what will happen! But in the primitive days, among tribals, nothing of this sort ever arose in their hearts; there was nothing to hide, they roamed naked, as many still do today. So in a society that has seen two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand years of revolution and practice, does no such change come? Yet you advocated keeping the earlier idea.

No, I am not saying that either, I am not saying that either. What I am saying, I am giving you only as an example. I am not saying it should become like that, that we should hold on to that idea. All I am saying, only this much, is that the tribal mind does not have the same obsession with sex. Why not? Why is there no attraction for a nude picture for him? And why is there so much attraction for us? We are so attracted because the child’s natural curiosity to see the body has been stunted, blocked, suppressed. That suppressed desire then seeks other routes to look at naked bodies. And these routes are more dangerous. Because when you see a real naked body—now here is the surprising thing—if you see a naked body directly, the matter ends. But if you look at a nude picture,…

Question: Second question: Osho, are you against social revolution? And this inner change does not happen through changing ideas. It happens by leaping from thought to meditation. There is only one revolution in the world: to go from thought to no-thought; from a mind full of choices to a choiceless consciousness. The day the thinking mind dissolves into the emptiness of no-mind, that day doors open within you— the doors of the seven heavens open. That day indeed your chains become anklets. That day no prison can contain you, because for the first time you taste freedom—you experience moksha within. You know, “Even if handcuffs are put on the body, I am free—because I am not the body.” If such an event happens to innumerable people on this earth, perhaps there will be a radiance spread from horizon to horizon. It has not happened yet.