Inactivity

It has been asked: “If we drop these, will we become inactive?”

We are very strange people. Without dropping anything, we start asking, “If we drop, will we become inactive?” Has anyone who truly dropped ever been seen as inactive? Was Mahavira inactive? Was Buddha inactive? Who could be more active than they? Buddha had announced that that very day he would die. He told his monks, “If you have any last question, ask now; my final hour has come and I will depart.” The monks—tears in their eyes—could not bring themselves to ask anything. Buddha went behind the shelter of a tree, closed his eyes, so that he could sink within and dissolve in peace. Just then a man came running from the village and said he had something to ask the Buddha. The monks said, “Now he has already taken leave; he has closed his eyes. He asked if anyone had a question, and we declined. Now it is impossible.”…

Osho, another difficulty has arisen. Today there is such a gap between the private sector and the public sector that if we destroy the private sector, initiative disappears—and when initiative disappears, movement stops. In the same way, when one descends into non-attachment, or desirelessness, or karma-sannyas, it seems that initiative, zest, and drive all get converted into inactivity. That possibility seems real.

Where we claim to go against biology but still obey biology’s rule—being attracted to the opposite—everything turns dull and empty. Houses remain huts, pressed to the ground; all activity wanes; no one sings; a singing person seems criminal; bright clothes disappear; color, charm, beauty are lost; everything becomes sad, subdued, and shrunken. My own view is that both have their own laws, and a true culture stands on both. A true culture will be sex-free in the sense of being un-repressed: it will rejoice in sex, be festive in sex, and vast worldly activity will arise. And true spirituality, based on the right choice of type, will spread a web of spiritual activity. Krishna stands rightly in his own type; Buddha in his own; Mahavira in his own. Hence Krishna acts in one way, but it is not that Buddha does not act. Buddha’s life, too, is a vast web…

Osho, what is attachment? Why do we become so attached to things, ideas and persons? And is there freedom from attachment?

“So do one thing,” she told the courtesan. “I will pay you whatever you ask. Go to him at midnight. He meditates at midnight—has done so for thirty years. I want to know whether meditation has happened or not before I die. His hut door is only latched; no one ever goes there. Open it and go in. Whatever he says, notice every word and tell me. Go and embrace him—then come back and report. Before I die, I want to be sure that my service was not in vain.” The courtesan went. She opened the door. The monk was startled. He opened his eyes—he had been sitting in meditation—and shouted, “You wicked woman! Why are you here? Get out! What need have you to come at midnight?” But his tongue faltered; his body trembled. The woman had taken her money; she went right in. He cried, “Stay back! Why…

Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?

The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…