Worthiness

Osho, you said that the acceptance of sin gives birth to worthiness. But can it not also give birth to self-abasement? Please explain.

If the acceptance of sin truly happens, self-abasement can never be born. Self-abasement arises because you do not want to accept, and yet you are forced to accept. Understand the difference between these two. What you want is to be supremely wise. You want the world to know you as a great knower. Within yourself you already believe you are; only others have not recognized it yet. In time they will; people are ignorant, foolish—that’s why they don’t see your great wisdom. Otherwise, of course, you are supremely wise. There is an Arab saying: at the final moment of sending each creature into the world, God calls them close and makes one last joke, whispering in their ear, “I have never made anyone greater than you.” And each person carries this within all life long. If he tells anyone, people laugh—because God has played the same joke on them too.…

Beloved Osho, to be in your energy again is so beautiful. When I hear and read what you have gone through and endured in order to do your work and be there for us, I am awed. How can we be worthy of you?

The very question, how can you be worthy of me, makes you worthy of me. The question arises out of humbleness. I accept you as you are, but the desire to be more worthy simply means to be more humble, to be more absent as far as the ego is concerned. Here, not to be is the way of being. The more you erase yourself, the more you allow me in. Just open your doors, all the windows, and don't hold anything. If you are holding anything back, that means a suspicion... in case you have to leave, in case this man turns out to be not the right master, you can withdraw. So people give in very cautiously. They take so much time unnecessarily. Tomorrow is not certain; I may be here or I may not be here. Only this moment is certain. Don't hold back. Come totally to…

Osho, I have no worthiness at all, and yet a thirst for the Infinite has arisen! I have set out, stumbling—will there not be union? The question has been asked by the elderly sannyasin, Sita.

First thing: No one has ever met the Divine through strength. Strength is arrogance. Strength itself is the obstacle. Strength means ego. Strength means making a claim. Has anyone ever attained by claiming? Has a claimant ever found love? The claimant is defeated; he misses the goal at the very first step. If you know you have no strength, then union is certain. Union happens in helplessness—where it seems nothing you do will work; where your defeat is total; where you wonder, “How can anything happen by my doing?”; where your ego has crumbled to dust in every way; where you no longer even have the strength to breathe on your own—let alone to travel; where you cannot even rise; where, even if you wish to lift your foot, it will not lift. When such helplessness surrounds you, prayer is born. Prayer is the sigh of a helpless heart. Only…

They say the philosopher’s stone turns iron into pure gold without considering its virtues or flaws. Then why is it that even after coming to you I remain unsatisfied? Must one acquire worthiness to receive your grace?

He must have been a strange man! He went. People stared in astonishment—such a thing had never happened: someone going to the graveyard by himself. People always go riding on others’ shoulders. That is the ancient habit. They live riding on others’ shoulders; they die riding on others’ shoulders too. He went, took a pickaxe in his hands, and dug his own grave. People said, “We will help.” He said, “Stop—don’t interfere in my work. I would not like God to be able to say that I took any kind of ride on anyone’s shoulders. I have lived life in my own way; I will die in my own way.” He dug his grave, lay down in it, said, “Goodbye, friends,” closed his eyes, and died. If it had been in his power, he would have thrown the earth over the grave himself. Only such a person is truly alive.…