TRUST COMES FROM FEELINGS,KNOWING COMES FROM HEAD.UNTILL YOU TRUST ME YOU WON'T KNOW ME.''OSHO''

MY FEELINGS TELL ME THAT UNTIL I KNOW YOU, I CAN'T TRUST. AND YET
YOU SAY UNTIL I TRUST YOU, I CANNOT KNOW YOU. WHAT TO DO?

William, there are two kinds of knowing. One is from a distance: you remain aloof, you
remain an observer, a spectator. That's what scientific knowing is; you need not get
involved in it, in fact you should not get involved. You should be very objective, you
should not allow your subjectivity to interfere with your observation. You should simply
be there like a mechanical watcher. You should not be a human being, you should be just
a computer.

And this is certain, that sooner or later science is going to be taken over by computers,
robots, because they will be more scientific. There will be no subjectivity in them, they
will simply see the fact. The fact will not be interfered with in any way, it will remain
utterly objective.
That is the way of science -- knowing from a distance, keeping aloof, detached. That's
how the scientist will know a rose flower, that's how the scientist will know the sunset,
that's how the scientist will know the beauty of a woman or a man.
But the problem is, something essential is bound to be missed, something very
fundamental, something which is the core of the whole thing. The scientist can know the
roseflower -- he can know of what it is constituted, he can know all the chemicals,
etcetera, but he will never know the beauty of it. He will remain blind to the beauty; his
very approach, his methodology, prohibits him.
If you are detached you cannot know beauty. Beauty is known only when you fall en
rapport, when the observer becomes the observed, when there is no wall between, when
every wall has been transformed into a bridge. When there is a kind of melting, when you
become the flower and the flower becomes you, then there is a totally different kind of
knowing -- the way a poet knows. He will know beauty, he will not know the chemicals.
He will not know the objective flower, he will know something far deeper. He will know
the spirituality of the flower, the spirit of the flower.
And the mystic, his knowing is the highest form of poetic knowing, the ultimate form of
poetic knowing. The poet is there only for moments. Sometimes he is a poet, he meets, he
mingles, merges into the flower; sometimes he becomes a detached observer. Hence
poetry is a kind of mixture of both the knowledges.
Scientific knowledge is purely objective, mystic knowing is purely subjective, poetic
knowing is between the two, a mixture of both -- a little bit of science, a little bit of
religion. But basic knowing can be divided in two, the scientific and the mystic.
Now it depends on you, in what way you want to know me.
You say: "My feelings tell me that until I know you I can't trust you."
These are not feelings -- there you are misunderstanding yourself. These are thoughts,
these cannot be feelings; that's a sheer misunderstanding. This is the way thoughts speak.
Thoughts always say, "Be careful, cautious, move logically" -- and of course this is very
logical: how can you trust me if you don't know me? It is a logical statement. It is not a
statement from your gut level; it cannot be, because gut feelings are very illogical. Gut
feelings will say to you the same as I am saying: trust and you will know.
So the first thing to be said is: these are not your feelings, these are your thoughts. You
watch again, you go into these so-called feelings again, and you will find they are not
coming from the heart, they are coming from the head. The head says, "First know, then
trust."
And this is a great strategy, if you believe in the head and its dictation -- "First know,
then you can trust." Then you will never trust, because knowing cannot happen without
trust, mystic knowing cannot happen without trust. Scientific knowing is possible, but
scientific knowing is not applicable here.
You can know me scientifically. My doctor comes to examine my body; he knows me in
a way. You don't know me in that way, you know me in a totally different way. My
doctor is afraid to come to listen to me, because he does not want to lose a patient. If he
listens to me, then I will be the doctor and he will be the patient! He comes and he is in a
hurry to escape.
Once it happened that he was holding my hand -- I had some trouble with my thumb --
and something happened to him which was not scientific. Outside the room, he told
Vivek, "He is God, he IS God!" -- but since then I have not seen him, he has simply
disappeared. Something nonscientific, something which was not of the head.... He felt me
for a moment but became frightened.
Watch. If your head is saying these things, these are not feelings. Feelings cannot say
these things, because this is not the language of feelings. Feelings say: "Fall in love, and
then you will know." Thoughts say: "Doubt, inquire, make certain. When everything is
absolutely proved and you are convinced, rationally convinced, then you can trust." And
the logic appears very, very clean, there seems to be no trick in it. There is! The trick is
that through scientific knowing you cannot know the mystery that is confronting you, you
cannot know the poetry that is showering on you, you cannot see the beauty and the grace
that is available to you.
You will see my body, you will listen to my words, but you will miss my silences. And
they are my real messages. You will be able to see me as I appear on the surface, but you
will not be able to penetrate into me as I am at the center.
Knowing the circumference is possible scientifically, but by knowing the circumference
of a person love does not arise. And the relationship between the disciple and the master
is the crescendo of love, the highest peak of love. Love cannot go higher than that; that is
the ultimate in love.
These are your thoughts, not feelings. And if you listen to thoughts you cannot have any
communion with me. You will listen to my words, you will listen to my arguments, you
will become more knowledgeable, you will go perfectly satisfied that you have
something with you. And all that is nonsense. Those words that you have accumulated,
the knowledge that you have gathered, are of no use at all.
It is not a question of gathering information here, it is a question of imbibing the spirit;
the only way is to trust. It is only through trust that knowing happens.
Science uses doubt as its method, religion uses trust as its method. That is their
fundamental difference. Doubt is irrelevant in the world of love, just as trust is irrelevant
in the world of things. In the world of I-it, only doubt is significant: you cannot trust
things, the scientist cannot just sit there in trust waiting for something to happen. Nothing
will happen. He has to doubt, inquire, investigate, dissect. He has to use his mind, his
logic, then only some conclusions can be arrived at.
And those conclusions will always remain approximate, they will always remain
conditional, because in the future more facts may be known and the whole thing would
have to be changed again. They cannot be categorical.
So trust is not the point, it never arises in the world of science; doubt remains the base. If
sometimes you come to a conclusion, the conclusion does not become your trust, does not
become your faith. It remains an hypothesis.
An hypothesis means that up to now whatsoever has been known supports this theory. It
is only up to now; we can't say anything about tomorrow. Tomorrow more facts may be
known, and certainly when more facts will be known the hypothesis will have to be
adjusted, and the theory would have to be changed.
Science goes on changing every day; it is temporal, it lives in the world of time, because
mind is time. Mind cannot live without time; mind is momentary, temporal.
The world of religion functions in a totally different dimension, on a different level. It
begins in trust, in love, then a totally different kind of knowing happens.
When you love a woman, you know her. You know her not as the gynecologist knows
her, you know her in a totally different way. You don't know her physiology, you don't
know her material existence, but you know her spiritual presence. Love, only love, is
capable of knowing the spiritual presence. You fall in love not with the physical body,
you fall in love with the spiritual presence of a person. But that is available only in trust.
In science, trust is utterly useless. In religion, doubt is utterly useless.
So, William, it is up to you. If you have come here to study what is happening here
scientifically, then you are welcome. You can go according to your own thoughts -- don't
call them feelings, please. You can go on according to your head -- don't call it your
heart, it is not. You are welcome: be here, study, observe, come to certain conclusions --
but they will remain hypotheses.
But if you have come to be transformed, not to be informed only, then you will have to
understand that there is a different door. And that door is trust. Trust is an absurd
phenomenon, logically absurd. That's why logic always says love is blind, although love
has its own eyes, far more deep-going... still, to logic it is blind.
Logic ridicules love, and love smiles knowingly at the whole foolishness of logic.
If you have come here with a logical approach... study, observe, come to some
conclusions, but they are not going to transform you; that much you must be aware of. If
you have come to be transformed, then fall in love. Then forget the head, then let there be
a contact heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit. Then there is no need to be too much concerned
with what you see, your whole concern should be with what you feel. Then you should
not be too much concerned in collecting information, but being in celebration with me.
Then don't take much note of what I say, take note of what I am. Listen to my silences,
the pauses, the gaps, the intervals -- I am more there. Then you will become aware of a
totally different world existing here, the buddhafield. It is an energy field; you have to be
open and vulnerable to it, only then it can permeate you, pervade you, overwhelm you.

FREEDOM LEADS TO COMPASSION.''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO,

FREEDOM CAN BE WILLED, LOVE NOT. PLEASE COMMENT.

Anand Akam, freedom can be willed because it is your own decision to remain in a
prison. It is your own responsibility. You have willed your slavery, you have decided to
remain a slave, hence you are a slave. Change the decision, and the slavery disappears.
You have invested in your unfreedom. Any moment you see the point, you can drop it;
instantly it can be dropped. Nobody has forced unfreedom on you, it is your choice. You
can choose to be free, you can choose to be unfree; you are so free that you can choose
either. This is part of your inner freedom -- not to choose it is part of your freedom.
Hence it can be willed.

But love cannot be willed. Love is a by-product of freedom; it is the overflowing joy of
freedom, it is the fragrance of freedom. First the freedom has to be there, then love
follows. If you try to will love, you will create only something artificial, arbitrary. A
willed love will not be true love, it will be phony.
And that's what people are doing. Love cannot be willed, and they go on willing it. What
can be willed, freedom, they go on ignoring. They go on thinking that somebody else is
responsible for their slavery and their life of slavery. This is a very topsy-turvy
conception of your own life. You are upside-down.
Change the vision: will freedom, and love will come of its own accord. When love comes
on its own accord only then it is beautiful, because only then it is natural, spontaneous.
Willed love will be a kind of acting. You will be pretending -- what else can you do? You
will be moving through empty gestures -- what else is possible? You cannot be ordered to
love somebody, you cannot order yourself to love somebody. If it is not there, it is not
there; if it is there, it is there. It is something beyond your will. In fact it is just the
opposite of will: it is surrender.
When one is totally dissolved into freedom and when one is really free, the ego
disappears. The ego is your bondage, the ego is your prison. In total freedom there is no
ego found. Surrender happens, you start feeling one with existence -- and that oneness
brings love.

IS IT THE SAME MEANING OF ''YES'' THAT YOU ARE SPEAKING?''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO, YES!

Sarjano, this simple word "yes" contains all the religions of the world. It contains trust, it

contains love, it contains surrender. It contains all the prayers that have ever been done,

are being done, and will ever be done. If you can say yes with the totality of your heart,

you have said all that can be said. To say yes to existence is to be religious, to say no is to

be irreligious.

That's my definition of the atheist and the theist. The atheist is not one who denies God,

and the theist is not one who believes in God -- not necessarily so, because we have seen

great theists who never believed in any God. We have known Buddha, Mahavira,

Adinatha: we have known tremendously enlightened people who never talked about God.

But they also talked about yes; they had to talk about yes.

God can be dropped as an unnecessary hypothesis, but yes cannot be dropped. Yes is the

very spirit of God. And yes can exist without God, but God cannot exist without yes. God

is only the body, yes is the soul.

There are people who believe in God and yet I will call them atheists, because their belief

has no yes behind it. Their belief is bogus, their belief is formal; their belief is given by

others, it is borrowed. Their parents, priests and teachers have taught them that God is;

they have made them so much afraid that they cannot even question the existence of God.

And they have given them promises of great things if they believe in God. There will be

great rewards in heaven if you believe, and great punishments in hell if you don't believe.

Fear and greed have been exploited. The priest has behaved with you almost like the

psychologist behaves with the rats upon which he goes on experimenting. The rats in

psychological experiments are controlled by punishment and reward. Reward them, and

they start learning the thing for which they are rewarded; punish them, and they start

unlearning the thing for which they are punished.

The priests have behaved with men as if men are rats. Psychologists are not the first to

dehumanize humanity; priests were the pioneers. First the priests behaved with men as if

they were rats, now the psychologists are behaving with rats as if they are men. But the

process is the same, the technique exactly the same.

There are people who are theists -- believers in God, churchgoers, worshippers -- and yet

in their hearts there is no yes; in their hearts there is doubt. On the surface they behave

religiously, deep down they are suspicious. And it is the depth that determines you. It is

not what you do that is decisive, it is what you feel at the deepest core of your being that

determines you, that creates you. And there are atheists who go on saying there is no

God, but they are not in any way different from the believers. Their disbelief has as much

doubt in it as the belief of the believers.

In Soviet Russia, in China, and in other red countries, disbelief is the belief; not to

believe is to be a conformist, to believe is to be a revolutionary. The state goes on

teaching that there is no God. If people are taught continuously, conditioned

continuously, they become whatsoever they are conditioned for. It is a kind of mass

hypnosis.

Theists, atheists, both are victims. The really religious person has nothing to do with The

Bible or the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita. The really religious person has a deep

communion with existence. He can say yes to a roseflower, he can say yes to the stars, he

can say yes to people, he can say yes to his own being, to his own desires. He can say yes

to whatsoever life brings to him; he is a yea-sayer.

And in this yea-saying is contained the essential prayer.

The last words of Jesus on earth were: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Amen."

Do you know this word amen, what it means? It simply means "Yes, Lord, yes. Let thy

will be done. Don't listen to what I say, I am ignorant. Don't listen to what I desire; my

desires are stupid -- bound to be so. Go on doing whatsoever you feel right -- go on doing

it in spite of me." That is the meaning of the word amen.

Mohammedans also end their prayer with amin -- it is the same word.

Sarjano, your question is tremendously significant. First, it is not a question, hence it is

significant. It is a declaration, it is a dedication, it is surrender, it is trust.

You say: "Beloved Osho, YES!"

This is the beginning of real sannyas. If you can say yes with totality, with no strings

attached to it, with no conditions, with no desire for any reward, if you can simply enjoy

saying yes, if it is your dance, your song, then it is prayer. And all prayers reach God --

whether God is mentioned or not, whether you believe in God or not. All prayers reach

God. To reach him, a prayer has only to be an authentic prayer.

But I would like to tell you that your yes should not only be a prayer. It should become

your very lifestyle, it should become your flavor, your fragrance. Down the ages,

religions have been teaching people life-negation, life-condemnation. Down the ages,

religions have been telling you that you are sinners, that your bodies are the houses of sin,

that you have to destroy your life in order to praise the Lord, that you have to renounce

the world to be able to be accepted by the Lord. This is all holy cow dung, utter nonsense.

Life-affirmation, not life-negation, is religion -- because God is life, and there is no other

God. God is the green of the trees and the red of the trees and the gold of the trees. God is

all over the place. Only God is. To deny life means to deny God, to condemn life means

to condemn God, to renounce life means you are thinking yourself wiser than God.

God has given you this life, this tremendously valuable gift, and you cannot even

appreciate it. You cannot welcome it, you cannot feel any gratitude for it. On the

contrary, you are complaining and complaining and complaining. Your heart is full of

grudges, not gratitude.

But this is what you have been taught by the priests down the ages. Priests have lived on

it; this has been their basic strategy to exploit people.

If life is lived in its totality, the priest is not needed at all. If you are already okay as you

are, if life is beautiful as it is, what is the need for a priest? What is the need of a mediator

between you and God? You are directly in contact with God: you are living in God,

breathing in God, God is pulsating in you. The priest will be utterly useless, and so will

be all his mumbo jumbo, his religion and scriptures. He can be significant only if he can

create a rift between you and God. First the rift has to be created, then he can come and

can tell you, "Now I am here, I can bridge the rift." But first the rift has to be there, only

then can it be bridged.

And of course, you have to pay for it. When the priest does such great work bridging the

rift, you have to pay for it. And in fact deep down, he is not interested in bridging it. He

will only pretend that he is bridging it; the rift will remain. In fact he will make it more

and more unbridgeable; the more unbridgeable it is, the more important he is. His

importance consists in denying life, destroying life, making you renounce it.

I teach you a tremendous total yes to life. I teach you not renunciation but rejoicing.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Again and again, I say rejoice! -- because in your rejoicing you will

come closest to God.

When the dancer disappears in his dance, he is divine. When the singer disappears in his

song, he is divine. Rejoice so deeply, so totally, that you disappear in your rejoicing:

there is rejoicing, but there is nobody who is rejoicing. When it comes to such an

optimum, there is a transformation, a revolution. You are no more the old dark ugly self.

You are showered with blessings. For the first time you come to know your grandeur, the

splendor of your being. Say yes to life, say a total yes to life. That's what sannyas is all

about. I don't give you concepts, dogmas, creeds. I only give you a certain life affirmative

lifestyle, a philosophy of life reverence.

SANNYASINS: INQUERIES INTO TRUTH.''OSHO''

PLEASE EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SANNYASIN AND ONE
WHO IS NOT, YET LIVES WITH A DEEP COMMITMENT TO TRUTH.

Lynne Stevens, do you know what truth is? Otherwise, how can there be a commitment?
Commitment is possible only if you know. The sannyasin is one who knows that he
knows not, the sannyasin is one whose commitment is not to truth but to the inquiry into
truth. And the inquiry is possible only with someone who knows, who has arrived. The
sannyasin is one who is committed to the person, or to the no-person, around whom he
feels the vibe of truth, the vibe of authenticity.

Lynne Stevens, your commitment to truth is just an idea. Your truth is just a word, a mind
trip. If you want to make it a real pilgrimage you will have to be a disciple -- and to be a
disciple is to be a sannyasin.
To be a disciple means to be ready to learn, ready to go into the unknown with someone
who has been in it. Alone, very rarely one has attained to truth. Not that it has not
happened -- alone, also, it has happened, but very rarely, just an exception; otherwise one
has to learn in communion with a master.
Then too, it does not happen easily. It is an arduous journey. Dropping the clinging to the
known is not easy. That is our whole investment, that is our whole identity. Dropping the
clinging to the known is dropping the ego, is committing a kind of spiritual suicide;
alone, you will not be able to do it. Unless you see somebody who has committed that
suicide and still is -- in fact for the first time is.... You will have to look into those eyes
which have seen truth, and a glimpse of the truth will be caught through those eyes. You
will have to hold hands with someone who has known, receive the warmth and the love...
and the unknown will start flowing into you.
That's what it means to be with a master, to be a disciple. If you are really committed to
truth you are bound to become a sannyasin. If your commitment to truth is an inquiry
then you will have to learn the ways of learning. And the first thing to learn is to
surrender, to trust, to love.
The sannyasin is one who has fallen in love with a person, or a no-person, where he feels
a gut feeling: "Yes, it has happened here." To be with someone who has known is
contagious -- and truth is not taught, it is caught.
Your truth is nothing but an idea in your mind -- maybe a philosophical inquiry, but a
philosophical inquiry is not going to help. It has to become existential, you have to give
proofs in your life that you are really committed. Otherwise you can go on playing the
game of words, beautiful games of theories, systems of thought -- and there are
thousands. You can also make a private system of thought of your own, and you will
think this is truth.
Truth is not of your making, truth has nothing to do with your mind. Truth happens, and
it happens only when you have become a no-mind. But how are you going to become a
no-mind? On your own you will remain the mind. You may think about the no-mind, you
may philosophize about the no-mind, you may read the scriptures about no-mind, but you
will remain a mind. On your own, seeking and searching, your ego will feel very good --
but that is the barrier. It is like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
If somewhere you find help is available, don't miss it -- because the opportunity is rare,
the buddhafield is rare. Only once in a while, somewhere, a buddha arises, a bodhichitta
happens. Then don't miss the opportunity. If your commitment is really towards truth,
you cannot avoid becoming a sannyasin. It is inevitable, because no-mind is learned only
by sitting by the side of a no-mind.
If you sit by my side, slowly slowly your mind will start dispersing like the morning mist.
Slowly slowly a silence will start penetrating you -- not of your doing, but coming on its
own. A stillness will pervade you.
And the moment you are utterly still, not even a thought moving inside you, that is the
moment of illumination. For the first time you have a glimpse of truth -- not the idea of
truth, but truth itself.

COMPARISION IS LETTING YOU DOWN TO KNOW YOUR GROWTH.''OSHO''

WHAT IS JEALOUSY AND WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH?


Prem Garbha, jealousy is comparison. And we have been taught to compare, we have
been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house,
somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody
else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with
everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product
of the conditioning for comparison.

Otherwise, if you drop comparing, jealousy disappears. Then you simply know you are
you, and you are nobody else, and there is no need. It is good that you don't compare
yourself with trees, otherwise you will start feeling very jealous: why are you not green?
And why has God been so hard on you -- and no flowers? It is better that you don't
compare with birds, with rivers, with mountains; otherwise you will suffer. You only
compare with human beings, because you have been conditioned to compare only with
human beings; you don't compare with peacocks and with parrots. Otherwise, your
jealousy would be more and more: you would be so burdened by jealousy that you would
not be able to live at all.
Comparison is a very foolish attitude, because each person is unique and incomparable.
Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears. Each is unique and
incomparable. You are just yourself: nobody has ever been like you, and nobody will
ever be like you. And you need not be like anybody else, either.
God creates only originals; he does not believe in carbon copies.
A bunch of chickens were in the yard when a football flew over the fence and landed in
their midst. A rooster waddled over, studied it, then said, "I'm not complaining, girls, but
look at the work they are turning out next door."
Next door great things are happening: the grass is greener, the roses are rosier. Everybody
seems to be so happy -- except yourself. You are continuously comparing. And the same
is the case with the others, they are comparing too. Maybe they think the grass in your
lawn is greener -- it always looks greener from the distance -- that you have a more
beautiful wife.... You are tired, you cannot believe why you allowed yourself to be
trapped by this woman, you don't know how to get rid of her -- and the neighbor may be
jealous of you, that you have such a beautiful wife! And you may be jealous of him....
Everybody is jealous of everybody else. And out of jealousy we create such hell, and out
of jealousy we become very mean.
An elderly farmer was moodily regarding the ravages of the flood. "Hiram!" yelled a
neighbor, "your pigs were all washed down the creek."
"How about Thompson's pigs?" asked the farmer.
"They're gone too."
"And Larsen's?"
"Yes."
"Humphf!" ejaculated the farmer, cheering up. "It ain't as bad as I thought."
If everybody is in misery, it feels good; if everybody is losing, it feels good. If everybody
is happy and succeeding, it tastes very bitter.
But why does the idea of the other enter in your head in the first place? Again let me
remind you: because you have not allowed your own juices to flow; you have not allowed
your own blissfulness to grow, you have not allowed your own being to bloom. Hence
you feel empty inside, and you look at each and everybody's outside because only the
outside can be seen.
You know your inside, and you know the others' outside: that creates jealousy. They
know your outside, and they know their inside: that creates jealousy. Nobody else knows
your inside. There you know you are nothing, worthless. And the others on the outside
look so smiling. Their smiles may be phony, but how can you know that they are phony?
Maybe their hearts are also smiling. You know your smile is phony, because your heart is
not smiling at all, it may be crying and weeping.
You know your interiority, and only you know it, nobody else. And you know
everybody's exterior, and their exterior people have made beautiful. Exteriors are
showpieces and they are very deceptive.
There is an ancient Sufi story:
A man was very much burdened by his suffering. He used to pray every day to God,
"Why me? Everybody seems to be so happy, why am only I in such suffering?" One day,
out of great desperation, he prayed to God, "You can give me anybody else's suffering
and I am ready to accept it. But take mine, I cannot bear it any more."
That night he had a beautiful dream -- beautiful and very revealing. He had a dream that
night that God appeared in the sky and he said to everybody, "Bring all your sufferings
into the temple." Everybody was tired of his suffering -- in fact everybody has prayed
some time or other, "I am ready to accept anybody else's suffering, but take mine away;
this is too much, it is unbearable."
So everybody gathered his own sufferings into bags, and they reached the temple, and
they were looking very happy; the day has come, their prayer has been heard. And this
man also rushed to the temple.
And then God said, "Put your bags by the walls." All the bags were put by the walls, and
then God declared: "Now you can choose. Anybody can take any bag."
And the most surprising thing was this: that this man who had been praying always,
rushed towards his bag before anybody else could choose it! But he was in for a surprise,
because everybody rushed to his own bag, and everybody was happy to choose it again.
What was the matter? For the first time, everybody had seen others' miseries, others'
sufferings -- their bags were as big, or even bigger!
And the second problem was, one had become accustomed to one's own sufferings. Now
to choose somebody else's -- who knows what kind of sufferings will be inside the bag?
Why bother? At least you are familiar with your own sufferings, and you have become
accustomed to them, and they are tolerable. For so many years you have tolerated them --
why choose the unknown?
And everybody went home happy. Nothing had changed, they were bringing the same
suffering back, but everybody was happy and smiling and joyous that he could get his
own bag back.
In the morning he prayed to God and he said, "Thank you for the dream; I will never ask
again. Whatsoever you have given me is good for me, must be good for me; that's why
you have given it to me."
Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And
because of jealousy you start becoming phony, because you start pretending. You start
pretending things that you don't have, you start pretending things which you CAN'T have,
which are not natural to you. You become more and more artificial. Imitating others,
competing with others, what else can you do? If somebody has something and you don't
have it, and you don't have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some
cheap substitute for it.
I hear that Jim and Nancy Smith had a great time in Europe this summer. It's so great
when a couple finally gets a chance to really live it up. They went everywhere and did
everything. Paris, Rome... you name it, they saw it and they did it.
But it was so embarrassing coming back home and going through customs. You know
how custom officers pry into all your personal belongings. They opened up a bag and
took out three wigs, silk underwear, perfume, hair coloring... really embarrassing. And
that was just Jim's bag!
Just look inside your bag and you will find so many artificial, phony, pseudo things -- for
what? Why can't you be natural and spontaneous? -- because of jealousy.
The jealous man lives in hell. Drop comparing and jealousy disappears, meanness
disappears, phoniness disappears. But you can drop it only if you start growing your inner
treasures; there is no other way.
Grow up, become a more and more authentic individual. Love yourself and respect
yourself the way God has made you, and then immediately the doors of heaven open for
you. They were always open, you had simply not looked at them.

HOW CAN WE RELATE?''OSHO''

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO RELATE?

Deva Shanta, because you are not yet. There is an inner emptiness and the fear that if you
relate with somebody, sooner or later you will be exposed as empty. Hence it seems safer
to keep a distance with people; at least you can pretend you are.

You are not. You are not yet born, you are only an opportunity. You are not yet a
fulfillment -- and only two fulfilled persons can relate. To relate is one of the greatest
things of life: to relate means to love, to relate means to share. But before you can share,
you must have. And before you can love you must be full of love, overflowing with love.
Two seeds cannot relate, they are closed. Two flowers can relate; they are open, they can
send their fragrances to each other, they can dance in the same sun and in the same wind,
they can have a dialogue, they can whisper. But that is not possible for two seeds. Seeds
are utterly closed, windowless -- how to relate?
And that is the situation. Man is born as a seed; he can become a flower, he may not. It
all depends on you, what you do with yourself; it all depends on you whether you grow or
you don't. It is your choice -- and each moment the choice has to be faced; each moment
you are on the crossroads.
Millions of people decide not to grow. They remain seeds; they remain potentialities,
they never become actualities. They don't know what self-realization is, they don't know
what self-actualization is, they don't know anything of being. Utterly empty they live,
utterly empty they die. How can they relate?
It will be exposing yourself -- your nudity, your ugliness, your emptiness -- safer, it
seems, to keep a distance. Even lovers keep distance; they come only so far, and they
remain alert to when to turn back. They have boundaries; they never cross the boundaries,
they remain confined to their boundaries.
Yes, there is a kind of relationship, but it is not that of relating, it is that of possession: the
husband possesses the wife, the wife possesses the husband, the parents possess the
children, and so on and so forth. But to possess is not to relate. In fact to possess is to
destroy all possibilities of relating. If you relate, you respect; you cannot possess. If you
relate, there is great reverence. If you relate, you come very close, very very close, in
deep intimacy, overlapping. Still the other's freedom is not interfered with, still the other
remains an independent individual. The relationship is that of I-thou, not that of I-it --
overlapping, interpenetrating, yet in a sense independent.
Khalil Gibran says: "Be like two pillars that support the same roof, but don't start
possessing the other, leave the other independent. Support the same roof -- that roof is
love."
Two lovers support something invisible and something immensely valuable: some poetry
of being, some music heard in the deepest recesses of their existence. They support both,
they support some harmony, but still they remain independent. They can expose
themselves to the other, because there is no fear. They know they ARE. They know their
inner beauty, they know their inner perfume; there is no fear.
But ordinarily the fear exists, because you don't have any perfume. If you expose yourself
you will simply stink. You will stink of jealousies, hatreds, angers, lust. You will not
have the perfume of love, prayer, compassion.
Millions of people have decided to remain seeds. Why? When they can become flowers
and they can also have a dance in the wind and the sun and the moon, why have they
decided to remain seeds? There is something in their decision: the seed is more secure
than the flower. The flower is fragile; the seed is not fragile, the seed looks stronger. The
flower can be destroyed very easily; just a strong wind and the petals will blow away.
The seed cannot be destroyed so easily by the wind, the seed is very protected, secure.
The flower is exposed -- such a delicate thing, and exposed to so many hazards: a strong
wind may come, it may rain cats and dogs, the sun may be too hot, some foolish man
may pluck the flower. Anything can happen to the flower, everything can happen to the
flower, the flower is constantly in danger. But the seed is safe; hence millions of people
decide to remain seeds. But to remain a seed is to remain dead, to remain a seed is not to
live at all. It is secure, certainly, but it has no life. Death is secure, life is insecurity. One
who really wants to live has to live in danger, in constant danger. One who wants to reach
to the peaks has to take the risk of getting lost. One who wants to climb the highest peaks
has to take the risk of falling from somewhere, slipping down.
The greater is the longing to grow, the more and more danger has to be accepted. The real
man accepts danger as his very style of life, as his very climate of growth.
You ask me, Shanta: "Why is it so difficult to relate?"
It is difficult because you are not yet. First be. Everything else is possible only
afterwards: first be.
Jesus says it in his own way: "First seek ye the kingdom of God, then all else shall be
added unto you." This is just an old expression for the same thing that I am saying: First
be, then all else shall be added unto you.
But being is the basic requirement. If you are, courage comes as a consequence. If you
are, great desire for adventure, to explore, arises -- and when you are ready to explore,
you can relate. Relating is exploring -- exploring the other's consciousness, exploring the
other's territory. But when you explore the other's territory, you have to allow and
welcome the other to explore you; it cannot be one-way traffic. And you can allow the
other to explore you only when you have something, some treasure within you. Then
there is no fear. In fact you invite the guest, you embrace the guest, you call him in, you
want him in. You want him to see what you have discovered in yourself, you want to
share it.
First be, then you can relate -- and remember, to relate is beautiful. Relationship is a
totally different phenomenon; relationship is something dead, fixed, a full point has
arrived. You get married to a woman; a full point has arrived. Now things will only
decline. You have reached the limit, nothing is growing any more. The river has stopped
and it is becoming a reservoir. Relationship is already a thing, complete; relating is a
process. Avoid relationships, and go deeper and deeper into relating.
My emphasis is on verbs, not on nouns; avoid nouns as much as possible. In language
you cannot avoid, that I know; but in life, avoid -- because life is a verb. Life is not a
noun, it is really "living" not "life." It is not love, it is loving. It is not relationship, it is
relating. It is not a song, it is singing. It is not a dance, it is dancing.
See the difference, savor the difference. A dance is something complete; the last touches
have been made, now there is nothing else to do. Something complete is something dead.
Life knows no full point; commas are okay, but no full points. Resting places are okay,
but no destination.
Shanta, instead of thinking how to relate, fulfill the first requirement: meditate, be, and
then relating will arise out of it on its own accord. One who becomes silent, blissful, one
who starts having overflowing energies, becomes a flower, has to relate. It is not
something that he has to learn how to do, it starts happening. He relates with people, he
relates with animals, he relates with trees, he relates even with rocks.
In fact, twenty-four hours a day he relates. If he is walking on the earth, he is relating
with the earth... his feet touching the earth, he is relating. If he is swimming in the river
he is relating with the river, and if he is looking at the stars he is relating with the stars.
It is not a question of a relationship with somebody in particular. The basic fact is, if you
are, your whole life becomes a relating. It is a constant song, a constant dance, it is a
continuum, a riverlike flow.
Meditate, find out your own center first. Before you can relate with somebody else, relate
with yourself: that is the basic requirement to be fulfilled. Without it, nothing is possible.
With it, nothing is impossible.