OSHO, WHAT IS HELL? IS THERE REALLY SUCH A PLACE?
RELIGION HAS SURVIVED UP TO NOW because of your fear and greed -- the false
religion I mean, of course. The true religion has nothing to do with fear and greed. In
fact, the true religion means transcending fear and greed. Fear and greed are not two
things, they are one. Fear standing on its head becomes greed; it is one energy, two poles
of the same energy.
The priests must have discovered it very early, that man can be dominated easily if he is
made afraid. They created hell. It is imaginary, it is pure imagination -- there is no place
like hell. Of course, there is a SPACE like hell, but no place.
Hell is not geographical, it is psychological. It is not somewhere down underneath the
earth. If you dig a hole from here and you go on digging and digging, you will reach
America, and the American will come to India. And the American believes somewhere
down in the earth there is hell and the Indian believes somewhere down in the earth... and
the earth is round!
And there is no heaven either -- that is to satisfy your greed. Hell is to create fear and
heaven is to create greed. And these are the two strategies of the priests to dominate you,
to oppress you, to exploit you.
One day a great Sufi mystic Rabiya was seen running in the marketplace, with a burning
torch in one hand and a pot full of water in the other hand. People stopped her and they
said, "What are you doing? Where are you going? We have heard stories about you, that
you are a little crazy, but this is going too far!"
She said, "Don't stop me! I am going to burn your heaven -- this torch is for that -- and I
am going to drown your hell -- this water is for that. And unless your hell and heaven are
taken away from you you will not find God, because God cannot be found by those who
live in fear or those who live in greed."
So the first thing, Krishna Deva: there is no hell, no heaven, as places somewhere. But
still they exist -- in a totally different way: they exist within you: Whenever you are in
anger you are in hell, but that is psychology not geography. And whenever you are in
love you are in heaven; that too is again psychology not geography.
The Western religions know only two words: heaven and hell. The East has a third word
also: MOKSHA. That means absolute freedom from both heaven and hell. That means
transcending psychology. No fear, no greed, no mind... and suddenly you enter into the
world of eternity, immortality, into the world of God.
You carry your hell within you and you carry your heaven within you, and each moment
it is up to you to be in hell or in heaven.
I have heard about a great saint who was never known to be sad. He was nearing ninety
years of age but he was always happy, always cheerful, always bubbling with joy, like a
small child overflowing with joy. People gathered; they were celebrating his ninetieth
birthday, and maybe this was going to be the last so all the disciples had come from
faraway places. They asked him, "We have only one question -- and soon you may leave
us, your body is getting older and older. Before you leave, please satisfy our inquiry:
What is the secret of your joy? Nobody has ever seen you sad."
The old man laughed. He said, "There is not much of a secret in it. Early in my life I
discovered that it is up to me to be in hell or to be in heaven, so every morning when I
wake up, the first thing I ask myself is: 'What do you want today? -- heaven or hell?' And
I always decide for heaven! That is my simple secret."
A whole bus-load of women from the Hadassah and the United Jewish Appeal overturned
on a Miami freeway and everybody was killed. In Heaven, Saint Peter, without thinking,
assigned them to Hell They had hardly been there a week, however, when Satan phoned
Peter and demanded that he remove the women to Heaven. They were a disrupting
influence.
"Why, what have they done?" asked Peter.
"They have banded together, collected money, and employed engineers to install airconditioning."
If you have intelligence, awareness, even in hell you can manage to air-condition it.
That's what I am doing. Can't you see the hell all around? But somehow I have got a few
people banded together and we are trying to create a small heaven of our own. What to
do? People have decided to live in hell, they are not ready to listen, then the only wise
choice is: we can create our own heaven. And if we can create our own heaven, that will
become an example, a model, that this way also one can live.
When people come for the first time to our commune they are surprised. Just the other
day a young priest wrote a letter to me, a Catholic priest, who now has become interested
in me, and wants to get married, and wants to get rid of the Catholic church. He has
written a letter to me saying, "I have heard that you have got the most beautiful people in
the whole of the world around you. Can you find a wife for me?"
I have told Laxmi to write to him, "Why one? Just come here. And I need not find any
wife for you -- the women will chase you, they will find you!"
We have got the most alive lot of women in the whole of the world here.
Heaven and hell are not realities but ways of living. You can live in jealousy -- that's how
people live. You can live in competition, you can live in conflict, you can live in
ambition. That's how you have been brought up to live. This is the way to hell!
A Zen Master was asked by the Emperor of Japan.... The Emperor had come and asked
the same question, Krishna Deva. Maybe you are the reincarnation of the same Emperor!
Because the Japanese tend to be reborn in India -- this is the land of their Master,
Buddha. Every Japanese keeps the desire to come to India some day. If they die without
coming in this life, they are reborn here. They die with the desire.
The Emperor reached the Zen Master and asked him, "What is hell and what is heaven?"
The Zen Master looked at the Emperor and said "You son-of-a-bitch! Have you looked at
your face in the mirror lately? I have never seen such a dirty-looking fellow before!"
The Emperor was enraged! He had not expected such a thing from such a great saint. You
don't know great saints! You know only small, puny saints. A real saint is not a cat, he is
a tiger!
The Emperor was so enraged that he pulled his sword out of its sheath. He was going to
cut the head of the Master. Just as the sword was coming closer, the Master said, "Wait!
You are entering hell. This is the gate to hell."
The way the Master said "Wait!" was so powerful that the Emperor's hand was stopped in
the middle, and he understood -- "True!" He threw the sword away, fell at the feet of the
Master, and the Master laughed and said, "This is the way to heaven! You have already
experienced both within a single moment. The distance is not far."
Whenever you are surrendered to existence, whenever you live in trust, love, prayer, joy,
celebration, you are in heaven.
But what I am doing here is to help you to go beyond both -- because the person who
lives in heaven can fall into hell any moment. They are not far away, they are very close
by...just a small fence and that too is tattered because it is very old. And for centuries
there has been an argument as to who should repair it. The Devil is not ready. Why
should he be worried about it? Nobody wants to enter hell! If it is God' worry that hell
people may enter into heaven, then he should repair it. But God is a miser, and they go on
quarreling.
One day it happened: God said, "If you don't repair the fence -- which has really been
destroyed by your people and your nuisance on the other side, our people have not done
anything -- I am going to court!"
The Devil said, "You can go, but where are you going to find an advocate? They are all
here on my side! Go to court!"
Hell is a state of mind when you live in plenty and yet you live in poverty, when life is
such a blessing and yet you live in sadness. When the flowers bloom you don't bloom.
When the stars shine you don't shine. When the clouds are in the sky floating in freedom
don't enjoy the freedom. When the cuckoo calls from a distant wood and you remain
deaf. When the peacock dances you don't dance. This is hell! And you are the creator of
it.
Mahatma Gandhi died and went to heaven. He was royally welcomed by St. Peter as a
great saint and told that any request of his would be granted. Gandhi said, "All my life I
have been non-violent. Now I would like to live a life like Adolph Hitler."
That seems to be absolutely psychological, right. If you live a repressed life this is going
to happen. Adolph Hitler would like to live like Mahatma Gandhi, and Mahatma Gandhi
would like to live like Adolph Hitler; the rejected, the denied part will take revenge. So I
see a point in this fictitious story.
St. Peter replied, "This is too horrible a wish to be granted -- but we will let you see
Hitler in hell. That will give you an idea and you may drop your desire."
Gandhi was taken to hell where he saw Hitler surrounded by beautiful naked dancing
girls and many bottles of wine. "How can this be hell?" cried Gandhi "This is heaven!"
"Of course it is hell," said St. Peter. "The bottles all have holes and the women don't!"
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