THE FINAL JOURNEY.''OSHO''

IS THIS IT? AM I EXPERIENCING YOU? HAS THE FINAL JOURNEY BEGUN?

This is from Dharmateerth Bodhisattva. Yes....

I LOVE CREEEPS.''OSHO''

WHY DO YOU GIVE SANNYAS TO SO MANY CREEPS?

It is from Anand Bodhisattva.If not, then, Bodhisattva, how could you be a sannyasin?

I love creeps. They are good people. Everybody is accepted, I make no conditions, because I don't look at how you look. I am not bothered by your appearance. I look at you, and you are gods in exile -- maybe sometimes with dirty clothes, sometimes with an unwashed face, but still a god.

Sometimes you look like a creep, but you are not. Because I can see you deep within your reality, I accept you totally. Whatsoever you pretend to be, you cannot deceive me. These are all pretensions. You may be deceived by your own pretension; I am not deceived. I look direct and immediate; I look into you. And I always find the fresh, the eternal, the beautiful: truth and grace -- divinity. You are sovereigns....

EVERYTHING IS HERE AND NOW BE READY.''OSHO''

PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY WE DON'T FEEL THE DIVINE WHICH IS HERE/ NOW, WITHIN/WITHOUT, WHICH IS YOU, ME AND ALL.

This is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. Because you are too much, and too heavy on yourself.

Because you cannot laugh, the divine is hidden. Because you are too tense, you are closed. And these things that you think -- that the divine is here/now, within/without, you/me -- are only head things, they are not your feelings. They are thoughts, not realizations. And if you go on thinking along these lines, they will never become experiences. You can convince yourself by a thousand and one arguments that this is so, but they will never become your experience. You will go on missing. It is not a question of argument, philosophy, thinking, contemplation -- no. It is a question of drowning yourself deeply in the feeling of the phenomenon. One has to feel it, not think about it. And to feel it, one has to disappear.

You are trying an absolutely impossible thing: by thinking, you are trying to realize God. It will remain a philosophy, it will never become your experience.

And unless it is an experience, it is not liberating. It will become a bondage; you will die in that bondage of words.

You are too much. Yoga Chinmaya's head has to be beheaded -- cut completely. You are too much in the head, and there is too much of yourself. God is not more important; you are more important. You want to know God: God is not the emphasis, YOU are the emphasis. YOU want to achieve God: not that God is important; YOU are important, and how can you live without achieving God? God has to be possessed, but the emphasis is on YOU. That's why you go on missing.

Drop the 'you'. Then there is no need to worry about God -- He comes by Himself. Once you are not, He comes. Once you are absent, His presence is felt. Once you are empty, He is rushing towards you. Drop all the philosophies and all that you have learned, all that you have borrowed, all that has become heavy on the head. Drop it! Be clean of it; it is all rot.

Once you are clean, in that cleanliness you start feeling something arising. In that innocence is virginity. God is always available.

YOU ARE ONLY YOURSELF.''OSHO''

YOUR TEACHING SEEMS TO BE: TO BE ABSOLUTELY ONESELF. THIS IS BEYOND ME. HOW CAN ONE BE ONESELF IF ONE IS NOT ONESELF?

Let me ask you another question: how can you not be yourself? You can believe it, but you cannot be anything other than yourself. You can think that you are somebody else, you can imagine that you are somebody else, but all the time you are just yourself, nothing else.

So whether you believe you are yourself or not is irrelevant. You remain, all the time, yourself. You can go on running and chasing shadows, but one day or the other you will have to realize that you have just been doing an absurd thing.

How can you be other than yourself7 How? You ask me how one can be oneself. I ask you how one can be other than oneself -- and in my questioning is the answer. Nobody has even been other than himself; nobody can ever be other than himself. To be oneself is the only way to be, nothing can be done about it.

You can believe.... It is just like you sleep at night in Poona and you dream that you are in Philadelphia. That doesn't make any change in reality. You remain in Poona -- here, somewhere in Mobo's. You remain in Poona; Philadelphia remains just a dream. In the morning you will not wake up in Philadelphia, remember. You will wake up in Mobo's, in Poona. Howsoever miserable, but it is the case! Nothing can be done about it; at the most you can again dream of Philadelphia.

You are gods. That is your reality. You can believe... you have believed in many things. Sometimes you believed you were a tree -- many trees are still believing that. Sometimes you believed you were an animal: a tiger, a lion. There are a few people who belong to Lion Clubs -- Lion Bhabhutmal Sanghvi. They are not satisfied in being men -- lions! Sometimes you believed that you were a lion, and then you WERE a lion: a dream. Sometimes you believed that you were a rock and you WERE a rock: a dream. You have been changing your dreams.

Now the time has arrived. Wake up! I'm not giving you another dream, remember. You hanker for it, you would like me to give you another dream, but I am not going to give you another dream. That's why to be with me is difficult and arduous -- because I am insisting that you wake up. Enough is enough. You have dreamed a lot; since eternity you have been dreaming. You have just been changing dreams. When you get fed up with one dream, you start changing it; you dream another dream. My whole effort is to shake you, to shock you -- to wake you.

It is not a question of achieving any new thing. It is already your being. Just opening the eyes, just dropping the dreams, just dropping the clouds and the vision. It is a question of clarity and understanding, that's all. Between you and Jesus, between you and me, between you and Buddha, there is no difference of being -- nothing. You are exactly the same. The difference, at the most, is that you are asleep and Jesus is not asleep, that's all.

So don't ask me how to be oneself; you cannot be otherwise. Just ask me how to be awake. You are yourself ALL THE TIME! Just become a little more alert, just bring a new quality of waking consciousness -- just watch. Don't try to be anything because that will again be a dream. Just watch: whosoever you are, wheresoever you are, just watch and be... and allow it. Then the happening, the sudden happening, can come any moment. The heavens can open and the spirit of God, like a dove, can enter in you.

In fact, this is just a way of saying something that cannot be said. It can be said in just the opposite terms also. Let me say it: that when John the Baptist initiated, baptized, Jesus -- Jesus opened and the spirit of God, like a dove, was released from him and flew into the infinite sky. That is also exactly the same truth. It is just a way of saying it from two polarities.

You are gods and you have never been anything else. That's why I am not worried if you want to sleep a little longer. Nothing is wrong; the choice is up to you. You can have a little more sleep -- turn over and have a little more sleep; snore a little longer -- nothing is wrong. But don't try to improve, don't try to

achieve anything. Don't try to become anything because you are already that which you can become! The being is your only becoming, you carry your destiny within yourself. Relax... and be.

SAYING TO BE HAPPY MAKES YOU AWARE OF YOUR UNHAPPINESS.''OSHO''

WHY DO YOU ALWAYS TELL US TO BE HAPPY IF, BEFORE ENLIGHTENMENT, ONE HAS TO REACH A PEAK OF PAIN AND ANGUISH?

If I don't tell you to be happy, you will never reach the peak of pain and anguish. I go on telling you to be happy, and the more I say, "Be happy," the more you become aware of your unhappiness.

The more you listen to me, the more you will find anguish arising. That is the only way to make you unhappy -- to go on constantly forcing on you: be happy! You cannot be, so you feel the unhappiness all around you. Even what you used to think was happiness, even those points disappear and you feel absolutely hopeless. Even momentary happinesses disappear and the desert becomes complete. All hopes and all oases disappear.

But that's where the jump happens. When you are REALLY unhappy, totally unhappy, with not even a ray of hope, suddenly you drop all unhappiness. Why? -- why does it happen? It happens because unhappiness is not clinging to you; you are clinging to unhappiness. Once you feel the total anguish of it, you drop it; there is nobody else to carry it for you.

But you have never felt it so intensely; you have always been lukewarm. You feel a little unhappiness, but always there is a hope for the future: "Tomorrow there is going to be happiness. A little desert, but the oasis is coming closer." Through this hope, you go on.

Through your hope, the unhappiness remains. My whole effort is to kill the hope, to leave you in such total darkness that you cannot allow any dream any longer.

Once this intensity reaches to the hundredth degree, you evaporate. Then you cannot carry it any more, then suddenly whatsoever you call it -- unhappiness, the ego, ignorance, unawareness, or what have you: anything that you want to call it -- drops. I will tell you one story:

It happened -- a farmer had a pedigree ram. It was a beautiful animal, but sometimes it got mad and the shepherd who looked after the ram was very worried. He always wanted to get rid of it, but the farmer loved it.

One day it became too much so the shepherd came and said, "Now you choose: either me or the ram. I resign... take my notice. Or -- this ram goes. He is a mad animal and continuously creating trouble. He gets so angry and so dangerous that sometimes one feels that he will kill."

The farmer now had to decide, so he asked his friends what to do. He never wanted the ram to be sold. They suggested an animal psychologist: "Ask...."

The psychologist was called. The farmer was skeptical but he wanted to do anything so that the ram could be saved. The psychologist remained for four days. He watched, observed, took notes, analyzed, and then he said, "There will be no trouble. You just go to the market, purchase a gramophone, and bring Beethoven records, Mozart, Wagner -- classical music. Whenever the ram gets

mad, in a rage, just put on a classical record. Play it and it will soothe him, and he will be perfectly calmed down."

The farmer couldn't believe it -- that this was going to be so -- but it had to be tried, so he tried it. It worked! Immediately the ram would become silent and cool down.

For one year there was no trouble. Then one day the shepherd came running and said, "Something has gone wrong -- I don't know what. The ram has killed himself! As usual, seeing that he was getting in a rage again, I had put a record on. But he worsened. Then he became more and more mad and he simply charged into the wall. His neck is broken -- he is dead."

The farmer went there. The ram was Iying dead there near the wall. Then he looked on the gramophone to see what record was there. There had been a terrible mistake: it was not classical music, but Frank Sinatra's record... singing:'There Shall Never Be Another Like You'. That created the trouble. 'There shall never be another like you' -- the ego is the cause of all madness, unhappiness, misery. That is going to be the cause of your death, that is going to break your neck.

You can cope with it if it is lukewarm. My whole effort is to bring it to a peak where you cannot cope with it. Either you have to drop it, or you will drop. And whenever such a choice arises -- that you have to drop the misery or you have to drop yourself -- you will drop the misery.

And with the misery: the ego, the ignorance, the unawareness -- they all disappear. They are names of the same phenomenon

LEARNING IS LIFE.''OSHO''

ARE YOU STILL LEARNING TOO?

Yes, because if learning stops, you are dead. Learning is life. You can ask me, "Are you still alive? " -- that will be the same question.
The ego is a perfectionist and the ego thinks that when you have attained, when you have become enlightened, then there is no learning; then you know all. But if you know all, that 'all' will be finite. Just by being known it has become finite.
You cannot know the infinite. The infinite simply means that you can go on learning and learning and learning and the end never comes, it is an eternal journey. It begins, but it never ends.
But then the ego thinks: then what is the difference when we are also learning? The difference is that you are learning while fast asleep, unconscious, and a man who is enlightened learns consciously. Your learning is not knowing; your learning is knowledge, dead information. A man who is awakened -- his learning is not like knowledge; his learning is simply knowing.
He is like a mirror. The mirror goes on mirroring. A bird flies before a mirror and the mirror mirrors it. Is there a point where you can say, "Now the mirror is perfect. It mirrors nothing"? When the mirror is perfect it will mirror perfectly, that's all.
When you are awakened, you learn perfectly. Not that you stop learning, not that you have become perfect and now there is nothing more to know -- just the contrary. The more you know, the more there is to know; the more you open your eyes, the more the infinite surrounds you. It is an infinite journey.
I am still learning. And I am happy, I would not like it to be otherwise. I would not like to come to a point where I could say, "I have known all," because that would be death. Then what? -- then the river is frozen, then it no longer flows. No, a perfect river goes on flowing; it is never frozen. I will go on learning, Buddha and Jesus are still learning. It has to be so.
Mahavir is still learning, notwithstanding what Jains say. They say that he has known all, he has become all-knowing, because their ego is involved. Their Master: how can he still be learning? That means he is still not perfect. So Jains say Mahavir has known all, he has become a SARVAGYA -- all-knowing, omniscient. This is their ego, not Mahavir.
If you say to Christians that Jesus is still learning, they will be very angry. The son of God, the only begotten son of God -- how can he be still learning? He knows all! But I tell you, he is still learning because he is still alive, alive with the infinity -- learning infinitely, but of course learning perfectly.
This is very difficult to understand because your ego always seeks goals and if learning continues forever and ever, then there is no goal. But I tell you, that's how life is. Life has no goal, it is an ever-flowing river: always reaching, but never reaching; always arriving -- but every arrival becomes a new departure.
Go to the Himalayas. You trek, you move, you go high to the peak. All the time you were trekking up, there was no peak beyond it. Then you reach the peak and many more peaks are revealed. You go on and on and on; it is an ongoing Process.
God is the process. Even God is learning. It has to be so, otherwise He will be stupid. He is not stupid, He is learning. He is evolving -- and that's beautiful. Nothing is static, everything is dynamic. That's what I mean when I say: don't say 'God is', always say 'God is happening'. Don't use a static term; don't use a noun for Him -- use a verb. Say, "He is happening"; say, "He is learning"; say, "He is evolving"; say, "He is a process, He is a river," and you will have struck truth.
Yes, I am continuously learning. Every moment life is so tremendously beautiful and so tremendously vast, so tremendously infinite and so tremendously mysterious. To say that one has known all will be sacrilegious

SEEING YOU...YES I ALWAYS CRY.COMPASSION OF MASTER.''OSHO''

DO YOU EVER CRY?

YES, WHENEVER I LOOK AT YOU. You may not see my tears, you may not hear my cry, but when I look at you the cry is always there. Because of that, I go on working on you. It is not only to help you to come out of your misery; it is to help myself also. If you come out of your misery, I will come out of my misery that is created by your misery.

It is said that when Buddha reached to the door of the ultimate he stopped there; he wouldn't enter. The door was open, the devas, the gods, were ready to welcome him in, but he wouldn't enter. The DEVAS asked him, "Why are you standing there? Come in. We have been waiting for many ages. You are welcome. You have returned home."
Buddha said, "I will stay here, I will have to stay here. Until the last human being passes by me and enters the door, I cannot enter."
This is a beautiful parable. Don't take it literally....
But it is true. Once you become aware, once you become a being -- once you ARE -- infinite compassion arises in you. Buddha has made compassion the criterion of enlightenment. Once you have attained you don't suffer for yourself, but you suffer for others -- seeing the misery all around, seeing the whole absurdity of it; seeing the possibility that you can come out of it immediately, right now, and still you go on clinging.
By one hand you push it away, by another hand you pull it close. You go on creating your own prisons and still you would like to be free. Your whole effort is just contradictory. You want to come to the east and you go towards the west.
Seeing you... yes, I always cry.

MY FATHER IS RARE,NOT BECAUSE HE IS MY FATHER.HE IS SIMPLY RARE.''OSHO''

YOU SAID THAT THE FAMILY IS THE FIRST THING TO RENOUNCE. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY WE WERE SERVED PRASAD ON THE DAY OF YOUR FATHER'S INITIATION.

The family has to be renounced, that's true. I have renounced my family. But my family is rare: they have not renounced me. And it is rare, I say, because it has not happened before.
Jesus' father never came to Jesus to be initiated. John the Baptist initiated many, but his own father never came to be initiated. Krishna's father was not a disciple of his.
My father is rare -- not because he's my father: he s simply rare. There was every possibility....

As human nature goes, there is every possibility that a father cannot come and bow down to his own son. It is almost humanly impossible. He has done that. You will not find a parallel in the whole history of man. And it may not happen again.

But you are blind and you cannot see the fact, so even the PRASAD became a problem to you. Just think of bowing down to your own son, coming to the feet of your own son. being initiated. A tremendous humbleness, a tremendous innocence, is needed.
That is one of the most difficult things in human relationships. It is not accidental that Jesus' father never came to him. It is simple: to believe in the son to whom you have given birth, whom you have seen from the very first day, from his first cry how can you believe that he has become enlightened? Your own son? -- impossible. Your own blood and bone? -- impossible. How can you think that he has become something, someone, from whom you have to learn?
A son remains a son..;. and to a father he remains a child always, because the distance is always the same. If my father was twenty when I was born, that twenty years' distance has remained the same; it will always remain the same. If I am forty-five, he will be sixty-five. I cannot come closer to him in age: he will always be twenty years more experienced than I am.
And to come to me and to surrender... you cannot realize the significance of it! That is why you ask such foolish questions. It is one of the rarest moments.
I again repeat: my father is rare -- not because he is my father. He's simply rare.

SECRECY: LIFE SHOULD BE HALF OPEN AND HALF CLOSED.''OSHO''

WHAT IS THE NEED FOR SECRECY IN MASTERDISCIPLE RELATIONSHIPS AND ALSO IN ORDINARY HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS?

THE BEING HAS TWO SIDES, the without and the within. The without can be public, but the within cannot be. If you make the within public, you will lose your soul, you will lose your original face. Then you will live as if you have no inner being. Life will become drab, futile. It happens to people who lead a public life: politicians, film actors. They become public, they lose their inner being completely, they don't know who they are except what the public says about them. They depend on others' opinion, they don't have a sense of their being.

One of the most famous actresses, Marilyn Monroe, committed suicide, and psychoanalysts have been brooding on the reason why. She was one of the beautiful women ever, one of the most successful. Even the President of America Kennedy, was in love with her, and she had thousands of lovers. One cannot think of what more you can have. She had everything.
But she was public and she knew it. Even in her love chamber when President Kennedy would be there she used to address him as Mr. President -- as if one was making love not to man, but to an institution.
She was an institution. By and by she came aware that she had nothing private. Once somebody asked here -- she had just posed for a nude calendar and somebody asked, "Did you have anything on while you posed for the nude calendar?"
She said, "Yes, I had something on. The radio."
Exposed, nude, no private self. My feeling is that she committed suicide because that was the only thing left she could have done privately. Everything was public, that was the only thing left she could do on her own, alone, something absolutely intimate and secret. Public figures are always tempted towards suicide because only through suicide can they have a glimpse of who they are.
All that is beautiful is inner, and the inner means privacy. Have you watched women making love? They always close their eyes. They know something. A man goes on making love with open eyes, he remains a watcher also. He is not completely in the act, he is not totally in it. He remains a voyeur, as if somebody else is making love and he is watching, as if the love-making is going on a TV screen or in a movie. But a woman knows better because she is more delicately
tuned to the inner. She always closes her eyes. Then love has a totally different fragrance.
Do one thing one day: run the bath and then switch on and off the light. When there is darkness you will hear the water falling more clearly, the sound will be sharp. When the light is on, the sound will be not so sharp. What happens in darkness?
In darkness, everything else disappears because you cannot see. Only you and the sound are there. That's why, in all good restaurants, light is avoided; sharp light is avoided. They are candle-lit. Whenever a restaurant is candle-lit, taste is deeper: you eat well and you taste more. The fragrance surrounds you. If there is very bright light the taste is no longer there. The eyes make everything public.
In the very first sentence of his METAPHYSICS, Aristotle says that sight is the highest sense of man. It is not. In fact, sight has become too domineering. It has monopolized the whole self and it has destroyed all the other senses. His master -- Aristotle's master, Plato -- says that there is a hierarchy in the senses: sight at the top, touch at the bottom. He is absolutely wrong. There is no hierarchy.
All senses are on the same level and there should not be any hierarchy. But you live through the eyes: eighty percent of your life is eye-oriented. This should not be so; a balance has to be restored. You should touch also, because touch has something which eyes cannot give. But try: try to touch the woman you love or the man you love in bright light and then touch in darkness. In darkness, the body reveals itself; in bright light, it hides.
Have you seen Renoir's paintings of feminine bodies? They have something miraculous in them. Many painters have painted the feminine body, but there is no comparison with Renoir. What is the difference? All other painters have painted the feminine body as it looks to the eyes. Renoir has painted it as it feels to the hands, so the painting has a warmth and a closeness, an aliveness.
When you touch, something happens very close. When you see, something is far away. In darkness, in secrecy, in privacy, something is revealed which cannot be revealed in openness, in the marketplace. Others are seeing and observing; something deep within you shrinks, it cannot flower. It is just as if you put seeds down on the open ground, for everybody to look at. They will never sprout. They need to be thrown deep in the womb of the earth, in deep darkness where nobody can see them. There they start sprouting and a great tree is born.
Just like seeds need darkness and privacy in the earth, all relationships which are deep and intimate remain inner. They need privacy, they need a place where only two exist. Then a moment comes when even the two dissolve and only one exists.
Two lovers deeply in tune with each other dissolve. Only one exists. They breathe together, they are together; a togetherness exists. This would not be possible if observers were there. They would never be able to let go if others were watching. The very eyes of others would become the barrier. So all that is beautiful, all that is deep, happens in darkness.
In ordinary human relationships, privacy is needed. And when you ask about the relationship of a Master and disciple, even more privacy is needed because it is a transmission of the highest energy possible to man. It is the highest peak of love, where one man pours himself into another and the other becomes a receptive womb. Even a slight disturbance -- somebody watching -- will be enough of a barrier.
Secrecy has its own reason to be there. Remember that, and always remember that you will behave very foolishly in life if you become completely public. It will be as if somebody has turned his pockets inside-out. That will be your shape -- like pockets turned inside-out. Nothing is wrong in being outward but remember, that is only part of life. It should not become the whole.
I am not saying to move in darkness forever. Light has its own beauty and its own reason. If the seed remains in the dark forever and ever, and never comes up to receive the sun in the morning, it will be dead. It has to go into darkness to sprout, to gather strength, to become vital, to be reborn, and then it has to come out and face the world and the light and the storm and the rains. It has to accept the challenge of the outside.
But that challenge can only be accepted if you are deeply rooted within. I am not saying to become escapists, I am not saying to close your eyes, move within and never come out. I am simply saying: go in so that you can come out with energy, with love, with compassion. Go in so that when you come out you are not a beggar, but a king; go in so that when you come out you have something to share -- the flowers, the leaves.
Go in so that your coming out becomes richer and is not impoverished. And always remember that whenever you feel exhausted, the source of energy is within. Close your eyes and go in.
Make outer relationships; make inner relationships also. Of course there are bound to be outer relationships -- you move in the world, business relationships will be there -- but they should not be all. They have their part to play, but there must be something absolutely secret and private, something that you can call your own.
That is what Marilyn Monroe lacked. She was a public woman -- successful, yet completely a failure. While she was at the top of her success and fame, she committed suicide. Why she committed suicide has remained an enigma. She had everything to live for; you cannot conceive of more fame, more success, more charisma, more beauty, more health. Everything was there, nothing could be improved upon, and still something was lacking. The inside, the within, was empty. Then, suicide is the only way.
You may not be daring enough to commit suicide like Marilyn Monroe. You may be very cowardly and you may commit suicide very slowly -- you may take seventy years to commit it. But still it will be a suicide. Unless you have something inside you which is not dependent on anything outside, which is just your own -- a world, a space of your own where you can close your eyes and
move, and you can forget that anything else exists -- you will be committing suicide.
Life arises from that inner source and spreads into the sky outside. There has to be a balance -- I am always for balance. So I will not say, like Mahatma Gandhi, that your life should be an open book -- no. A few chapters open, okay. And a few chapters completely closed, completely a mystery. If you are just an open book you will be a prostitute, you will just be standing in the marketplace naked, with just the radio on. No, that won't do.
If the whole book is open, you will just be the day with no night, just the summer with no winter. Then where will you rest and where will you center yourself and where will you take refuge? Where will you move when the world is too much with you? Where will you go to pray and meditate? No, half and half is perfect. Let half of your book be open -- open to everybody, available to everybody -- and let the other half of your book be so secret that only rare guests are allowed there.
Only rarely is somebody allowed to move within your temple. That is how it should be. If the crowd is coming in and going out, then the temple is no longer a temple. It may be a waiting room in an airport, but it cannot be a temple. Only rarely, very rarely, do you allow somebody to enter your self. That is what love is.

THOUGHTS OF MIND CAN ONLY BE WATCHED NOT STOPPED.''OSHO''

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE MIND CAN GO ON PRODUCING THOUGHTS CONSTANTLY, AND HOW CAN WE STOP THAT WHICH WE HAVE NOT STARTED?

You cannot stop that which you have not started. Don't try it, otherwise you will simply be wasting time, energy, life. You cannot stop the mind because you have not started it. You can simply watch, and in watching it stops. Not that you stop it: in watching. it stops. The stopping is a function of watching, it is a consequence of watching.
It is not that you stop it; there is no way to stop the mind. If you try to stop it, it will go faster; if you try to stop it, it will fight with you and create a thousand and one troubles for you. Never try to stop it.
This is the truth: you have not started it, so who are you to stop it? It has come through your unawareness; it will go through your awareness. You have to do nothing to stop it except become more and more alert.

Even the idea that one wants to stop the mind will be the barrier because you say, "Okay, now I will try to be aware so that I can stop it." Then you miss the point. Then even your awareness will not be of much help because again the same idea is there -- how to stop it. Then after a few days of futile effort -- futile because the idea is there, so it will not happen -- you will come to me and you will say, "I have been trying to be aware, but the mind doesn't stop."
It cannot be stopped; no method exists to stop it. But it stops! Not that you stop it; it stops by itself. You simply watch. In watching, you withdraw the energy that helps it to run. In watching, the energy goes into watching, and thinking automatically becomes feebler and feebler and feebler. Thoughts are there, but
they become impotent because the energy is not available. They will move around you, half dead, but by and by more energy will be coming to the awareness. One day suddenly energy is no longer moving into thoughts. They have disappeared. They cannot exist without your energy. So please forget about stopping them. That is none of your business.
And the second thing, you ask: "How is it possible that the mind can go on producing thoughts constantly?" It is just a natural process. Just like your heart goes on beating constantly, your mind goes on thinking constantly; just like your body goes on breathing constantly, your mind goes on thinking constantly; just like your blood goes on circulating constantly and your stomach goes on digesting continuously, the mind goes on thinking constantly. There is no problem in it; it is simple. But you are not identified with the blood circulation; you don't think that YOU are circulating. In fact you are not even conscious that the blood circulates; it goes on circulating, you have nothing to do with it. The heart goes on beating; you don't think that YOU are beating.
With the mind the problem has arisen because you think that you are thinking; the mind has become a focus of identity. The identity just has to be broken. It is not that when the mind has stopped, then it will not think forever, no. It will think only when it is needed; it will not think when it is not needed. Thinking will be there, but now it will be natural: a response, a spontaneous activity, not an obsession.
For example, you eat when you are hungry. But you can get obsessed and can go on eating the whole day. Then you will go mad; then you will commit suicide. You walk when you want to walk. When you want to go somewhere, then you move your legs. But if you go on moving your legs when you are sitting on the chair, people will think you are mad and that something has to be done to stop you. If you ask how to stop your legs from moving and if somebody says, "Stop them by holding them with your hands. Force them!" then you will be in even more trouble. The legs are moving and now the hands are also engaged, and your whole effort is how to stop them. Now your energy is fighting with itself.
You have become identified with the mind, that's all. It is natural because the mind is so close to you and you have to use the mind so much. One is constantly in the mind. It is as if a driver has been driving a car for years and has never been out of the car. He has forgotten that he can go out, that he is a driver. He has forgotten completely; he thinks that he himself is a car. He cannot go out because who is there to go out? He has forgotten how to open the door, or the door is completely blocked by not having been used for years. It has gathered rust, it cannot open easily. The driver has been in the car so much that he has become the car, that's all. A misunderstanding has arisen. Now he cannot stop the car, because how is he to stop it? Who is going to stop it?
You are just the driver of the mind. It is a mechanism around you, your consciousness goes on using it. But you have never been out of your head. That's
why I insist: drop a little out of the head, go to the heart. From the heart you will have a better perspective that the car is separate from you.
Or, try to go out of the body. That too is possible. Out of the body you will be absolutely out of the car. You will be able to see that neither the body nor the heart nor the mind is you; you are separate.
Right now, continue to remember only one thing: that you are separate. From everything that surrounds you, you are separate. The knower is not the known. Go on feeling it more and more so that it becomes a substantial crystallization in you that the knower is not the known. You KNOW the thought, you SEE the thought -- how can you be the thought? You KNOW the mind, how can you be the mind? Just drop away; a little distance is needed. One day, when you are really distant, thinking stops. When the driver is out, the car stops because there is nobody to drive it now. Then you will have a good laugh, seeing that it has just been a misunderstanding. Now, whenever you need it, think.
You ask a question to me: I respond. The mind functions. I have to talk to you through the mind; there is no other way to talk. But when I am alone, the mind doesn't function.
The mind has not lost the capacity to function. In fact, it has gained more capacity to function and to function rightly. Because it is not functioning constantly, it gathers energy; it becomes more clear. So 'when the mind stops' does not mean that you will not be able to think again. In fact, only after that will you be able to think for the first time. Just to be engaged in relevantly irrelevant thoughts is not thinking. It is a mad sort of thing. To be clear, clean, innocent, is to be on the right path for thinking.
Then when a problem arises you are not confused; you don't look at the problem through prejudices. You look directly at it, and in that direct look the problem starts melting. If the problem is a problem, it will melt and disappear. If the problem is not a problem but a mystery, it will melt and deepen. Then you will be able to see what is a problem.
A problem is that which can be solved by the mind; a mystery is that which cannot be solved by the mind. A mystery has to be lived; a problem has to be solved. But when you are too much in your thoughts, you cannot know what is a mystery and what is a problem. Sometimes you take a mystery as a problem. Then your whole life you struggle and it is never solved. And sometimes you think of a problem as a mystery and you foolishly wait: it could have been solved.
A clarity, a perspective, is needed. When thinking -- this constant inner chattering and inner talk -- stops, and you have become alert and aware, you are capable of seeing things as they are, you are capable of finding solutions -- and you are also capable of knowing what is a mystery. And when you come to feel that something is a mystery, you feel reverence, you feel awe.
That is the religious quality of being. To feel reverence is to be religious; to feel awe is to be religious. To be so deeply in wonder that you have again become a child is to enter into the kingdom of God.

I AM COMPASSIONATE FOR PUNDITS AND LEARNED PEOPLE.''OSHO''

OSHO, WHY ARE YOU AGAINST THE PUNDITS AND THE LEARNED PEOPLE?
AREN'T THEY THE EXPERTS THAT ARE RUNNING THE WORLD?
Madira,

HAVE A LOOK AT THE WORLD -- and certainly they are running the world! that's
why the world is in a mess. The knowledgeable people are running the world and they are
the most ignorant people -- knowledgeable about superficial things. And sometimes these
knowledgeable people are so ridiculous.

Once I was talking on Mahavira. A great scholar, well-known all over the world,
particularly on Mahavira, came to listen to me. After the discourse he stood up and he
said, "I have one question to ask. My question is: Mahavira and Buddha were
contemporaries -- who was older and who was younger? I have spent thirty years of
research on this project, but I have not been able to come to a clear-cut decision. A few
scriptures say Buddha was older and a few scriptures say Mahavira was older, and there
seems to be no way to decide. I am very much impressed," he said, "by what you said
about Mahavira. Can you throw some light on my problem?"
I said, "You wasted thirty years of your life! How does it matter who was older and who
was younger? What are you going to do if you come to a clear-cut conclusion? One thing
is certain: whosoever was younger or older, you have wasted your life -- thirty years! In
these thirty years you could have become a Buddha or a Mahavira. Mahavira became a
Mahavira in twelve years' meditation, Buddha became a Buddha in six years' meditation."
I said to the man, "If you had worked on meditation you would have become Buddha five
times! Thirty years wasted -- and Buddha became Buddha in six years. You would have
been a Buddha five times over. And don't ask such foolish questions; it doesn't matter."
But that's how knowledgeable people are concerned. He was very angry at me, he became
very antagonistic to me. He started writing articles against me. Now he is dead. So first
he was wasting his life in searching for who was older, Buddha or Mahavira, and then he
wasted his life in writing articles against me. The poor man, I really feel sorry for him.
The learned people know only the superficial, which has no significance.
Carruthers was visiting a small English town to do business. As his first appointment was
not until twelve noon he decided to play a round of golf early in the morning. The golf
course was right on the edge of town, and he was first off.
He sliced his first ball, and it went over the hedge that ran parallel to the first fairway. He
did not bother to go and look for it; he played another ball which went straight down the
middle.
On returning to the club house at the end of the game the club professional approached
him saying, "Excuse me, sir, were you by any chance the first off this morning?"
"Yes, I was," replied the businessman.
"And did you slice your first ball over the hedge to the right?"
"Yes, I did, as a matter of fact, old man," replied the businessman.
"Well," said the professional, "that hedge runs parallel to a very busy street, and your ball
landed on the head of a cyclist. The cyclist swerved into the middle of the road, and in
order to miss the cyclist a car swerved in front of a bus; and in order to miss the car,
shopfront of a jeweler's. The shop collapsed, and in the process a lot of very valuable
jewelry has disappeared."
"Oh, my God!" cried the businessman, shaking at the knees. "What shall I do?"
"Oh, no problem, old man," said the professional. "Just make sure that you keep your
right hand a little further round the handle, and everything will be fine."
That's how the professional, the expert, the knowledgeable person, works. He knows
everything about the meaningless, the insignificant; he goes into insignificant details and
he goes on missing the central thing.
I am not against the pundits and the learned people, I am simply compassionate towards
them.

KNOWLEDGE CAN BE USED AS AN ANECDOTE.''OSHO''

IS KNOWLEDGE ALWAYS DANGEROUS?

Not always. And knowledge is not dangerous, knowledgeability is dangerous. To know

about facts is perfectly good, but to forget the mystery of life is dangerous. So knowledge

is not always dangerous; sometimes it can be of great help too.

A little anecdote:

Irish Paddy's wife Maureen had been rushed to the hospital that morning. Nine months

pregnant and now in labor, she gives birth to two beautiful twin daughters.

Irish Paddy, after a day's work laboring with rubble on the building site, marched up to

the hospital in the cool of an autumn evening to visit his wife in the maternity ward.

"Oh, hello, little sweet darling," he cooed to his Maureen, as he approached the bed with

a glint of curiosity in his right eye, as he observed two tiny babies arriving by the bed,

hand in hand with a nurse.

"I have had twins, me luv," said Maureen. And for ten long minutes Paddy sat bemused

by that bed, not knowing how to work it out.

The ward bell rang, Paddy kissed his wife and left. "By Christ!" he muttered, as he

walked the long corridor, "If I find the other bugger I will kill him."

LIVING IN PRESENT IS GOING JOYOUSLY.''OSHO''

BELOVED OSHO,
WHAT DO YOU FEEL THE NEXT PHASE OF YOUR WORK WILL BE, ONCE
YOU HAVE FOUND A STABLE RESIDENCE, AND WHAT DO YOU SEE YOUR
SANNYASINS DOING?

That's really a problem -- an unanswerable one too, because I never think of tomorrow,
and I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. I leave it up to tomorrow! I don't
burden myself too much. Today is enough unto itself.
Tomorrow I will be there, the problems will be there, the challenges will be there; and I
will be available to those challenges, to those problems.
My whole life I have lived this way -- without any predecision, without any commitment
for the future, without any promise to myself or to anybody else for the next moment.
And that has given me the most precious gift of life. I have become attuned with
existence; knowing not where I am going, I am going joyously.

One thing I know: existence has no goal, and as part of existence I cannot have any goal.
The moment you have a goal, you cut yourself away from existence. Then a small
dewdrop is trying to fight against the ocean. Unnecessary is the trouble, meaningless is
the struggle.
I never think of the yesterdays.
And I never think of the tomorrows.
That leaves me just a small moment, the present moment -- unburdened, uncluttered,
clean, free.
So I don't know the answer to your question. All that has happened in my life... if you try
to recapitulate it, you will find certainly a tremendously systematic program -- as if I had
planned everything from the very beginning in minute detail. But this is an absolutely
wrong idea.
As far as I am concerned, I have never planned anything; I have simply lived, wondering
what is going to happen next. I have kept my wondering eyes alive, just like a small
child.
Hasya has to plan, Jayesh has to plan, John has to plan -- so they are all suffering from
fever, tired. Just look at Jayesh!
But I am simply wondering what is going to happen.

MAKING MISTAKES IS NOT MORE THING RATHER THAN GETTING IT UP .''OSHO''

OSHO, CAN YOU ALSO MAKE MISTAKES?
Darshan,

NOT A FEW BUT MANY...PLENTY! because I don't take anything seriously. So many
times my sannyasins write to me, "Osho..." Subhuti wrote just a few days ago; when I
said that Napoleon was obsessed with food, he wrote to me, "Is it Napoleon or Nero?"
Who cares; Subhuti? Whichever you like! Sometimes I say Nero, sometimes I say
Napoleon. I am not a very learned mm, and I am absolutely happy in being utterly
unlearned.

The other day somebody wrote: "You said that the gospels were written a few centuries

after Jesus. This is not correct!" But I have not told you that this is correct! If it is
incorrect it makes no difference to me. He has also written -- must be a learned
man!...you have fallen in wrong company! -- he has also written: "You said that it was
translated into Latin first." To me Latin and Greek are all the same! I don't understand
Latin, I don't understand Greek, so all that I meant was that it was translated into
something that I don't understand!
Teertha understands it perfectly well. He has written a story. He has written to me:
Osho, I was walking down M.G. Road one day when I saw a very strange sight: there was
this man, right in the middle of the road, moving his arms as though he was rowing a
boat. (Demonstrate, but mind the microphone!)
I watched for a while, and eventually had to call out to him to find out what was going
on.
"What are you doing?" I shouted.
"Rowing a boat, of course!" he replied.
"But you are not in a boat" I called back.
"I am not?!" he yelled, looking panic-stricken; and then started swimming as hard as he
could. (Demonstrate, but mind the microphone.)
Now he knows that I can hit the microphone -- and he is much more concerned about the
microphone!
I can commit mistakes a-plenty, but I am not deterred by them, I go on committing them -
- because if I start thinking that no mistake has to be committed then I cannot relate to
you what I want to relate. Then I will have to be absolutely silent, because the truth that I
have known can only be related if I am ready to commit many mistakes. Then too it is not
related as it is.
A telephone operator in San Francisco says that the city's Chinatown receives fewer calls
than any other area of similar size in the city. And with a straight face she explained the
reason: "I guess there are so many people named Wing and Wong that people are afraid
they will wing the wong number."
I am not afraid -- I go on winging the wong number! And it is not only that I can commit
mistakes...the world is proof enough that God also commits mistakes. Otherwise, do you
think you would have had any chance of being here in the world?
Mulla Nasruddin was speaking to Morarjibhai Desai. Seeing Mulla Nasruddin in orange,
Morarjibhai Desai was obviously annoyed. He said to Nasruddin, "Mulla, what turned
you on to Rajneesh?"
'The day I saw him walking out with his hands folded, I knew then that God exists,"
replied Mulla.
Morarji, looking at Mulla from the corner of his eye, asked, "Hmmm, and what do you
feel when you see me?"
Mulla said, "That God can also make mistakes."