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Translated
Discourses on Dariya:* Sanskrit Words Defined
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OSHO BOOK: The Mustard Seed: My Most Loved Gospel on Jesus
- Chapter 17 - Movement and Rest ((talk of 6 September 1974); this book
contains OSHO's commentaries on the Fifth Gospel of Saint Thomas; St.
Thomas's sayings are in all capitals
THE SEVENTEENTH SAYING:
JESUS SAID: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT, FOR YOU SHALL FIND
THE KINGDOM; AND BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN.
JESUS SAID: IF THEY SAY TO YOU, 'FROM WHERE HAVE YOU ORIGINATED?'
SAY TO THEM, 'WE HAVE COME FROM THE LIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT ORIGINATED THROUGH
ITSELF.'
IF THEY ASK YOU, 'WHAT IS THE SIGN OF YOUR FATHER IN YOU?' SAY TO
THEM, 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.'
The deepest urge in man is to be totally free. Freedom, moksha,
is the goal. Jesus calls it the kingdom of God: to be like kings, just
symbolically, so that there is no fetter to your existence, no bondage, no
boundary - you exist as infinity, nowhere do you clash with anybody else... as
if you are alone.
Freedom and aloneness are two aspects of the same thing. That's
why Mahavira called his concept of moksha, kaivalya. Kaivalya
means to be absolutely alone, as if nobody else exists. When you are absolutely
alone, who will become a bondage to you? When nothing else is there, who will
be the other? That's why those who are in search of freedom will have to find
their solitariness; they will have to find a way, means, method to reach their
aloneness.
Man is born as part of the world, as a member of a society, of a
family, as part of others. He is brought up not as a solitary being, he is
brought up as a social being. All training, education, culture, consists of how
to make a child a fitting part of the society, how to make him fit with others.
This is what psychologists call adjustment. And whenever somebody is a solitary
he looks maladjusted.
Society exists as a network, a pattern of many persons, a crowd.
There you can have a little freedom - at the cost of much. If you follow the
society, if you become an obedient part to others, they will lease you a little
world of freedom. If you become a slave, freedom is given to you. But it is a
given freedom, it can be taken back any moment. And it is at a very great cost:
it is an adjustment with others, so boundaries are bound to be there.
In society, in a social existence, nobody can be absolutely free.
The very existence of the other will create trouble. Sartre says, "The
other is hell," and he is right to a very great extent because the other
creates tensions in you; you are worried because of the other. There is going
to be a clash, because the other is in search of absolute freedom, you are also
in search of absolute freedom - everybody needs absolute freedom - and absolute
freedom can exist only for one.
Even your so-called kings are not absolutely free, cannot be. They
may have an appearance of freedom but that is false: they have to be protected,
they depend on others - their freedom is just a facade. But still, because of
this urge to be absolutely free, one wants to become a king, an emperor. The
emperor gives a false feeling that he is free. One wants to become very rich,
because riches also give a false feeling that you are free. How can a poor man
be free? His needs will be the bondage, and he cannot fulfill his needs.
Everywhere he moves comes the wall which he cannot cross.
Hence the desire for riches. Deep down is the desire to be
absolutely free, and all desires are created by it. But if you move in false
directions, you can go on moving but you will never reach the goal, because
from the very beginning the direction has become wrong - you missed the first
step.
In old Hebrew, the word 'sin' is very beautiful. It means one who
has missed the mark; there is no sense of guilt in it really. Sin means one who
has missed the mark, gone astray, and religion means to come back to the right
path so you don't miss the goal. The goal is absolute freedom, religion is just
a means towards it. That's why you have to understand that religion exists as
an antisocial force: its very nature is antisocial, because in society absolute
freedom is not possible.
Psychology is in the service of the society. The psychiatrist goes
on trying in every way to make you adjusted again to the society; he is in the
service of the society. Politics, of course, is in the service of the society.
It gives you a little freedom so that you can be made a slave. That freedom is
just a bribery - it can be taken back any moment. If you think that you are
really free, soon you can be thrown into prison. Politics, psychology, culture,
education, they all serve society. Religion alone is basically rebellious. But
the society has fooled you, it has created its own religions: Christianity,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism - these are social tricks. Jesus is
antisocial.
Look at Jesus: he was not a very respectable man, could not be. He
moved with wrong elements, antisocial elements, he was a vagabond, he was a
freak - had to be, because he would not listen to the society, and he would not
become adjusted to the society. He created an alternate society, a small group
of followers. Ashrams have existed as antisocial forces - but not all ashrams,
because society always tries to give you a false coin. If there are a hundred ashrams
then there may be one - and that too only perhaps - that is a real ashram,
because that one will exist as an alternative society, against this society,
this crowd, against what Jesus calls 'they' - the nameless crowd.
Schools have existed - for example, Buddha's Bihar monasteries -
which try to create a society that is not a society at all. They create ways
and means to make you really and totally free - no bondage on you, no
discipline of any sort, no boundaries; you are allowed to be infinite and the
all. Jesus is antisocial, Buddha is antisocial, but Christianity is not
antisocial, Buddhism is not antisocial.
Society is very cunning: it immediately absorbs - even antisocial
phenomena it absorbs into the social. It creates a facade, it gives you a false
coin, and then you are happy, just like small children who have been given a
false, plastic breast. They go on sucking it, they feel they are being nourished.
It will soothe them, of course, they will fall into sleep.
Whenever a child is uneasy, this has to be done: a false breast
has to be given. He sucks, believing that he is getting nutrition. He goes on
sucking, and then sucking becomes a monotonous process; nothing is moving in,
just sucking and it becomes like a mantra. Then he falls into sleep; bored,
feeling sleepy, he goes into sleep. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and all
other 'isms' which have become established religions, are just false breasts.
They give you consolation, they give you good sleep, they allow a soothing
existence in this torturing slavery all around; they give you a feeling that
everything is okay, nothing is wrong. They are like tranquilizers, they are
drugs.
It is not only LSD that is a drug, Christianity is also, and a far
more complex and subtle drug which gives you a sort of blindness. You cannot
see what is happening, you cannot feel how you are wasting your life, you
cannot see the disease that you have accumulated through many existences. You
are sitting on a volcano and they go on saying that everything is okay: God in
heaven and government on the earth - everything is okay. And the priests go on
saying to you, "You need not be disturbed, we are there. Simply leave everything
in our hands and we will take care of you in this world and in the other
also." And you have left it to them, that's why you are in misery.
Society cannot give you freedom. It is impossible, because society
cannot manage to make everybody absolutely free. Then what to do? How to go
beyond society? That's the question for a religious man. But it seems
impossible: wherever you move society is there; you can move from one society
to another, but society will be there. You can even go to the Himalayas - then
you will create a society there. You will start talking with the trees, because
it is so difficult to be alone. You will start making friends with the birds
and animals, and sooner or later there will be a family. You will wait every
day for the bird who comes in the morning and sings.
Now you don't understand that you have become dependent, the other
has entered. If the bird doesn't come you will feel a certain anxiety. What has
happened to the bird? Why has he not come? Tension enters, and this is not in
any way different from when you were worried about your wife or worried about
your child. This is not in any way different, it is the same pattern: the
other. Even if you move to the Himalayas you create society.
Then something has to be understood: society is not without you,
it is something within you. And unless the root causes within you disappear,
wherever you go the society will come into existence again and again and again.
Even if you go to a hippy community, the society will come in, it will become a
social force. If you go to an ashram, society will come in. It is not
the society that follows you, it is you. You always create your society around
you - you are a creator. Something in you exists as a seed which creates the
society. This shows really that unless you are transformed completely you can
never go beyond society, you will always create your own society. And all
societies are the same; the forms may differ, but the basic pattern is the
same.
Why can't you live without society? There is the rub! Even in the
Himalayas you will wait for somebody: you may be sitting under a tree and you
will wait for someone, a traveler, a hunter, who passes by on the road. And if
somebody enters, you will feel a little happiness coming to you. Alone, you
become sad, and if a hunter comes you will gossip, you will ask, "What is
happening in the world? Have you got the latest newspaper?" Or, "Give
me news! I am hungry and thirsty for it." Why? Roots have to be brought up
to light so that you can understand.
One thing: you need to be needed, you have a deep need to be
needed. If nobody needs you, you feel useless, meaningless; if somebody needs
you, he gives you significance, you feel important. You go on saying, "I
have to look after the wife and the children," as if you are carrying them
as a burden - you are wrong. You talk as if it is a great responsibility and
you are just fulfilling a duty. You are wrong! Just think, if the wife is not
there and the children have disappeared, what will you do? Suddenly you will
feel your life has become meaningless, because they needed you. Small children,
they waited for you, they gave you significance, you were important. Now that
nobody needs you, you will shrink, because when nobody needs you nobody pays
attention to you: whether you are or not makes no difference.
I have heard: One mental patient was psychoanalyzed, but the
psychoanalyst was a very eccentric man - as they almost always are. After two
or three years of analysis he told his friend, "This man is in even more
trouble than I am, because I go on talking and he never says anything - not
even a yes or no has he said for these three years - he simply sits there. And
now I am worried: what to do? I go on talking and talking and talking, he
listens, and this has been going on for three years. What to do?"
The friend said, "Then why don't you stop?" But the man
could not stop either.
And then a second trouble happened: the psychoanalyst died. Again
he said to the friend, "Now another problem has arisen. First was this - that
this man never said anything, yes or no. I never knew whether he rejected me or
accepted me, or whether I was wrong or right. I simply talked and talked and
talked, and he listened. Now he is dead, so a second problem has arisen. What
to do now?"
The friend said, "If he never talked to you, what is the
difference? You go on talking!"
But the man said, "No! But he listened."
The whole of psychoanalysis and its business depends on listening.
There is nothing much, there is really nothing much in psychoanalysis, and the
whole thing around it is almost complete hocus-pocus. But why? A man pays you
so much attention - and not an ordinary man, a famous psychiatrist, well-known,
who has written many books; many well-known people have been treated by him -
so you feel good. Nobody else listens to you, not even your wife. Nobody
listens to you, nobody pays any attention to you; you move in the world as a
non-entity, nobody - and you pay so much to a psychiatrist. It is a luxury,
only very rich people can afford it.
But why do they do what they do? They simply lie down on the couch
and talk, and the psychoanalyst listens - but he listens, he pays attention to
you. Of course, you have to pay for it, but you feel good. Simply because the
other is paying attention you feel good. You walk differently out of his
office, your quality has changed: you have a dance in your feet, you can hum,
you can sing. It may not be forever now - next week you will have to come again
to the office - but when somebody listens to you, pays attention to you, he
says, "You are somebody, you are worth listening to," he doesn't seem
bored. He may not say anything but then, too, it is very good.
You have a deep need to be needed. Somebody must need you,
otherwise you don't have any ground under your feet - society is your need.
Even if somebody fights with you it is okay, better than being alone, because
at least he pays attention to you, the enemy; you can think about him.
Whenever you are in love, look at this need. Look at lovers,
watch, because it will be difficult if you yourself are in love. Then to watch
is difficult because you are almost crazy, you are not in your senses. But
watch lovers: they say to each other, "I love you," but deep down in
their hearts they want to be loved. To love is not the thing, to be loved is
the real thing; and they love just in order to be loved. The basic thing is not
to love, the basic thing is to be loved.
That's why lovers go on complaining against each other, "You
don't love me enough." Nothing is enough, never can anything be enough,
because the need is infinite. Hence the bondage is infinite, it cannot be
fulfilled. Whatsoever the lover is doing, you will always feel something more
is possible; you can still hope more, you can still imagine more. And then that
is lacking and then you feel frustrated. And every lover thinks, "I love,
but the other is not responding well," and the other thinks in the same
terms. What is the matter?
Nobody loves. And unless you become a Jesus or a Buddha you cannot
love, because only one whose need to be needed has disappeared can love.
In Kahlil Gibran's beautiful book, Jesus the Son of Man, he
has created a fictitious but beautiful story - and sometimes fictions are more
factual than facts. Mary Magdalene looks out of her window and sees Jesus
sitting in her garden under a tree. The man is beautiful. She had known many
men, she was a famous prostitute - even kings used to knock at her door - she
was one of the loveliest flowers. But she had never known such a man - because
a person like Jesus carries an invisible aura around him that gives him a
beauty of something of the other world, he doesn't belong to this world. There
was a light around him, a grace, the way he walked, the way he sat, as if he
were an emperor in the robes of a beggar.
He looked so much of another world that Magdalene asked her
servants to go and invite him, but Jesus refused. He said, "I am okay
here. The tree is beautiful and very shady."
Then Magdalene had to go herself and ask, request Jesus - she
could never believe that anybody would refuse the request. She said, "Come
into my house and be my guest."
Jesus said, "I have already come into your house, I have
already become a guest. Now there is no other need."
She could not understand. She said, "No, you come, and don't
refuse me - nobody has ever refused me. Can't you do such a little thing?
Become my guest. Eat with me today, stay with me this night."
Jesus said, "I have accepted. And remember: those who say
they accept you, they have never accepted you; and those who say to you that
they love you, none of them has ever loved you. And I tell you, I love you, and
only I can love you." But he would not enter the house; rested, he left.
What did he say? He said, "Only I can love you. Those others
who go on saying that they love you, they can't love, because love is not
something you can do - it is a quality of your being."
In the state you are, you cannot love; in the state you are your
love is false. You simply show that you love, so that you can be loved. And the
other is also doing the same. That's why lovers are always in trouble: both are
cheating each other, and both feel that they are being cheated. But they never
look at themselves and see that they are cheating. Have you really loved any
woman, any man? Can you say with your total heart that you loved? No! You never
bothered about it, you have taken it for granted that you love. The problem is
always the other, you never look at yourself.
Mulla Nasruddin had become ninety-nine years old, and a reporter
from a local newspaper came to interview him because he was the oldest man in
the valley. After the interview the reporter said, "I hope that I will be
able to come next year also when you have attained the hundred, when you have
completed your hundred years. I hope I will be able to come." Mulla
Nasruddin looked at the man wide-eyed and said, "Why not, young fellow?
You look healthy enough to me!"
Nobody looks at himself: the eyes look at others, the ears listen
to others, the hands reach towards others - nobody reaches towards himself;
nobody listens, nobody looks. Love happens when you have attained a
crystallized soul, a self. With ego it never happens; the ego wants to be loved
because that is a food it needs. You love so that you become a needed person.
You give birth to children, not that you love children but just so that you are
needed, so that you can go around and say, "Look how many responsibilities
I am fulfilling, what duties I am carrying out! I am a father, I am a
mother..." This is just to glorify your ego.
Unless this need to be needed drops you cannot be a solitary. Go
to the Himalayas - you will create a society. And if this need to be needed
drops, wherever you are, living in the marketplace, at the very hub of the
city, you will be alone.
Now try to understand the words of Jesus: ... BLESSED ARE THE
SOLITARY AND ELECT, FOR YOU SHALL FIND THE KINGDOM; AND BECAUSE YOU COME FROM
IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN.
Penetrate each single word: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY... Who is the
solitary? One whose need to be needed has dropped; one who is completely
content with himself as he is; one who does not need anybody to say to him,
"You are meaningful." His meaning is within him. Now his meaning does
not come from others - he does not beg for it, he does not ask for it - his
meaning comes from his own being. He is not a beggar and he can live with
himself.
You cannot live with yourself. Whenever you are alone you become
uneasy; immediately you feel inconvenience, discomfort, a deep anxiety. What to
do? Where to go? Go to the club, go to the church or go to the theater - but go
somewhere, meet the other - or just go shopping. For people who are rich,
shopping is the only game, the only sport; they go shopping. If you are poor,
you need not enter the shop, you just move on the street looking at the
windows. But go!
To be alone is very difficult, very unusual, extraordinary. Why
this hankering? - because whenever you are alone your whole meaning disappears.
Go and purchase something from a shop; at least the salesman will give you
meaning... not the thing, because you go on purchasing useless things. You
purchase just for the sake of the purchase. But the salesman, or the owner of
the shop, they look at you as if you are a king. They behave as if they depend
on you - and you know well that this is just a face. This is how shopkeepers
exploit: the salesman is not bothered about you at all, his smile is just a
painted smile; he smiles at everybody, it is nothing particular for you. But
you never look at these things. He smiles and greets and receives you as a
welcome guest. You feel comfortable, you are somebody, there are people who
depend on you; this shopkeeper was waiting for you.
You are in search all over of eyes who can give you a certain
meaning. Whenever a woman looks at you she gives you meaning. Now psychologists
have discovered that when you enter a room - in a waiting room at the airport,
or at a station or in a hotel - if a woman looks twice at you, she is ready to
be seduced. But if a woman looks once, don't bother her, just forget it. They
have made films, and they have been watching, and this is a fact, because a
woman looks twice only if she wants to be appreciated and looked at.
A man enters a restaurant: the woman can look once, but if he is
not worthwhile she will not look another time. And woman-hunters know it well,
they have known it for centuries; psychologists have come to know just now:
they watch the eyes. If the woman looks again she is interested. Now much is
possible, she has given the hint, she is ready to move with you or play the
game of love. But if she doesn't look at you again then the door is closed;
better knock at some other door, this door is closed for you. Whenever a woman
looks at you, you become important, very significant; in that moment you are
unique. That's why love gives so much radiance; love gives you so much life,
vitality.
But this is a problem, because the same woman looking at you every
day will not be of much help. That's why husbands become fed up with their
wives, wives become fed up with their husbands - because how can you gain the
same meaning from the same eyes again and again? You become accustomed to it:
she is your wife, there is nothing to conquer. Hence the need to become a
Byron, hence the need to become a Don Juan and move from one woman to another.
This is not a sexual need, remember, this is nothing related to sex at all,
because sex goes deeper with one woman, in deep intimacy. It is not sex, it is
not love, absolutely not, because love wants to be with one more and more, in a
deeper and deeper way; love moves in depth. This is neither love nor sex, this
is something else: an ego-need. If you can conquer a new woman every day you
feel very, very meaningful, you feel yourself a conqueror. But if you are
finished with one woman, stuck, and nobody looks at you, no other woman or man
gives you meaning, you feel finished. That's why wives and husbands look so
lifeless, 'lustless'. You can just look and you can tell from far away whether
the couple coming are wife and husband or not. If they are not you will feel a
difference; they will be happy, laughing, talking, enjoying each other. If they
are wives and husbands, then they are just tolerating each other.
Mulla Nasruddin's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary came, and he
was going out of his house that day. His wife felt a little peeved, because she
was expecting he would do something and he was just moving in a routine way. So
she asked, "Nasruddin, have you forgotten what day it is?"
Nasruddin said, "I know."
Then she said, "Then do something unusual!"
Nasruddin thought and said, "How about two minutes of
silence?"
Wherever you feel life is stuck, it shows that you may have been
thinking it was love... It was not love, it was an ego-need - a need to
conquer, to be needed every day by a new man, a new woman, new people. If you
succeeded, then you felt happy for a while because you were no ordinary man.
This is the lust of the politician: to be needed by the whole country. What was
Hitler trying to do? To be needed by the whole world!
But this need cannot allow you to become solitary; a politician
cannot become religious - they move in opposite directions. That's why Jesus
says, "It is very difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
God. A camel may enter through the eye of a needle, but not a rich man into the
kingdom of God." Why? - because a man who has been accumulating riches is
trying to become significant through wealth. He wants to be somebody, and
whosoever wants to be somebody, the door of the kingdom is closed for him. Only
nobodies enter there, only those who have attained to their nothingness, only
those whose boats are empty; whose ego-needs they have come to understand are
futile and neurotic; whose ego-needs they have come to penetrate and found to
be useless - not only useless but harmful also. Ego-needs can make you mad but
they can never fulfill you.
Who is a solitary? One whose need to be needed has disappeared,
who does not ask any meaning from you, from your eyes, from your responses. No!
If you give your love, he will be grateful, but if you don't give, there is no
complaint; if you don't give, he is as good as ever. If you come to visit him
he will be happy, but if you don't come he is as happy as ever. If he moves in
a crowd he will enjoy it, but if he lives in a hermitage he will enjoy that
also.
You cannot make a solitary man unhappy, because he has learned to
live with himself and be happy with himself. Alone, he is sufficient. That's why people who
are related to each other never like the other to become religious: if the
husband starts moving towards meditation, the wife feels disturbed. Why? She
may not even be aware of what is happening or why she feels disturbed. If the
wife starts to pray, starts moving in the direction of religion and God, the
husband feels disturbed. Why?
An unconscious fear comes into the conscious. The fear is that she
or he is trying to become sufficient unto herself or unto himself; this is the
fear. So, if a wife is given the choice, "Would you like your husband to
become a meditator or a drunkard?" she will choose that he become a
drunkard rather than a meditator. Given the choice, "Would you like your
wife to become a sannyasin or to move on wrong ways and go astray?"
a husband will choose the latter.
A sannyasin means one who is sufficient unto himself, who
does not need anybody, who is not in any way dependent. And that gives fear:
then you become useless. Your whole existence has been around his need, that he
needed you. Without you he was nothing, without you his life was futile, a
desert - only with you did he flower. But if you come to know that he can
flower in his solitariness, then there will be disturbance because your ego
will be hurt.
Who is a solitary? And Jesus says: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY...
People who can live with themselves as easily as if the whole world were there
with them, who can enjoy themselves just like small children.
Very small children can enjoy themselves. Freud has a particular
term for them: polymorphous. A small child enjoys himself, he plays with his
own body, he is auto-erotic, he sucks his own thumb. If he needs somebody else,
that need is only for the body; you give the milk, you turn him over, you
change the clothes - physical needs. He has really no psychological needs yet.
He is not worried what people are thinking about him, whether they think him
beautiful or not. That's why every child is beautiful - because he does not
bother about your opinion.
No ugly child is ever born, and all children become, by and by,
ugly. It is very difficult to find an old man beautiful - rare. It is very
difficult to find a child ugly - rare. All children are beautiful, all old men
become ugly. What is the matter? When all children are born beautiful they
should die beautiful! But life does something... All children are
self-sufficient - that is their beauty; they exist as light unto themselves.
All old men are useless, they have come to realize that they are not needed.
And the older they grow the more the feeling comes that they are not needed.
The people who needed them have disappeared; the children are grown-up, they
have moved with their own families: the wife is dead or the husband is dead.
Now the world does not need them, nobody comes to their home, nobody pays
respect. Even if they go for a walk, nobody recognizes who they are. They may
have been great executives, bosses in offices, presidents in banks, but now
nobody recognizes them, nobody even misses them. Not needed, they feel futile;
they are just waiting for death. And nobody will bother... even if they die,
nobody is going to bother. Even death becomes an ugly thing.
Even if you can think that when you die millions of people will
weep for you, you will feel happy: thousands and thousands will go to pay their
homage when you are dead.
It happened once: One man in America planned it - and he is the
only man in the whole history of the world to have done it. He wanted to know
how people would react when he was dead. So before his death, when doctors said
that within twelve hours he would die, he declared his death. And he was a man
who owned many circuses, exhibitions, advertising agencies, so he knew how to
advertise the fact. In the morning his agent declared to all the press, to the
radio, to the television, that he was dead. So articles were written,
editorials were written, phone-calls started coming, and there was much
commotion. And he read everything, he really enjoyed it.
People are always good when you die, you become an angel
immediately, because nobody thinks it worth saying anything against you when
you are dead. When you are alive, nobody will say anything for you. Remember,
when you are dead they will be happy - at least you have done one good thing:
you have died! Everybody was paying respects to this man, and this and that,
and photographs had come into the newspapers - he enjoyed it perfectly. And
then he died, completely at ease that things were going to be beautiful.
Not only do you need others in your life, even in your death...
Think about your death: only two or three persons, your servants and a dog
following you for the last goodbye - nobody else; no newspapermen, no
photographers, nothing - even your friends are not there. And everybody is
feeling very happy that the burden is gone. Just thinking about it, you will
become sad. Even in death the need to be needed remains. What type of life is
this? Just others' opinions are important, not you? Your existence doesn't mean
anything?
When Jesus says: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY... he means this: a man
who has come to remain absolutely happy with himself, who can be alone on this
earth and there will be no change of mood, the climate will not change. If the
whole world disappears into a third world war - it can happen any day - and you
are left alone, what will you do? Except to immediately commit suicide, what
will you do? But a solitary can sit under a tree and become a Buddha without
the world. The solitary will be happy, and he will sing and he will dance and
he will move - his mood will not change. You cannot change the mood of a
solitary, you cannot change his inner climate.
Jesus says: BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT... And these are
the elect people, because those who need a crowd will be thrown again and again
into the crowd - that is their need, that's their demand, that's their desire.
God fulfills whatsoever you ask, and whatsoever you are is just a fulfillment
of your past desires. Don't blame it on anybody else - it is what you have been
praying for. And remember, this is one of the dangerous things in the world:
whatsoever you desire will be fulfilled. Think before you desire a thing. There
is every possibility it will be fulfilled - and then you will suffer. That's
what happens to a rich man: he was poor, then he desired riches, and desired
and desired, and now it is fulfilled. Now he is unhappy, now he is crying and
weeping and he says, "My whole life has gone accumulating worthless
things, and I am unhappy!" But this was his desire. If you desire
knowledge, it will be fulfilled: your head will become a great library, many
scriptures. But then in the end you will weep and cry and scream, "Only
words and words and words, and nothing substantial. And I have wasted my whole
life."
Desire with full awareness, because every desire is bound to be
fulfilled sometime or other. It may take a little more time because you are
always standing in a queue; many others have desired before you, so it may take
a little time. Sometimes your desire of this life may be fulfilled in another
life, but desires are always fulfilled, this is one of the dangerous laws. So
before you desire, think! Before you demand, think! Remember well that it is
going to be fulfilled someday - and then you will suffer.
A solitary becomes an elect; he is the chosen, the chosen one of
God. Why? - because a solitary never desires anything of this world. He does
not need to, he has learned whatsoever was to be learned from this world; this
school is finished, he has passed through it, transcended it. He has become
like a high peak which remains alone in the sky - he has become the elect, the
Gourishankar, the Everest. A Buddha, a Jesus, they are high peaks, solitary
peaks. That's their beauty: they exist alone.
The solitary is the elect. What has the solitary chosen? He has
chosen only his own being. And when you choose your own being, you have chosen
the being of the whole universe - because your being and the universal being
are not two things. When you choose yourself you have chosen God, and when you
choose God, God has chosen you - you have become the elect.
BLESSED ARE THE SOLITARY AND ELECT, FOR YOU SHALL FIND THE
KINGDOM; AND BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN.
A solitary, a sannyasin - that's what 'sannyasin'
means: a solitary being, a wanderer, absolutely happy in his aloneness. If
somebody walks by his side it is okay, it is good. If somebody leaves, it is
also okay, it is good. He never waits for anybody and he never looks back.
Alone, he is whole. This 'beingness', this wholeness, makes you a circle, and
the beginning and the end meet, the alpha and the omega meet. A solitary is not
like a line. You are like a line - your beginning and end will never meet. A
solitary is like a circle - his beginning and end meet. That's why Jesus says:
... BECAUSE YOU COME FROM IT YOU SHALL GO THERE AGAIN... you will become one
with the source; you have become a circle.
There is another saying of Jesus: "When the beginning and the
end have become one, you have become God." You may have seen a picture -
it is one of the oldest seals of the secret societies in Egypt - of a snake
eating its own tail. That's what the beginning and end meeting means, that's
what rebirth means, that's what you becoming like children means: moving in a
circle, back to the source; reaching there from where you have come.
Jesus said: IF THEY SAY TO YOU...'They' means the society, the
crowd - those who are not yet elected, those who are not chosen, those who are
in constant need of being needed - 'they'. IF THEY SAY TO YOU... and they will
say, because they don't allow anybody to become a solitary. They will haunt
you, they will try to press you back into the society. They will want you to
come back to the prison - they cannot believe how you escaped. And they will
feel uncomfortable with you if you become a solitary one. Why? - because your
very presence makes them doubtful about their own existence; that is the
discomfort.
Whenever a Jesus moves amidst you, you become uncomfortable,
because if this man is right then you are wrong - and this man walks in such a
way that he looks right. If this man is right then what about you? The very
movement of a Jesus in the society, and the whole society is in an earthquake -
because this man seems so happy, not needing anybody, not being needed, so
solitary, so alone and so blissful; and you are almost neurotic, almost mad.
Something is wrong with you, not with this man. You will try in every way to
prove that this man is wrong. There are books written against Jesus in which it
is proved that this man was a psychological case, mental; there are books which
prove that this man was neurotic. Who is writing these books? 'They' - they are
writing these books, because only if they can prove this man is wrong,
neurotic, gone mad, are they at ease. But both cannot be right: if this man is
right, then you are wrong.
But what is the need? If this man is neurotic, he is neurotic -
what is the need to prove it? Why be bothered? Why bother about him? No, it is
because he gives you a doubt about yourself. That's why we have not welcomed
such people, never! We have always rejected them when they were alive. We
welcome them when they are dead, because then we can paint their faces in our
own ways.
Look at the face of the Christian Jesus. It is not even a
caricature, not even a cartoon - it is absolutely false. Christians say Jesus
never laughed, and I cannot see Jesus in any other posture than laughing. He
must have been a laughter; whether you heard it or not is not the point, but he
must have been like a laughing, bubbling spring, flowing all over. But the
Christians have painted him as sad as possible. He looks neurotic as they have
painted him; he looks so sad that to be in his company will be a burden. Just
go in any Christian church and look at Jesus' portrait. Would you like to be
with this man for one whole night, in one room? You will say, "This is
okay, just this Sunday morning is enough." With this man the whole night?
One will start trembling and be afraid. And he is so sad - you are already sad
enough, why add more?
Christians have chosen the cross as their symbol, and they have
missed the whole point. Jesus talked about the cross and he was crucified, but
his meaning was totally different. They have chosen the cross because it shows
suffering, and we have been suffering so much that we cannot believe in a
laughing Christ. We can believe in a suffering Christ - that is so similar to
us, just like us, even more in suffering than us. We understand suffering; the
language of sadness, suffering and death we understand. Life we don't
understand. That's why there is a Christianity, but around Krishna there could
not be any religion.
Hindus worship Krishna, but grudgingly - because he is so contrary
to your existence: playing on his flute, dancing with girls, always happy and
laughing. He is so much against your existence that you cannot understand him.
How can you understand dancing? You can understand death, you can understand
crucifixion - you cannot understand a flute and song.
Christianity spread like a fire all over the world, and there is
not a single worshipper of Krishna. Those who think they are, they are not
either, they also have difficulties with Krishna. They have to explain Krishna
away in many ways. They cannot believe that this man was dancing with
everybody's wife, or that he had sixteen thousand girlfriends. Impossible!
There must be some other meaning. So they interpret Krishna in their own ways:
that these sixteen thousand girlfriends are not real girlfriends, they are
man's nervous system - sixteen thousand nerves. But I tell you, this man had
sixteen thousand girlfriends: and this man laughed and sang and danced - he was
ecstasy itself. And Jesus was the same; that's why I say his name, 'Christ',
may have been derived from 'Krishna'.
Jesus was the same, he was not a sad man. But you cannot
understand the language of laughter - no, not yet. Your hearts are not yet
ready for a dancing God; the world is not yet a home for a dancing God. Krishna
seems impossible; Jesus seems to be almost the conclusion of your life.
Crucifixion became the symbol, the cross became the symbol, but for Jesus the
cross means something absolutely different, and I would like to tell you what
it means to Christ.
The cross has two lines, simple lines: one line horizontal to the
earth, another line vertical to the earth. That's how the cross is - a
crossroad, a crossing point. The horizontal line is time: past, present,
future; A, B, C, moving in a line. You live on that line. The vertical line is
eternity, the now. It is always present; there is no past to it, no future to
it. It goes higher and higher and higher; it moves higher, not forward.
Time and eternity meet where Jesus is crucified; that moment where
Jesus dies is the now. If you die in the now, you are reborn, you are
resurrected. Then there is no death for you, because time disappears and you
are eternal. The cross is a symbol of time and eternity meeting. And that point
must be your death. It cannot be anything else, because when you disappear from
the time-world you become part of eternity. And both cross. Where do they
cross? Here and now, at this moment they cross.
Now is the moment where the cross exists. But if you go on moving
horizontally, in the future, then you miss. If you start moving from this very
moment, vertically, you are on the cross; you will die as you are, and you will
be reborn - a new birth, absolutely new. And through that birth, no death
exists, but life eternal. To Jesus, the cross was a time symbol: time and
eternity crossing. But for Christianity it became a sad death symbol of suffering.
If Jesus had been in India and he had not gone to the Jews, and if
we had painted the cross, then the cross would be the same but Jesus would be
different. He would be just like Krishna: ecstatic, his face smiling, his whole
being smiling, because this is the moment of ecstasy. When time disappears, you
die to the world of time and you are reborn to the world of eternity - at that
moment you must be ecstatic. That is what Hindus have called samadhi.
But Christianity missed. It always happens so because Jesus alive
is a discomfort, he is like a worm in the heart, biting you. You have to put
yourself at ease. When he is dead, then you can arrange everything according to
you; then you can paint Jesus according to you - then he is nothing but your
representative.
IF THEY SAY TO YOU - and they will say - 'FROM WHERE HAVE YOU
ORIGINATED?' SAY TO THEM, 'WE HAVE COME FROM THE LIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT
ORIGINATED THROUGH ITSELF.' We come from God, we are sons of God; we come from
the source of all existence. And the source of all existence has no other
source - it is self-originating, it is self-creating. The father has no other
father, the creator has no other creator to it - the creator is a self-creating
force. 'WE HAVE COME FROM THE LIGHT, WHERE THE LIGHT ORIGINATED THROUGH
ITSELF.' IF THEY ASK YOU, 'WHAT IS THE SIGN OF YOUR FATHER IN YOU?'... They
will ask - they will ask, "Have you become enlightened? What is the sign?
Have you come to know the father? Then what is the sign? Give us signs!"
because they cannot look directly, they always look at signs - they cannot
penetrate directly to you. Even when a Buddha is there you ask for signs; even
when a Jesus is there you ask for signs: "Show us some sign so that we can
understand." And Jesus is there. Is he not sign enough? No, but that you
cannot understand - he transcends you.
People used to come to Jesus and they would ask, "Are you
really the one who has been promised? Are you that chosen one?" And they
were asking him. They must have been asking his disciples more because 'they'
are always against the disciples. They are against the master, but they are
against the disciples even more, because the disciples move amongst them more;
they live with them, they have to live with them, and they will ask puzzling
questions. They will ask, "What is the sign of the father in you? Make
water into wine and we will understand. Or revive this man who is dead, or do
something against nature!" Then they will understand.
What did Jesus say? Jesus did not say, "Do miracles and give
them signs." What he says is one of the most beautiful things ever
asserted. He says: SAY TO THEM, 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.' This is the sign
of God in us: '... A MOVEMENT AND A REST.'
Very difficult to understand. What does he mean? He says, "We
are moving and yet at rest. The contradiction has dissolved in us. Now we are a
synthesis of all contradictions: we are talking and yet not, we talk and yet
there is silence; we love, yet we don't love, because the need to be loved has
disappeared. We are alone and yet amidst you, because you cannot disturb our
loneliness. We are in the crowd, but not of the crowd, because the crowd never
penetrates us. We live and move in this world, but we don't belong to this
world - we may be in it, but this world is not within us."
This is what Jesus says: 'IT IS A MOVEMENT AND A REST.' "Look
at us: we move and yet there is no tension in the movement; we walk but at the
center of our being there is no movement because there is no motivation to
reach anywhere - we have attained. This is the sign of the father. Look at us!
There is no desire and yet we go on working. There is no motivation, yet we go
on breathing and living. Look at us: the contradictions have dissolved. We
walk, and yet do not; we live, and yet do not. You see us in time, and time has
disappeared for us - we have entered eternity." But this is the sign of a
perfect master. If you want to see a perfect master, this is the sign: movement
and rest.
It will be easy for you if a master is moving, serving people,
changing the society, creating a great movement for some utopia. It will be
easy for you to understand a Gandhi: continuous movement, activity - political,
social, religious and devoted to others. It will be easy, very easy, to see
that Gandhi is a mahatma, a great soul. It is very easy, because there
is only movement, and movement devoted to others. It is service: not moving for
himself, moving for others, living for others. Or you can easily understand a
man who has retired, renounced the world and moved to a Himalayan retreat -
does not speak, remains silent, does not move, does not do anything; no
service, no social activity, no religious activity, no ritual - he simply sits
there in his silence. You can understand him also: he is at rest.
But both have chosen one polarity. They may be very good people -
there are good people - but they are not perfect. They don't show the sign of
the father, because perfection is the sign. They have to be like Jesus: moving,
and yet silent.
Movement and rest: living in the world, not renouncing it - and
yet totally renounced. Where contradictions meet, the ultimate appears. If you
choose one, you have missed, you have sinned, you have missed the mark. Don't
choose! That's why Lao Tzu, Jesus and others say, "Don't choose!"
Choose and you miss. Be choiceless - let movement be there, and let rest be
there, and let movement and rest rest together. Become a symphony, not a single
note. A single note is simple, there is not much trouble.
I have heard about Mulla Nasruddin, that he had a violin, and he
continuously created one note on it. The whole family became disturbed, the
neighborhood became disturbed, and they said, "What type of music is this?
If you are learning, then learn well. You go on creating one note continuously!
It is so boring that even at midday the whole neighborhood falls asleep."
Nasruddin's wife said, "This is enough. For months and years
we have been listening, we have never seen such a musician! What are you
doing?"
Nasruddin said, "Others are trying to find their note, and I
have found it. That's why they change: they are still on the way, trying to
find the note. And I have found it, so now there is no need - I have reached
the goal."
A single note is simple, there is no need to learn much, it is
uncomplicated. But a single note misses all that is beautiful, because the
higher the complexity, the higher the beauty that appears. And God is the most
complex: the whole world is in him, the whole universe meets in him. So what is
the sign of your father? It can only be a synthesis, it can only be a symphony,
where all the notes have dissolved into one.
'MOVEMENT AND REST' is just symbolic. SAY TO THEM, 'IT IS A
MOVEMENT AND A REST.'
Try to follow this, try to do it in your life. Extremes are easy
to choose: you can move into activity and get lost in it, or you can renounce
the activity and get lost in rest. But both will be choices - you will be as
far away from God as possible, because God has not rejected anything, He has
not renounced anything.
He is in all, He is all. If you also become all, not renouncing,
not rejecting, without any choice, a choiceless awareness, then you have the
sign of the ultimate, the sign of God.
Beware of extremes! They are the dangerous paths from where one
falls. Let both the extremes meet, then a new phenomenon arises - more subtle,
more delicate, more complex, but more beautiful.
Enough
for today.
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