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Part VII : Osho develops the New Phase of His Work
In April 1977 Osho advises that the second phase of his work
will soon begin. Sannyasins who wish to participate will need
to be committed, surrendered, to the commune. Osho develops this
theme throughout the year
A sannyasin says: Laxmi told me of the beautiful possibilitites
of our building something new like a city, a new place for all
of us. I do want to be a part of that. Mm, you will be! You will
be part of everything that is going to happen. Mm? and thousands
of things are going to happen—this is just a beginning!
thisis09
Now a second phase of my work will start soon and I would like
only people who are really surrendered, and no negativity.
Otherwise others will have to go, I will by and by send them.
Now my work will take another shape; everybody will not be allowed.
Up to now I was allowing everybody. If I have to work deeply then
many people will have to go….
And this is going to be the pattern of the work: whoever is
working under someone has to surrender to that person. If somebody
is working under you, he will surrender to you. The immediate
person in charge of the work has to be surrendered to, because
soon I will be settling for a different kind of work. madmen18
Surrender is a device to bring you out of your ego. If you don't
want to come out of your ego, I am not much interested in bringing
you out of your ego; it is none of my business. If you are interested,
I am available. If you are not interested, perfectly good. The
door is open…. feet04
A master has to be skilled in the greatest art: the art of the
human heart—because subtle are the problems, very complicated
and complex….
Very subtle is the art, it has to be—because it is an effort
to transform the human heart, the greatest thing in evolution,
the highest peak to which existence has reached….
A master simply opens his being to you, demonstrates to you
what Truth is.
What am I doing here? I'm drunk with existence—a drunkard.
And I allow you to come nearer to me to be drunk with me, to participate.
And the closer you come, the more drunk you will become. And a
moment comes when the disciple and the master sit silently—nobody
knows who the disciple is and who the master is. They have come
so close, like two flames coming closer and closer and closer,
and a sudden jump—and the two flames have become one. To
understand a master you need to come close….
With a master, the final, the utterly final commitment is needed.
That is the meaning: `You can't have anything from me until you
die.' That is the meaning of this Sufi saying, because when you
die then you are totally committed. Now there is no going back.
There is nobody else you can fall back upon.
A commitment is a point of no return. Where will you go back to?
You have burnt the house. A cunning mind would like to be distant;
not a participant, but an observer. Keeping the distance he keeps
his house intact, so if something goes wrong he can go back, he
can fall back. But all that is beautiful in life comes through
commitment.
In the West, particularly, `commitment' has become a wrong word,
a taboo word. The moment you hear `commitment', you become afraid.
That's why in the West all that is beautiful and the deepest,
is disappearing. Love is not possible; only sex is possible. Sex
is without involvement; love is a commitment. Sex is between two
strangers; love is between two who are intimate, not strangers,
who feel an affinity—who are not there just to exploit each
other, but to grow with each other. A commitment is needed in
love. And without love, sex will become futile. It has already
become so in the West.
Meditation is not possible if you are not committed. You cannot
remain a spectator. If you want to be a spectator, then you will
remain on the periphery. Commitment leads you to the very center
of things.
To be with a Master is a commitment. It is the highest form of
love, the highest form of meditation, the highest form of prayer.
In the West, only teachers have existed. In the West, `teacher'
and `master' are not two totally different words; they are synonymous,
they mean the same…. But in English there is no difference
between a Master and a teacher. In English there exists no word
like guru. It is a deep involvement with a person, such a deep
involvement that you are ready to die for it.
Love, meditation, prayer, all are deep commitments.
And who is afraid of commitment? The ego is afraid of commitment—because
commitment means now no more going back. The bridge is broken.
You feel afraid. Only the future, the unknown future is there;
past is no more. You will feel dizzy. And if you look in the eyes
of a Master, you will feel dizzy—because he is vacant. It
is like an abyss with no bottom to it. You would like to cling
to something because there is danger, you will be lost for ever.
And this is so! But you cannot find yourself unless you are lost.
And you cannot be reborn unless you die. A Master is a death and
a life. A Master is a death and a resurrection. until04
You see this chair I am sitting on? Just four days before, I ordered
Asheesh and Veena to prepare it for the Sufi lectures specially.
They have worked day and night. They could complete the chair
at only one o'clock in the night, just a few hours ago. They could
have thought that why could I not have said so a few days earlier,
why just four days before? But they enjoyed, they understood the
design. And they went higher and higher in energy. Last night
when they completed the chair, they were almost on a psychedelic
trip! As they moved in surrender…. It was difficult to complete
it in four days, but they did.
The chair was not the question at all.
It was a naqshbandi, it was a design.
They learned something out of it—that if you surrender,
you can go high. The deeper you go in surrender, the higher you
go in consciousness. They could have said that this is not possible.
They would have missed—and they would have never known what
it was meant for. But I am happy that Asheesh and Veena both understood
the point. They went in deep trust into it, and they thought,
when I have said four days then it must be possible, and they
poured their total energy into it.
And when you pour your total energy into anything in trust, it
becomes meditation. It brings ecstasy. Last night they must have
moved into a kind of wajd, a glimpse.
When you are with a Master you have to be very, very conscious,
because each and every thing is managed in such a way that it
helps your spiritual growth….
For example, preparing a chair, how is it concerned with sannyas?
And how is it concerned with meditation? And can't I speak on
sufism on another chair? We have many chairs. How is it concerned
with Sufism? If you think about it, it is utterly irrelevant.
But that is not the point at all. If you think that way, you will
miss the whole point. secret01
A sannyasin, who is leaving, says he has difficulty surrendering
to the commune.
The problem arises only when you start doing your own thing, and
then you fall out of tune with the things here. Here the only
way to be is to be totally in tune; otherwise you suffer and the
whole community suffers. You will not feel happy and people will
not feel happy with you.
So here you have to dissolve…and then there is no problem
at all. In fact, this mind that you feel continuously goes round
and round in a crazy way will disappear by and by, once you have
stopped listening to it—and that is the whole point of disciplehood.
It is very difficult to get out of the trap of the mind because
it is the mind that decides. It is the mind that even tries to
get out of it.
The essential of disciplehood is that you cannot get out of your
mind on your own, because who will try and who will get out of
it?—it is the same mind. So you choose a person and you
say, 'I will do whatsoever you say.' You trust a person and you
surrender. Then your mind will go on for months together, even
for years, but by and by it will become less and less powerful
over you because you cannot decide so you cannot support it.
If you have to listen to me and if you do what I say then this
mind cannot continue to be crazy for long, because your support
will disappear. It exists with your support. It is almost like
cycling: you go on peddling, the cycle goes on. After the moment
you stop peddling how long can it go on for? Maybe out of the
past momentum for a few yards, and if you are on a downhill road,
then a few miles, but it cannot go forever.
And when I say to dissolve here with me and with my work, it means
that if you are working with Laxmi you have to listen to Laxmi,
if you are working with Deeksha you have to listen to Deeksha;
if you are working with Mukta you have to listen to Mukta. It
is easy to listen to me. It is very difficult to listen to Laxmi
because then your mind starts asserting itself. And there is every
possibility that you may know more than Laxmi but that is not
the point. Laxmi may be right in some things or may be wrong in
some things, you may be right, but that is not the point either.
Even if Laxmi is wrong and she says to do something, then take
it for granted it is from me and you have to do it. In the beginning
it will be a little difficult—difficult because you see
that you can do better, difficult because you know a better alternative.
And I am not saying that you are wrong, remember—you may
be right but that is not the point. Right or wrong, you are not
to decide. And this is part of my device—that sometimes
I will not say to you what to do; Laxmi will say. Because when
I say it is very easy to accept it. I will bring it from such
a source where it is very difficult to accept. But to accept there
will bring the surrender.
And I am preparing something for the future so I don't want any
dissidents here in any way. Because once things become bigger,
if a few dissidents are here they will create cliques and will
disturb the whole work.
I want it to be absolutely homogeneous—with one voice,
with one direction, with one soul. In the west many communes come
into existence and die. In fact the average life of a commune
is not more than three years. And the basic reason is that sooner
or later dissident voices start becoming powerful, cliques form,
and politics enters. And when politics enters into any commune,
death has entered. Then conflict, then struggle, then power, and
everything comes in from the back door.
And remember, when politics enters it always enters with good
slogans; that is its way to deceive. Even the person who brings
it in may be deceived by it because he thinks he is doing something
for the good, something for the welfare of everybody.
I am trying to make this commune slowly in such a way that no
politics enters in it. Thousands of people are going to come to
be here with me…
And Poona has just been a jumping board. That's why I would like
to leave Poona soon—because its work is finished. I have
chosen people; now I can move into a more permanent commune. Poona
was just an overnight's stay; its work is finished. justdo26
You say: The other day I came through the gates with an Indian
sannyasin and he was turned away by the guard with no reason given.
When I spoke to Laxmi about it, she more or less told me to mind
my own business. Whenever I see people being unjustly treated,
my immediate reaction is to go to their assistance. Is it really
none of my business what happens to other people?
This is significant for everybody present here, and everybody
who is going to be in any way related to me. Whatsoever happens
in this commune happens according to me. I know who was turned
from the gate. And the man who has been turned away knows why
he has been turned from the gate. And it is none of your business
to come into it.
This you have to understand absolutely, that whatsoever happens
here…I may not come out of my room, I never come out except
in the morning and the evening, and I never go around the ashram—but
whatsoever happens here is perfectly known to me, is happening
according to me. Please don't interfere….
Now I know the man who has been rejected and I know why he is
rejected—and he also knows why he has been rejected. There
is no reason to give any reason. If reasons have to be given for
each and every thing, then my whole work will be simply to go
on supplying reasons. There are thousands of people coming, and
everybody has to be given reasons and explanations about everything?
Laxmi is right.
And always remember that Laxmi never does anything on her own.
She is a perfect vehicle. That's why she has been chosen for that
work…. She simply listens and does. Whatsoever is said,
she does.
And you have to learn these ways, because soon we will be becoming
a bigger commune and thousands of people will be coming, and these
things have to be settled. You should not bring them again and
again. Again and again you go on writing questions: "Somebody
has done this…." That is for me to look to, and if
I think that it is not right it will be prevented. You need not
bring it to my notice even. You waste my time.
And you get so excited…. There are some foolish people
who have renounced their sannyas because they saw something unjust
was being done. Now they're just losing their opportunity. It
was not their business. You have come here for your own growth.
This acceptance has to be total, only then work is possible, only
then I can help you. Please don't give suggestions to me. The
moment you give me a suggestion, you are disconnected from me.
This is not going to be a democracy. You are not to be asked what
should be done and what should not be done. This should be remembered
from the very beginning—that this is not going to be a democracy.
Your votes will never be taken. You become part of it with that
knowledge, that whatsoever I decide is absolute. If you don't
choose that way you are perfectly happy to leave.
People are prevented from entering but nobody is prevented from
leaving. You can leave. Have you seen anybody being prevented
from leaving? Leaving is perfectly free—you are free, that
is your decision. If you want to be here you have to be totally
here. If you feel that this is not the place for you, that your
ideas are not being fulfilled, that it is not according to you,
you are free to leave.
This place will never be according to you. This place is to
change you, it is not to be according to you. This place is going
to be a transformation for you. And these are the beginnings.
Who are you to know what is right and what is wrong? And who are
you to ask for the reason? How do you come in?…
But don't go on writing to me. Whatsoever happens here is happening
with my knowledge. Not a single thing happens here which is not
known to me, so you need not inform me about things, I know them
already. It is a sheer wastage of time.
And the moment you surrender and become an initiate, a sannyasin,
that surrender has to be total. Just live a few months in that
total surrender and you will see—it is alchemical, it transforms
you. diamon08
Sheela comes to darshan in Laxmi's absence if Indian people
are present. Maneesha had queried her coming when there were no
Indians present, and had also queried whether Sheela had been
checked at the gate. (Everyone is checked for perfume, tobacco,
etc., which might trigger Osho's allergies.) Sheela says: I got
stepped on twice by Maneesha, and it just sort of got me aggravated.
Always remember Sheela: that is her work. So if you are doing
anything and it comes under somebody's charge, you have to listen
to the person. Don't feel stepped on, otherwise how will work
happen? It was natural; because there were no Indians she thought
that Sheela was not needed. You became angry. You told her to
mind her own business, but she was! You must have felt that you
have been stepped on, but that is your attitude.
As the work becomes complex we will have to see that whosoever
is in charge has to be listened to, otherwise nobody will listen
to anybody. If you are doing some work and you are in charge then
everybody has to listen to you…even sometimes when they
don't like it. Even sometimes when you are wrong, they have to
listen to it, otherwise it will become impossible; this commune
cannot function then. More and more work will have to be divided,
and everybody should be supreme in his work.
When Maneesha enters your work, you are supreme, so she has
to listen to you; but this is her work—whether everybody
has been checked or not.
But I have been going through the check.
Mm, that's okay, but this is her work; it is not stepping on
you. And that has been the structure, that when Indians are there,
somebody has to be there, so it was natural for her to ask. You
need not get angry about it and you need not feel offended, otherwise
rivalries will enter. That's what has happened to every commune.
Then power trips come in: she has stepped on you, so you have
to step on her. Then people become bitchy to each other, and that's
bad.
Everybody has to think this, that whosoever is in charge you
have to surrender to…even though sometimes, I say, he may
be wrong. That is not the point at all, that can be sorted out
later on. But nobody should feel offended, otherwise it becomes
impossible.
Now, if nothing is said about it, the next time that Maneesha
feels that you are unnecessarily there, she will not be able to
say anything to you; she will be afraid that Sheela has to be
left to herself. But if Sheela is left then why not Arup, why
not Vivek, why not Mukta? Then things go on becoming more complicated.
Now you are feeling miserable, she is feeling sad…for no
reason! Be a little more alert and aware, and always remember,
right or wrong, the person who is in charge has to be listened
to….
Do you know that all communes die? The longest life of a commune
up to now has been three years. I would like this commune to live,
and it is going to live, but then the functioning has to be totally
different. Those communes die because they have a democratic structure;
that's why they die. You cannot have a democratic structure in
a commune, otherwise nothing will work.
The commune has to be in a totally different way; it has to
be a discipline. Not everybody has to assert themselves, otherwise
fights and then cliques will happen; and then people will join
together—a few people with Maneesha, a few people with Sheela—and
then conflict over who is more powerful will happen. These things
will go on and they will destroy the whole thing that I am trying
to do; your energy will get involved in those things. They have
to be avoided, and I am very alert from the beginning.
So apologise to Maneesha. And if she is wrong, that is my business,
I will see to it. Mm? but that is not for you. If sometimes you
find that somebody is wrong, just report it to me, but don't react
to the person immediately; just report it to me. That's for me
to think about.
I would like this commune to function so smoothly that it can
become an example. Communes have become very condemned because
they start with great enthusiasm, then everything falls flat.
It falls flat because of the politics of people; and this is how
politics enter. I am very keen that no politics should enter,
and the only way is: always look to the person. You should have
written a letter to me that this happened. I am always there;
it would not have created any trouble. She cried, she is suffering,
and you have been sitting there, miserable for no reason at all!
So apologize to her, mm? bite03
You say: I have lived in many communities, all sincere and well-meaning,
yet everywhere I was appalled at the unconscious political ambition
and intrigues which are underlying and dormant but come up in
spite of the good intentions. How are you handling it here? Are
you allowing it free play so that people can work it out of their
systems—or are you nipping it in the bud?
I don't believe in repressing anything—not even the poisonous
politics—because repressed, it remains in your system; sooner
or later it will take you over. And the longer it has been repressed,
the more dangerous it becomes, because the deeper it goes into
your very source of being. And if you are poisoned at your very
source, at the very centre, then it becomes really difficult to
uproot it.
My approach about everything is to bring it to the surface.
So I never nip anything in the bud, I help it to become a flower.
And after the flowering, the flower starts withering of its own
accord. That's the natural way.
So in my commune, nothing is prevented. Ambitions are allowed,
accepted, as being part of human beings, their ignorance, their
unawareness. But I make my people aware that these are games.
So play them, but play consciously. Become more and more alert
and never let them become serious. If they don't become serious,
there is no need to become afraid of them. The problem is that
when a game becomes so serious then you forget completely that
it is a game.
That's where the politician is lost. He thinks he is doing something
very serious. He is doing something very silly, but he thinks
he is doing something very serious. All that is needed is to make
him aware that this is a game. If you want to play it, play, but
don't become so serious about it. Keep a little bit of humour.
A sense of humour is one of the greatest keys to transform human
personalities.
Yes, you are right! Here also—because these people come
from the world and they bring all kinds of infections from the
world. They are not coming here fresh, they have been already
conditioned. Ambition has already been put into them—their
parents, the society, church, school, college, university. Everywhere
they have been poisoned; they bring all that poison here. You
cannot nip it in the bud otherwise they will become split and
hypocritical. Then on the surface they will show humility, humbleness,
and deep down they will think, 'There is nobody more humble than
me'—and politics has come in. Deep down they will think,
'I am the greatest egoless person in the world'—but the
'greatest'.
Now a new kind of ambition has entered. It is the same ambition,
now the direction is new. And it is more subtle, and, of course,
more dangerous too. And now it is pious, because it is in the
name of religion. So even the poison no longer looks like poison;
it is labelled nectar. It is religious poison, pious poison, and
it is more difficult to get rid of the pious poison.
So I don't repress anything and I don't help any kind of repression,
I help people to bring whatsoever they have in them to the surface.
I help them to be aware of it, to watch it, to see the foolishness
of it, to see the stupidity of it—not because I say it is
stupid, because if I say something and you only believe it, you
will repress it. I help you—my function here is to help
you become aware on your own. The day you see the stupidity of
it, it will drop of its own accord.
So I have created all kinds of games here. Yes, there is a hierarchy
too so people who want to play, they can play the game of hierarchy.
But sooner or later—because the whole effort is to make
them conscious—they become aware that this is a game. And
the moment they see it is a game, they are out of it. Seeing something
as a game makes you laugh at it—a hearty laugh at your own
self. And when a man can laugh at his own stupidities he is becoming
wise. Laughter has to come out of awareness….
Awareness is the only secret key: it transforms. It doesn't
matter what your illness is, awareness is the only medicine: it
cures all illness. If you are politically minded—and everybody
is…In some way or other everybody is trying to be more powerful
than the other. Even in relationships politics continue—the
husband tries to be more powerful than the wife, the wife tries
to be more powerful than the husband—hence the constant
conflict, even between parents and children. Everywhere there
is conflict. It is all politics, different faces of politics.
So when you come to me I cannot expect you to come without politics—that
is impossible. If you are without politics, you will not need
to come—wherever you are, God will come to you. When you
come here I accept all your human weaknesses. I have no condemnation.
I don't tell you to repress; I don't want to make you feel guilty
about anything. If you want to play the game of politics you are
allowed to play it—with only one condition: become more
and more alert while playing it. Have a sense of humour, and then
all is well. Sooner or later it will wither away of its own accord.
And so is the case with sensuality, sexuality; so is the case
with possessiveness; so is the case with everything that man suffers
from. sos112
You ask me: What chance is there for Your ideal society in the
face of the politicians and the priests and the vested interests
of capital?
First, I am not interested in any ideal society. For that matter,
I am not even interested in any ideal individual. The word ideal
is a dirty word to me. I have no ideals. Ideals have driven you
mad. It is ideals that have made this whole earth a big madhouse.
The ideal means you are not that which you should be. It creates
tension, anxiety, anguish. It divides you, it makes you schizophrenic.
And the ideal is in the future and you are here. And how can you
live unless you are the ideal? First be the ideal, then start
living—and that never happens. That cannot happen in the
very nature of things. Ideals are impossible; that's why they
are ideals. They drive you crazy and make you insane. And condemnation
arises, because you always fall short of the ideal. Guilt is created.
In fact, that is what the priests and the politicians have been
doing—they want to create guilt in you. To create guilt
they use ideals; that is the simple mechanism. First give an ideal,
then guilt comes automatically….
Accept yourself as you are.
I am not interested in any ideal society, not at all. I am not
interested even in ideal individuals. I am not interested in idealism
at all!
And to me the society does not exist, there are only individuals.
The society is just a functioning structure, utilitarian. You
cannot come across society….
Put your whole energy into dancing, celebrating. And then you
are ideal, here and now—not that you have to become ideal.
Ideology, as such, has lost its truth. In fact it was never
there in the first place. And the power to persuade also is gone.
Few serious minds believe any longer that one can set down blueprints,
and through social engineering bring about a new utopia of social
harmony. We are living in the age of utter freedom. We have come
of age. Humanity is no longer childish, it is more mature. We
are living in a very Socratic period, because people are asking
all the important questions of life. Don't start hankering and
longing for some future ideal, idea, perfection. Drop all ideals
and live here-now.
My commune is not going to be an ideal society. My commune is
going to be a herenow commune. heart06
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