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Part X : 1987-1990 Poona-Two : Growth of
Osho#146 new commune
The commune is rapidly growing around Osho again, along the
lines he recommended during his world tour. There is no organisation.
A few residents take care of administration of the premises.
You say: Sometimes I am blessed by this overwhelming feeling
that this commune is becoming gently one body, one organism, one
heartbeat. Am I dreaming? Am I once more the usual utopian? Oh,
amore, please tell me it is not a dream.
Sarjano, it is a dream that is coming true, but it is a dream—not
your dream, but the dream of everybody who is here….
When the commune in America was crushed, almost bulldozed criminally,
anyone in my place would have dropped the idea—but I am
stubborn! I will go on till my last breath…or even after
that.
Sarjano, what is happening here again is that the dream is becoming
true. And we have learned much in the destruction of the commune
in America—it has not been a bad experience. Learning is
always good, and learning always comes through failures. The commune
had succeeded, almost succeeded.
Here, we will avoid those possibilities of destruction. It is
better to continue to dream for a better humanity than to settle
into sadness and pessimism. Things are still coming together again.
People are returning and they are more experienced now. They know
not to have a structure that is capable of being destroyed. Something
totally new, a more organic body, not a dictatorial regime; no
enforcement of ten to twelve hours' work, but a more joyous, life-affirmative…Each
according to his need, each according to his choice. We are making
every effort not to disturb anybody's individuality, not to sacrifice
any individual for the commune. On the contrary, make every individual
as strong as possible, because that will be the total strength
of the commune—and the seeds have started sprouting.
You are right, Sarjano, when you say, "Sometimes I am blessed
by this overwhelming feeling that this commune is becoming gently
one body, one organism, one heartbeat. Am I dreaming?" No,
it is a reality that is happening.
"Am I once more the usual utopian?" We are making
every effort to change the meaning of the word, `utopia'. The
meaning of the word `utopia' is that which never happens, and
we are determined to change the meaning. We are committed to the
idea that utopia is that which can happen. Its old definition
has to be changed totally. Utopia is the very heart of human beings.
A man without dreams for a better humanity is not a man, he is
a desert.
"Oh, amore, please tell me it is not a dream." Sarjano,
it is both: it is not a dream because the dream is turning into
reality, but it is still a dream because much more has to be done.
You should not be satisfied.
This is a dream which goes on growing with new possibilities,
with new dimensions. But we are determined to create it, to make
it a reality. This is our religion. We are not interested in going
to paradise; we are interested in making the paradise come here.
It all depends on our love, on our silence, on our peace, on our
meditation, and being aware and alert not to fall again into any
trap of the vested interests.
Once the tree has become strong, has gained roots in the earth,
it will be difficult for anybody to destroy it….
Be clear in your vision, be conscious in your efforts. The dream
is gaining roots and I hope soon we will see the flowers. They
are not far away. invita01
In this temple you are allowed to be yourself without any inhibitions.
I would like this to happen all over the world. This is only the
beginning. Here, start living moment to moment totally and intensely,
joyfully and playfully—and you will see that nothing goes
out of control; that your intelligence becomes sharper; that you
become younger; that your love becomes deeper. And when you go
out into the world, wherever you go, spread life, playfulness,
joy, as far away as possible—to every nook and corner of
the earth.
If the whole world starts laughing and enjoying and playing,
there will be a great revolution. spirit17
You ask: All these years with you in the commune, I did what
I was told. Now it is up to me, but who am I to know what to do?
I want you to be meditative; I want you to have some time to relax;
I want you to have some time to think about the vital problems
of life, and to do something about them.
And we have all the arrangements for meditations, for group
therapies, for counseling, for all kinds of possibilities that
can help you to become a spiritual giant.
The work is needed because you need food, you need clothes. So,
it is good working five hours—and that should also not be
too tight. Here we are not going to create an army to conquer
the world. We are creating a commune of individuals with their
own spirituality, unhindered, uninterfered with. We want them
to cleanse their minds, sharpen their intelligence and enter into
the deepest center of their being. Those four, five hours' work
is just to keep you alive so that you can meditate, so that you
can realize one day a consciousness full of light, full of joy.
Here nobody is going to tell you what to do. I want you to find
what you can do the best, what you would like to do; that which
you can enjoy, which will not be a burden, which will not be imposed
on you, which will be your own creativity.
I want your work also to be part of your spiritual growth; not
against it, but for it. But that can come only from your own spontaneity.
You have to take the responsibility on yourself.
I want individuals to be absolutely free, responsible, alert,
aware, neither allowing anybody to dictate to them; nor allowing
themselves to dictate to anybody. It has to be a beautiful communion.
It is not based on any dictatorial ideology. It is based, basically,
on ultimate freedom.
And if freedom is the ultimate goal then it should be your first
step too, because only the first step will lead you to the last
step. It is not possible that your whole life you are just a beast
of burden, doing things that people tell you to do and then suddenly
one day you will become enlightened. That is not possible.
You will have to take all the responsibility for what you are
doing. And you will have to grow in your consciousness and awareness
so that only the right flows through your actions, so that whatever
you do beautifies the commune, helps people.
This is a gathering, not a crowd; it is a brotherhood, not a
factory. Here, every individual has an equal opportunity to grow
into whatsoever he wants to grow. And my whole effort is that
you should not be interfered with….
Now, stand up on your own two legs. Remember that you are alone,
there is no God, there are no messengers, and there is no dictator.
You have to be decisive about your own life. It is your life and
you have to live it according to your own style. Only then you
can make your life a celebration; otherwise it is burdened with
so many rules and regulations that you cannot dance with that
much burden. invita10
What place does a structured meditation technique have in the
lives of your sannyasins, both when we are living near you and
when we are away?
Is it sufficient to sit in meditation in your presence or listen
to a video, and then to carry that meditativeness into the rest
of the day, or should additional time be set aside to do zazen
or vipassana?
It is up to everyone's convenience.
If you feel that it is not enough to be meditative in all your
activities, then it is perfectly good to have some small time
just for meditation. But if you feel that you have the same joy,
the same silence when you are doing your work meditatively as
when you are sitting especially for meditation, then there is
no need.
Ultimately, there should be no need. For the beginners I am saying,
at your convenience. But finally, your whole life should be nothing
but a meditation. Whatever you do should be a meditation. And
there should be no separate, particularly structured timetable.
That is for the beginners. And I don't think you are beginners;
now it is time enough not to be beginners. turnin08
Meditation is only a word to you. It has not become a taste,
it has not been a nourishment, it has not been an experience for
you; hence I can understand your difficulty. But you have also
to understand my difficulty: your diseases may be many, but I
have only one medicine, and my difficulty is to go on selling
the same medicine for different patients, different diseases.
I don't care what your disease is, because I know I have got only
one medicine.
Whatever your disease I will discuss it, but finally you have
to accept the same medicine. It never changes. As far as I know,
in these thirty-five years it has never changed. I have seen millions
of people, millions of different questions, and even before I
hear their questions, I know the answer. It does not matter what
their question is; what matters is how to manage to bring their
question to my answer. satyam16
To me, meditation and responsibility come simultaneously. As
you go deeper into yourself, you become more and more responsible.
You know that there is no God. You know that everyone is suffering
around you and you have found the space where no suffering is
possible.
The only thing that remains for you is to share your space, to
indicate the innermost being of everyone. This I consider to be
the greatest creative act in existence. If you can make somebody
aware of his being, his indestructible being, his immortality
and eternity, you have done the greatest creative act possible.
And you have to do it, because there is no God who can do it!
Only you can do it.
Meditation throws you upon yourself. It takes away all responsibility
that you have put in the name of God. Obviously, if God has created
the world, then he is responsible for everything that happens
in the world. If God created man, then certainly he has created
his destructiveness also, his violence, his greed, his anger,
his tendency towards murder, rape, suicide. For everything God
is responsible, because he has planted the seeds in you of all
these things. You are free of responsibility.
Do you understand what I am saying?…
God has to disappear from the mind of man; only then will you
have a tremendous feeling of responsibility, of sharing, of helping
people on the path. There is nobody else; only we are here on
the earth…alone.
Our responsibility is tremendous. poetry03
Being in the role of a therapist, I seem to be able to help some
people from a space of loving uninvolvement and centeredness.
But I realize at the same time that I cannot see my own blind
spots of unconsciousness.
It is good to realize that you cannot see your own blind spots
of unconsciousness—although you are in the role of a therapist
and can help others to solve their problems. It is good to be
aware of it, because many therapists, psychologists, psychoanalysts,
and psychiatrists fall into a trap because they can help people
through their expertise. They forget completely that their own
problems have remained unsolved. In fact, they have become so
much concerned in solving others' problems, they have forgotten
that they also have problems to solve….
You have to go deeper into meditation and you have to help those
people who come into your therapy groups towards meditation. Give
them as much help as you can through your expertise, but make
meditation the foundation.
And while you are running a group…as a therapist you know
much more than the people who are participants, but as a meditator
you can join them as a participant, not as a therapist. That will
bring you closer to them. That will give you a deeper understanding
of your heart, and they will also feel your humanity more clearly,
more deeply, your compassion and your love.
Meditate with them. Make it a point that in every therapy group
one hour should be devoted to meditation. The remaining time you
work your methodology, your technique—but start with meditation
and end the group in the night with meditation. People should
go to sleep after meditation. After meditation they should not
do anything else, so that their whole night has some aroma of
meditation, some vibe of meditation continuously floating in their
being. And as they wake up, they wake up in a different way than
they have ever awakened before: more peaceful, more serene, more
calm, more collected.
So, the first thing should be meditation and the last thing should
be meditation, and in between you do your therapy group. In times
of meditation you should be a participant. You should join hands
with them, you should be one amongst them. In the therapy group
you have a higher position—you are more knowledgeable, they
are less so. They have come for help, you are helping them—certainly
you have a superiority.
But in meditation no one is superior, no one is inferior. Begin
with this beautiful equality and end your group with the same
phenomenon. And your therapy group will become both together:
a meditative therapy or a therapeutic meditation….
Not only you, but other therapists also should make it a point:
it is one of my basic approaches to create a synthesis between
therapy and meditation, because that will create the final synthesis
between West and East. That is a very fundamental beginning. Because
the West continues to work within the mind, goes on round and
round in the mind, and the East has taken steps out of the mind
long before, centuries before. And what the West is searching
for in the mind, the East has found beyond the mind, without any
difficulty.
A synthesis is needed. Western techniques of psychotherapy can
be helpful in resolving life problems, relationship problems,
mundane problems, ordinary problems, but they cannot resolve your
fundamental problem of the meaning of life. They cannot resolve
the quest for truth. The East can resolve the problems which are
not of this world. And if both are together we can help man in
both ways: we can make him more capable to live in the world—with
more efficiency, with more culture, with more lovingness—and
we can also help him to go into his aloneness and to move out
of the world. Even though he is in the world he can remain always
in touch with the eternal.
Once a man has become efficient in both, he is a healthy bird
with both wings ready to fly into the vast sky—to his ultimate
destiny of faraway stars. Therapy can help in such ways. rebel26
It is one of the stupidities that no university in the world
teaches people the art of living, the art of loving, the art of
meditating. And I think anything else is far lower than love,
life, meditation, laughter. You may be a great surgeon, you may
be a great engineer, you may be a great scientist—still
you will need a sense of humor, still you will need the art of
love, still you will need the art of living, still you will need
all these great. It is one of the stupidities that no university
in the world teaches people the art of living, the art of loving,
the art of meditating. And I think anything else is far lower
than love, life, meditation, laughter. You may be a great surgeon,
you may be a great engineer, you may be a great scientist—still
you will need a sense of humor, still you will need the art of
love, still you will need the art of living, still you will need
all these great values in your life.
But you will be surprised: I teach only these things—love,
life, laughter, and as a background for all these, meditation—but
the government of India is not willing to accept this school as
an institution of education. They would accept it as an institution
of education, if I was teaching geography, history, chemistry,
physics—the mundane things of life.
I don't say that they should not be taught, but they should
not be the only education. They should be a lower kind of education,
and each university should have a higher faculty of education
where you are taught real. I don't say that they should not be
taught, but they should not be the only education. They should
be a lower kind of education, and each university should have
a higher faculty of education where you are taught real values
of life…because geography cannot make you a better man,
nor can history make you a better lover, nor can chemistry make
you meditative.
All that is being taught in the universities cannot give you
the sense of humor. You cannot laugh, you cannot dance, you cannot
sing. Your life becomes almost like a desert. zara102
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