Sincerity / Surrender
Sincerity / 誠実さ
Surrender / サレンダー（明け渡し）
Bodhidahrma's Search for a Disciple
ボーディダルマの弟子探し
commentary（解説）…
もしあなたが
どのような状況からも
最大限の恩恵を達成したいと望むなら
トータル（全一）にかかわらなければなりません。
それがあなたに「鍵 key」を与えてくれるでしょう。
You must do it totally;
if you expect it when you want to achieve a maximum benefit from any situation.
It will give you the "key".
osho…
世界には2つの種類の伝承 tradition がある、
1つは無意識 unconscious の人々によって作られた、
そして
もう1つは意識 conscious の人々によって作られた。
スーフィ教徒 sufism は意識 conscious の伝承 tradition だ、
ある導師 mastes から他の人へと、
連続している、小さな鎖は今も生き続けている。
魂 spirit が機が熟したある日の時のために
それは今も生き続けている
禅 zen は意識 conscious の伝承 tradition だ。
菩提達磨（ボーディダルマ bodhidharma）はインドで光明 enlightenment を得た
そして
彼は弟子 disciple を探したが
見つけることができなかった。
それゆえ、
彼は弟子 disciple を探しに
中国へ行かなければならなかった。
それは意識 conscious の伝承 tradition だ。
彼は「鍵 key」を持っていた、
彼は年をとっていた、
彼はその「鍵 key」をつかむことができる
ふさわしい後継者を見つけることができなかった。
彼は長い間旅をした。
その当時の中国は他の惑星のようだった。
ヒマラヤの麓を通り越すことは危険だった、
しかし、彼はそのリスクをとった。
それをとる価値があった。
もしかすると
彼は誰かを見つけることができ
そうしたら
彼はその「鍵 key」を与えることができるかもしれない…？
9年の間、
彼は洞窟の中で待った、
ただそこで待った。
彼は何をしていたのか？
…壁を見つめていた。
彼は正確には何をしていたのか？
誰1人として彼が何をしていたのかを正確に語らなかった。
彼は大きな磁力を創りだしていた。
彼は
この伝承をさらに先へと伝え運ぶことができるであろう
ある人を呼び寄せようと試していた。
そして彼は言った、
「ふさわしい人がやって来たとき、
その時にのみ
私はその者と顔を合わせよう。
さもなければ
私は壁に顔を向け続けるだろう。」
そしてある日、9年後に、
そのふさわしい者がやって来た。
9年間の努力は果たされた。
彼は広大な静けさの中で待った。
彼は磁場を作った
…それは探し出すのを助けた、
そしてその磁場は引き寄せ誘導した、
そしてその磁場は人々を呼び出した。
9年の間にたくさんの人たちがやってきた、
しかし
彼はふさわしい者がやってきた気配を感じなかった。
そして9年後
そのふさわしい者がやってきた。
その者はボーディダルマ bodhidharma の後ろに立った。
雪が降っていた、
その者はボーディダルマの後ろに24時間立った。
その者に雪が積もった。
このやって来た人はなにも言わなかった。
彼は24時間ただ待った、忍耐強く待った。
2人の間に何かがピンときた
…2つの沈黙 silence が出会った。
それから次の日の朝早く、
この新参者は彼の片手を切り落とした、
それをボーディダルマ bodhidharma に贈って言った、
「私の方へと向いてください、
さもなければ
次に私は私の頭を切り落とします！」
そして
ボーディダルマ bodhidharma はすぐに向きを変えた。
向きを変えなければならなかった。
9年の間
彼は誰をも見なかったのだ、
彼は言った、
「そうか、あなたは来たのだな…？」
なぜなら
弟子 disciple は彼の頭を差し出す用意のあるただ1人の者だからだ。
これらは象徴的な物語だ。
『手』の意味とは、
「私は自分の行いをあなたに差しあげます。私を使ってください。」
という意味だ。
『手』の意味とは、
「私はあなたのメッセンジャーになる用意があります。
あなたが運びたいものは
なんであれ私が運びましょう。
あなたが与えようとして来られたものは
なんであれあなたは与えてください。」
『手』の意味とは、
「私の行いはこの瞬間からあなたのものです。
私は私自身の行為者にはなりません。
今や私はあなたが言われたことだけを行います。
これが私の手です。」
…これがその意味だ。
彼が本当に彼の手を切り落としたというのではない。
それはバカげていただろう。
そうして彼は言った、
「私の方へと向いてください、
さもなければ
次に私は私の頭を切り落とします！」
弟子 disciple とは彼の命を差し出す用意のある者だ。
これが『surrender 明け渡し』だ。
ボーディダルマ bodhidharma は向きを変えた、
この男の目の中を見た、
そして「鍵 key」は渡された。
一言も話されなかった、
その必要はなかった。
この者はそのような深い沈黙 silence の中にあった、
その沈黙 silence は十分だった。
彼は後継者になった。
禅 zen は生きた alive 伝承 tradition のまま残った。
だから覚えておきなさい、
全ての伝承 tradition が悪いわけではない。
無意識 unconscious な人々によって作られた伝承 tradition は悪い。
彼らは悪くなり、邪悪になった、
…なぜなら
無意識 unconscious のマインド（思考）mind は
どんな良いことをすることができないからだ。
しかし
意識 conscious の人々の伝承 tradition は、
彼らはいつもふさわしい瞬間を待っている、
そして
その瞬間は近くまで来ている。
from osho talks
oshoの講話より
from osho transformation tarot
osho transformation タロット より
The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2
Discourses on Sufism
Talks given from 02/03/78 am to 10/03/78 am
English Discourse series
Chapter 4
Chapter title: The Three Jewelled Rings
5 March 1978 am in Buddha Hall
この全講話の英語のダウンロードpdfはこちら。
chapter 4の英語の全講話です。
（上の日本語のこのカードの解説はこの講話の1部であり、
昔のこのカードについていた日本語の解説です。
今のカードには英語の解説しかありません。
以下の英語の講話はこのお話しの全てです。
英語はなんとか読めるのですが…
翻訳とかできるような実力はないので…
間違っているかもしれませんが
あくまでも趣味で独学ですが
導師 master osho との瞑想 meditation と思って和訳してみたりしていますσ(^_^;)
まだ以下の英語の講話を全部訳すことができていませんが…
いつになるかわかりませんが少しづつがんばって訳していますσ(^_^;)
素晴らしいお話しなので英語で読める方は
是非読んでみてください。）
The Three Jewelled Rings
THERE WAS ONCE A VERY RICH MAN WHO HAD A SON.
HE SAID TO HIM,
”MY SON, HERE IS A JEWELLED RING.
KEEP IT AS A SIGN THAT YOU ARE A SUCCESSOR OF MINE,
AND PASS IT DOWN TO YOUR POSTERITY.
IT IS OF VALUE, OF FINE APPEARANCE,
AND IT HAS THE ADDED CAPACITY OF OPENING A CERTAIN DOOR TO WEALTH.”
SOME YEARS LATER HE HAD ANOTHER SON.
WHEN HE WAS OLD ENOUGH,
THE WISE MAN GAVE HIM ANOTHER RING,
WITH THE SAME ADVICE.
THE SAME THING HAPPENED IN THE CASE OF HIS THIRD AND LAST SON.
WHEN THE ANCIENT HAD DIED AND THE SONS GREW UP,
ONE AFTER THE OTHER,
EACH CLAIMED PRIMACY FOR HIMSELF
BECAUSE OF HIS POSSESSION OF ONE OF THE RINGS.
NOBODY COULD TELL FOR CERTAIN WHICH WAS THE MOST VALUABLE.
EACH OF HIS SONS GAINED ADHERENTS,
ALL CLAIMING GREATER VALUE OR BEAUTY FOR HIS OWN RING.
BUT THE CURIOUS THING WAS THAT THE ’DOOR TO WEALTH’ REMAINED SHUT FOR THE POSSESSORS OF THE KEYS,
AND EVEN THEIR CLOSEST SUPPORTERS.
THEY WERE ALL TOO PREOCCUPIED WITH THE PROBLEM OF PRECEDENCE,
THE POSSESSION OF THE RING, ITS VALUE AND APPEARANCE.
ONLY A FEW LOOKED FOR THE DOOR TO THE TREASURY OF THE ANCIENT.
BUT THE RINGS HAD A MAGICAL QUALITY TOO.
ALTHOUGH THEY WERE KEYS,
THEY WERE NOT USED DIRECTLY IN OPENING THE DOOR TO THE TREASURY.
IF WAS SUFFICIENT TO LOOK UPON THEM WITHOUT CONTENTION OR
TOO MUCH ATTACHMENT TO ONE OR
THE OTHER OF THEIR QUALITIES.
WHEN THIS HAD BEEN DONE,
THE PEOPLE WHO HAD LOOKED WERE ABLE TO TELL WHERE THE TREASURY WAS,
AND COULD OPEN IT MERELY BY REPRODUCING THE OUTLINE OF THE RING.
THE TREASURES HAD ANOTHER QUALITY TOO:
THEY WERE INEXHAUSTIBILE.
MEANWHILE THE PARTISANS OF THE THREE RINGS REPEATED THE TALE OF THEIR ANCESTOR ABOUT THE MERITS OF THE RINGS,
EACH IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAY.
THE FIRST COMMUNITY THOUGHT THAT THEY HAD ALREADY FOUND THE TREASURE.
THE SECOND THOUGHT THAT IT WAS ALLEGORICAL.
THE THIRD TRANSFERRED THE POSSIBILITY OF THE OPENING OF THE DOOR TO A DISTANT AND REMOTELY IMAGINED FUTURE TIME.
I said to you the other day that all revolutions have failed, all but one.
But that one has never been tried yet.
That revolution is religion, the untried revolution.
Why has it not been tried yet?
And it is the only real revolution possible;
then why has it not been tried yet?
It is real, it can really change the whole world, that’s why.
People want to talk about change, revolution.
They want to play around these words,
they love philosophizing,
but they don’t want really to go into revolution.
They are not that courageous.
They cling to their past.
Talking is safe, going into revolution is very unsafe.
That’s why the real has been avoided till now
and
the unreal ones have been tried.
The political, the social, the economic
– those revolutions have been tried,
because deep down man knows that they are doomed to fail.
He can have the joy of being a revolutionary and yet can go on clinging to the past.
There is no risk involved.
Those so-called revolutions that have been tried and have all failed are escapes from the real revolution.
It will sound very strange to you.
What I am saying is this:
that all your so-called revolutionaries are escapists.
To avoid the real they have been creating the false, the pseudo.
Society cannot be changed unless man is changed
– this is a fundamental truth.
There is no way to avoid it, to shirk it, to escape from it.
Society is an abstraction; it exists not.
That which exists is the individual, not the society.
Man exists,
the society is just abstraction, a concept, an idea.
Have you ever met the society?
Have you ever met the nation?
Whenever you come across something,
you come across a concrete individual, alive, breathing.
’Society’ is a dead word.
It has its utility;
it is just a symbol.
By changing the symbol you will not be changing anything at all.
You have to change the real stuff.
The society is made of the stuff called man,
man is the brick of the society.
Unless man is changed nothing is changed;
you can only pretend.
You can believe,
you can hope,
you can imagine, and
you can go on living in your misery.
You can dream.
Those dreams are soothing, comfortable;
they keep you asleep.
In fact, modern research about dreams says it is so, exactly so
– that’s the function of the dreams:
they keep you asleep.
You are feeling hungry in the night,
you start dreaming that you are going towards the fridge,
and you start eating in your dream
and the sleep remains undisturbed.
If the dream does not happen
then the hunger will be too much
and the hunger won’t allow you to continue to sleep.
The hunger will wake you up.
Your bladder is full and pressing,
and you start dreaming that you have gone to the toilet.
If you don’t dream of the toilet,
the pressure is too much;
you will have to wake up.
The function of the dream is to help you remain asleep.
And that is the function of ALL other dreams
– the dream that the society one day will be classless, the utopia will come,
that one day there will be no misery,
that one day the earth will become paradise.
These are dreams.
They are very consoling, comforting.
They are like ointment on the wounds,
but the ointment is false.
For five thousand years man has been dreaming that way
– that the society will change, that sooner or later things will be good,
the night will be over soon.
But the night continues, the sleep continues.
Society goes on changing
but nothing really changes.
Only the forms go on changing.
One slavery changes into another slavery,
one kind of oppression changes into another kind of oppression,
one type of ruler is replaced by other types of rulers,
but oppression continues,
exploitation continues,
misery continues .
I say religion is the only revolution
because it changes man.
It changes man’s consciousness,
it changes man’s heart.
It depends on the individual,
because the individual is real and concrete.
It does not bother about the society.
If the individual is different
you will have a different society and a different world automatically.
And you cannot change the inner by changing the outer,
because the outer is on the periphery.
But you can change the outer by changing the center, the inner,
because the inner is at the very core of it.
By changing the symptoms you will not change the disease.
You will have to go deep into man.
From where comes this violence?
From where comes this exploitation?
From where come all these ego-trips?
From where?
They all come from unconsciousness.
Man lives asleep,
man lives mechanically.
That mechanism has to be broken,
man has to be re-done.
That is the religious revolution that has not been tried.
You will say,
”Then what about all these religions?
– Christianity, Hinduism, Islam?”
They are again escapes from the real.
When a Jesus comes to the world he bringss the real.
He wants to change the individual.
Jesus goes on insisting that the Kingdom of God is within you:
”I am not talking about the kingdom of this world, but of the beyond.
Unless you are reborn nothing is going to happen”.
He goes on saying to people that the within of your existence has to be changed, transformed, and it can be transformed if you are more awake, more loving.
Those two things, love and awareness,
can transform your inner alchemy totally.
Jesus is crucified
because we cannot allow such dangerous people on the earth.
They don’t allow us sleep.
They go on shaking, shocking;
they go on trying to wake us up.
And we are dreaming so many dreams,
beautiful dreams and sweet dreams, and they go on shouting.
Their presence becomes very much of a nuisance.
Jesus must have been a nuisance,
Socrates must have been a nuisance.
Socrates must have offended and annoyed people.
He was continuously poking his nose into others’ affairs,
he was continuously trying to provoke and seduce,
he was continuously finding opportunities where he could shake you into a kind of wakefulness.
He had to be poisoned.
But whether you crucify Jesus or
poison Socrates or
worship Buddha,
it is all the same.
Worshipping is also a WAY of escaping,
and far more cultured.
If Jesus had been born in India, a very, very ancient country, he would not have been crucified.
Indians know better ways of destroying
– they would have worshipped him!
They would have said,
”You are an AVATARA.
You are God come to earth.
We will worship you forever
but we will never follow you.
How can we follow?
We are ordinary mortals,
you come from the beyond.
At the most, we can touch your feet and worship you.
And we will always worship – we promise!
But don’t tell us to change;
that is not possible.
We are ordinary human beings,
you are superhuman.”
That’s the meaning of AVATARA.
When you call a man an AVATARA
– a Buddha, a Krishna –
you are saying,
”It is perfectly good for you to talk about revolution, radical change;
it is perfectly good for you to live in love and awareness,
but we are ordinary people.
You don’t belong to us,
you come from God.
We arise out of the earth,
you come from the sky.
We can only worship you.
We will admire, praise, we will sing songs about you down the ages.
We will do everything,
but don’t tell us to be transformed.
That is not possible.”
That is the meaning when you call a person an AVATARA:
you are saying,
”You don’t belong to us.
Naturally you come from God,
so you can be good.
How can we be good?
– we don’t come from God,
we are sinners.
You have an intrinsic goodness in you.
We can’t have that intrinsic goodness, but we will try.”
And we postpone,
and we never try,
and we go on postponing.
That is again a way of crucifying
– more subtle,
more cunning,
more clever,
more sophisticated,
but still the same.
The result, the outcome, is the same.
Christians are not what Christ wanted them to be;
Hindus are not what Krishna wanted them to be;
Buddhists are not what Buddha wanted them to be.
They are just the opposites.
Religion has never been tried.
There have been religious persons once in a while,
but religion has never been tried.
It has never been given an opportunity to transform the unconscious mind that exists on the earth
and creates all kinds of problems Politics, economics, social reforms and the so-called religions
– they are all escapes from the real revolution.
The real revolution has been talked about,
only talked about Jesus says,
”Ask and it shall be given.
Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and the door shall be opened unto you.”
Somebody asked Meister Eckhart
– a really religious person –
”When Jesus says
’Ask and it shall be given’
why don’t people ask?
If it is just for asking’s sake,
why don’t people ask?
If he says seek and ye shall find, and he says only knock and the doors shall be opened unto you,
then why don’t people knock?”
Eckhart laughed and he said,
”For two reasons
first you may ask and it may not be given to you,
so people don’t want to be frustrated;
second, and a deeper reason, you may ask and it may be given to you.
That is more frightening.”
That’s why people don’t try.
They simply pay lip-service And you know, the whole world seems to be religious in a way people go to the temple to the mosques, to the churches.
They read the Bible, Koran, Gita, they recite the Vedas, they do mantras, but still there seems to be no religious consciousness at all.
The earth is surrounded by a very, very dark cloud of unconsciousness.
There seems to be no light.
The night seems to be utterly dark, not even a single star.
You have to be very, very aware of this,
because you can do the same as people have been doing down the ages.
Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism
– they are not true religions.
They are pseudo, counterfeits.
Christ is true,
Christianity is false.
Buddha is true,
Buddhism is false.
Buddhism is created by us,
Buddha is not created by us;
but we create Buddhism according to our needs,
according to our ideas,
according to our prejudices.
WE create Buddha,
we create Buddhism,
we create a myth of Buddha.
The real Buddha is not created by us.
The real Buddha comes into existence IN SPITE of us.
He has to fight to be!
He has to find ways and means to exist.
He has to find a way to get out of the prison that we call the society.
But once somebody has become awakened,
we gather around him and we start spinning and weaving a system around him which is all of our own making.
It has nothing to do with the person at all.
The stories that are told about Buddha are untrue;
so are the stories about Christ.
The real person is lost.
We create such mist,
such dust around,
that nobody can see the real person.
That is the work of the theologians.
For two thousand years Christian theologians have been creating such dust that it is impossible to see Jesus.
He is completely lost in their logic-chopping, in their theories,
they have created Himalayas of words.
Nobody is bothered about who this main really is, what his message is.
The message is very simple,
it is not complicated.
The message is not that you should worship Jesus or Buddha.
The message is that you should become a Christ or a Buddha
– less than that won’t do.
Don’t become a Christian,
become a Christ.
If you have any respect for yourself become a Christ,
don’t become a Christian.
Become a Buddha
don’t become a Buddhist.
No ’ism’ can contain Buddha,
no church can contain Christ.
But the human heart can contain Buddha.
ONLY the human heart can contain him,
because the human heart is as infinite as the existence itself.
Don’t worship him outside.
If you have understood Buddha,
RESPECT YOURSELF!
Feel reverence for your own being;
that will be reverence towards Buddha.
If you have understood Christ,
start looking inwards
– you will find him there.
He is not outside,
not in the churches.
He is in the innermost core of your being.
If religion really happens in the world there will not be religions
but only a kind of religiousness, a suffused light, a quality, indefinable
– just as love is or awareness is;
a different quality of consciousness.
And the time for it has come.
And when the time for a certain idea comes,
no force in the world can prevent it.
Man has come of age.
Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism are all primitive efforts, rough sketches.
They are like astrology,
but the time has come for astrology to become astronomy.
They are like alchemy,
but the time has come for alchemy to become chemistry, to become scientific.
They are like magic,
but the time has come
– the magic has to be dropped,
because man is capable of becoming scientific.
The day for science has come.
Man has become mature.
That’s why there is so much turmoil,
because no old religion seems to be relevant.
People are turning anti-religious
NOT because they are anti-religious,
but because the old religions are no longer relevant.
People are becoming godless not because God has died,
but because the old gods have become rotten.
The new world needs a new vision of God;
the new man needs a new concept of god, a new approach.
A new temple is needed.
It is said that when Jesus was crucified,
the old temple of Jerusalem started falling apart.
It happens again and again:
man goes on growing;
a moment comes when the old religion is felt to be too restricting and man cannot live in it.
Either he has to have bigger space for himself, or he becomes anti-religious.
Either give a new kind of religiousness to the world, or man is going to become irreligious.
And Hinduism, Islam and Christianity have proved impotent;
they are not giving a new vision.
They go on repeating the old thing again and again.
They are still hoping that somehow they will be able to convince man that all that is old is gold.
It is not.
Once it becomes old it is never gold again.
Once it is old it is a corpse, the soul has left it.
Man needs a new dispensation, a new Bible.
And the newness of the Bible will be this:
that it will not be a book,
that it will not be a sect,
that it will not be a church;
that it will be a quality
– that people can be religious.
There is no need for them to be Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan;
they can simply be religious.
There is no need to have any adjective.
Religiousness can become just a way of life.
A religious person will walk differently than a non-religious person.
What will the difference be?
The difference will be his awareness.
A religious person will act differently from a non-religious person.
What will the difference be?
His action will come out of love.
A religious person will create a different kind of fragrance around himself, naturally, obviously
– because there will be no ego,
so there will be no shadow around him.
A religious person will live a luminous life;
a light will go on filtering out from his innermost core.
A religious person will be A CONSCIOUS PERSON
– not Christian, not Hindu, not Mohammedan.
And I say to you that the day for it has come.
Never before in the history of man has there been such a critical moment.
Never has man been so uprooted from the past.
Never before has man been so fed-up with all the old concepts, old idols, old ideologies.
It is for the first time that man is utterly fed-up.
This is a good sign,
this is of immense value.
It simply shows that a quantum leap is possible now:
religion can be tried, can be given a try.
The time spirit is getting ready to receive religiousness
– and it can happen only when the time is ready,
when the time spirit is ready.
Up to now, man has lived a kind of childishness.
God was
a father-figure
or
a mother-figure.
It was a projection,
it was the projection of a child.
The child cannot live without the father.
The child cannot live without protection,
without protecting hands.
Even two hands are not enough,
so Hindus say that God has a thousand hands
– to protect you.
This simply shows fear.
Now man is no longer afraid.
He does not need any kind of protection.
On the contrary,
man wants to move into the unknown.
On the contrary,
man wants to be adventurous.
Now going to the moon is nothing
but an indication of adventurousness.
It has no utility, in fact.
Going to Everest has no utility
– you cannot live there,
there is nothing to be found.
But in all directions and dimensions,
adventurousness is getting hold of the human spirit.
Man wants to go into insecurity.
That’s why I say the time spirit is ready.
Now we can search for a God who is not a figure, a father-figure.
We can search for a God who is not a person.
Now we are ready to search for the truth of God,
and the truth of God can only be found through the truth of consciousness;
there is no other way.
You can see only that for which you are ready.
The more conscious you are,
the higher the realities that will be available to you.
The higher you rise in your consciousness,
the more the higher realities become available to you.
When you have reached to the ultimate peak called SAMADHI,
then all is available to you.
You are standing at the highest peak:
from there everything is available.
God is revealed as totality.
Sufism,
Zen,
Hassidism
– these are the highest kind of religions that have existed up to now.
Islam is meaningless,
but Sufism is not meaningless.
Islam is a mass movement;
Sufism is the search of the few, the daring few.
Buddhism is a mass religion;
Zen is only for those great adventurers, explorers,
who are always ready to lose the certain, the secure, for the uncertain
– for those gamblers;
so is Hassidism.
Sufism,
Zen,
Hassidism,
have been the only real adventures in the past,
but very few people have tried them so the impact has not been great.
The darkness is too much
and
only one candle burns;
it cannot help much.
Sannyas is an effort now,
to bring together all that is beautiful in Sufism, in Zen, in Hassidism, in Tantra, in Yoga.
All that is beautiful in all those great adventures has to become the foundation of sannyas.
It can release religiousness into the world.
It can make it possible for religion to be given a chance, and the revolution CAN happen.
It is time it should happen!
Man has suffered enough!
But remember,
the suffering is not coming from the capitalists,
otherwise communism would have helped.
The suffering is not coming from outside,
the suffering is created by man himself.
So man’s roots have to be changed
and the keys are available.
They have always been available,
but they have not been used.
This is the meaning of the story we are going to discuss today.
THERE WAS ONCE A WISE AND VERY RICH MAN WHO HAD A SON.
HE SAID TO HIM,
”MY SON, HERE IS A JEWELLED RING.
KEEP IT AS A SIGN THAT YOU ARE A SUCCESSOR OF MINE,
AND PASS IT DOWN TO YOUR POSTERITY.
IT IS OF VALUE, OF FINE APPEARANCE,
AND IT HAS THE ADDED CAPACITY OF OPENING A CERTAIN DOOR TO WEALTH.”
Each word has to be understood,
because these stories are not ordinary stories.
They are not to entertain you,
they are to enlighten you.
THERE WAS ONCE A WISE AND VERY RICH MAN...
Sufis say wisdom is richness.
All other richness is just false.
Wisdom is wealth.
All other wealth is really ’illth’, not wealth.
It simply deceives you;
it keeps you occupied and engaged in foolish things.
It keeps you so engaged with the non-essential that you completely forget that there was something essential to be searched for.
And it was not far away, it was within you;
but you became so engaged with the without that the within became almost non-existential
– because unless you look within,
it is non-existential.
Only your look can make it existential.
Wisdom is the only wealth.
The wise man may be a beggar or may be a king – that is irrelevant –
but the wise man is always rich.
Beggar or king does not make much difference.
THERE WAS ONCE A WISE AND VERY RICH MAN WHO HAD A SON.
HE SAID TO HIM,
”MY SON, HERE IS A JEWELLED RING.
KEEP IT AS A SIGN THAT YOU ARE A SUCCESSOR OF MINE...”
It was only a sign.
It was not the real wealth;
it was not wisdom.
It was only a symbol, a metaphor, a key:
”If used rightly you will also become wise and wealthy.
If used at all, you will know what treasures I am giving to you,”
said the father.
And he said:
”... AND PASS IT DOWN TO YOUR POSTERITY.”
That is the meaning of creating a tradition deliberately.
＊
There are two kinds of traditions in the world:
one that is created by unconscious people,
and
the other tradition that is created by conscious people.
Sufism is a conscious tradition:
from one Master to another, in succession, a small chain has been kept alive.
It has been kept alive for the days when the time spirit would be ready.
Zen is a conscious tradition.
Bodhidharma became enlightened in India
and
he searched for a disciple and could not find.
Hence, he had to go to China in search of a disciple.
It is a conscious tradition.
He had the key,
and he was getting old,
and he could not find a right successor who could hold the key.
He travelled long.
In those days China was another planet.
To pass through the Himalayas on foot was dangerous,
but he took the risk.
It was worth taking.
Maybe he could find somebody there so he could give the key?...
And for nine years he waited in a cave,
just waited there.
What was he doing?
– looking at the wall.
What was he doing exactly?
Nobody has told exactly what he was doing.
He was creating a great magnetic force.
He was trying to call forth the one who would be able to carry this tradition onwards.
And he had said,
”When the right person comes, only then will I face him.
Otherwise I will continue facing my wall.”
And one day, after nine years, the right person came.
That nine years’ effort was fulfilled.
He had waited in IMMENSE silence.
He had created a field
– and the held was searching,
and the field was attracting,
and the field was calling people forth.
Many had come in those nine years,
but he didn’t feel that the right person had come.
And then one day the right person came.
He stood behind him.
Snow was falling;
he stood there for twenty-four hours.
He was covered with snow.
This man who had come didn’t say anything.
He simply waited, patiently waited, for those twenty-four hours.
Something must have clicked between these two persons... two silences met.
And then the next day, early in the morning,
the newcomer cut off one of his hands,
presented it to Bodhidharma and said,
”Turn towards me,
otherwise the next thing I will cut is my head!”
And Bodhidharma turned immediately.
He HAD to turn.
For nine years he had not looked at anybody, and he said,
”So you have come?”...
because a disciple is only one who is ready to give his head.
These are symbolic stories.
’Hand’ means: ”I give my action to you. Use me.”
’Hand’ means: ”I am ready to become your messenger.
I will carry whatsoever you want to carry.
You give whatsoever you have come to give.”
’Hand’ simply means: ”My action, from this moment, is yours.
I will not be a doer on my own.
Now I will only do what you say.
This is my hand”
– this is the meaning of that.
It is not that he really cut off his hand.
That would have been foolish.
And then he said,
”Turn towards me, otherwise I will cut off my head!
The next thing to be given is my head.”
The disciple is one who is ready to give his life.
This is surrender.
Bodhidharma turned,
looked into the eyes of this man,
and the key was transferred.
Not a single word was spoken;
there was no need.
This man was in such deep silence;
that silence was enough.
He became the successor.
Zen has remained an alive tradition.
So remember,
all traditions are not bad.
Traditions created by the unconscious people are bad.
They are bound to be bad,
they are bound to be evil
– because the unconscious mind cannot do anything good.
But there are traditions of conscious people,
and they have always been waiting for the right moment,
and the moment is coming close by.
The old man said,
”KEEP IT AS A SIGN THAT YOU ARE A SUCCESSOR OF MINE,
AND PASS IT DOWN TO YOUR POSTERITY.
IT IS OF VALUE, OF FINE APPEARANCE,
AND IT HAS THE ADDED CAPACITY OF OPENING A CERTAIN DOOR TO WEALTH.”
Now the old man says a few things.
First he says,
”It is of value.”
He does not say exactly of what value,
because that cannot be said.
The value is immense, immeasurable.
One has to experience it to know about it.
No explanation can be given.
He simply says,
”IT IS OF VALUE, OF FINE APPEARANCE...”
Whenever truth comes into the world it has immense value,
but the value exists for those who will enter into it,
who will dare to enter into it.
But even for those who will not dare,
it has a beauty, it has a fine appearance.
Even if you don’t move deeply into a Buddha,
you will be able to see his grace, his beauty.
That is the fine appearance.
Even if you don’t go along with Jesus,
you will have a certain attraction.
That is natural.
When truth is inside you,
your whole body becomes luminous.
It takes on a fine appearance
”... AND IT HAS THE ADDED CAPACITY OF OPENING A CERTAIN DOOR TO WEALTH.”
He does not say anything specifically,
he does not make anything particular.
He says,
”... AN ADDED CAPACITY OF OPENING A CERTAIN DOOR TO WEALTH.”
He does not say what door, to what wealth.
It cannot be said.
This is what I am doing to you:
I go on talking about things which are really not concerned with the essential,
but just with the outermost periphery of it.
I talk about the fine appearance,
and I talk about a certain door which can be opened with this key.
But what door?
– there is no way to indicate it.
The word ’door’ is used as a metaphor.
The word ’key’ is used as a metaphor.
The whole religious language is metaphorical.
It is poetic; don’t take it literally.
The great mystics
– all the great mystics have been great poets.
Whether they have written poetry or not does not matter.
Have you ever heard what Socrates was doing before he was given the poison and killed?
His disciples were very puzzled
because he was writing poetry.
And a disciple asked,
”What are you doing?”
He said,
”I am writing poetry.”
”But is this the time to write poetry?!
Within hours you will be dead!”
Socrates is reported to have said,
”What else can I do?
How can I welcome death?
And I have been writing poetry my whole life.”
The Upanishads are poems,
so is the Koran,
so is the Bible,
so is the :Gita.
They are all expressed in poetry,
they are metaphorical.
Don’t be literal.
Those words only indicate, hint.
Don’t look for their meaning in the dictionary.
Look inside yourself for their meaning;
the meaning is there.
”... A CERTAIN DOOR TO WEALTH.”
Just giving a hint....
SOME YEARS LATER HE HAD ANOTHER SON.
WHEN HE WAS OLD ENOUGH,
THE WISE MAN GAVE HIM ANOTHER RING,
WITH THE SAME ADVICE.
THE SAME THING HAPPENED IN THE CASE OF HIS THIRD AND LAST SON.
Now in the world there are only three religions:
Judaism,
Hinduism,
Taoism.
All other religions are either offshoots or combinations.
For example,
Islam ant Christianity are offshoots of Judaism.
They are Judaic.
They are Jewish, root and all.
Or, Jainism and Buddhism
– they are Hindu, root and all, offshoots.
And there are a few religions which have been born out of combinations.
For example,
the meeting of Islam and Hinduism created Sufism;
the meeting of Buddhism and Taoism created Zen,
but the basic religions are three.
They have to be three
because God’s aspects are three, the trinity,
or the Hindu concept of TRIMURTI.
And always remember,
the figure three is really important, existentially important.
Even physics says the deeper you go into reality,
the more you come to the trinity
– the electron,
the neutron,
the positron.
That is the way a physicist describes it.
It is the same;
metaphors change.
Three sons simply symbolize three aspects of God.
Three religions are possible
because each aspect can be emphasized by one religion.
All the three sons are each given jewelled rings with the same instruction:
”This will remind you that you are my successor,
that this can open a certain door towards immense wealth.”
WHEN THE ANCIENT HAD DIED AND THE SONS GREW UP,
ONE AFTER THE OTHER,
EACH CLAIMED PRIMACY FOR HIMSELF
BECAUSE OF HIS POSSESSION OF ONE OF THE RINGS.
This is how foolishness starts.
This is how Christ is lost in Christianity,
Krishna is lost in Hinduism;
this is how Buddha is killed by Buddhists.
WHEN THE ANCIENT HAD DIED AND THE SONS GREW UP,
ONE AFTER THE OTHER,
EACH CLAIMED PRIMACY FOR HIMSELF...
Now an ego-trip enters into the whole thing.
... BECAUSE OF HIS POSSESSION OF ONE OF THE RINGS.
NOBODY COULD TELL FOR CERTAIN WHICH WAS THE MOST VALUABLE.
Because nobody had tried to open the door,
nobody had come upon the wealth.
They were thinking about keys,
discussing keys, claiming,
”My key is far more valuable than your key.”
That’s what people go on doing:
Christians go on claiming that Christ is more valuable than Krishna.
I have heard....
I was staying in a small village in an aboriginal community in Bastar.
The people reported to me;
a few days before, something had happened in the town.
A Christian missionary came.
Now those are very primitive people, absolutely uneducated, still live in the nude, are utterly unaware of what has happened to man.
They are not contaminated by civilization yet.
The people told me that a Christian missionary had come,
”And he convinced us, he had almost convinced us that Christ is the true savior.”
I asked them,
”What happened?
Why do you say ’almost’?”
They said,
”Because a Hindu sannyasi came and disturbed the whole thing.”
I asked them the whole story;
the story was beautiful.
A Christian missionary came.
Now if you want to convince these poor uneducated people, you cannot talk philosophy, theology.
You have to be very practical, and the Christian missionary was very practical.
He brought two statues,
one of Krishna,
one of Christ.
Krishna’s statue was made of iron
and
Christ’s statue was made of wood,
but they were painted alike.
From the outside it was difficult to say which was which
– which was wood, which was steel.
He talked about both,
and then in a bucket of water he dropped both the statues.
Naturally,
Krishna was drowned,
Christ continued to float.
So he said,
”Look! Your God cannot even save himself.
How can he go to save you?”
And the people were really convinced.
They had seen it, the miracle was there.
They looked, and it was true.
Simple people....
But next day a Hindu sannyasi entered the village and he heard about it.
And he said,
”Let us see it again.”
So the missionary was called again.
He did the show again,
and the sannyasi could see what was the matter with it.
So he said,
”Now, light a fire,
and let us throw both in it,
because fire is more of a criterion than water.”
And the primitives agreed:
”That’s true. Fire is certainly more powerful. That will be decisive.”
The missionary was very reluctant,
but what could he do now?
He had to agree,
and both the statues were thrown into the fire.
Christ was burnt immediately – poor Christ –
and
Krishna came out perfectly.
And they were again convinced that Krishna is the true God.
This goes on happening at the most primitive level
and
at the most sophisticated level.
This is the whole effort of Christian priests
and
Hindu monks
and
Jaina priests
and
Buddhist philosophers;
this is the whole effort:
they go on quarreling with each other.
Nobody is concerned with opening the door!
Everybody is claiming that my key is the right key.
In fact, there is no way to decide whose key is the right key,
unless you try it and unlock the door.
But the argument continues:
that the Bible is the REAL book,
or the Vedas
or the Koran.
And they go on finding clever and cunning arguments.
Beware of these arguments,
because your mind is also full of them.
WHEN THE ANCIENT HAD DIED AND THE SONS GREW UP,
ONE AFTER THE OTHER,
EACH CLAIMED PRIMACY FOR HIMSELF BECAUSE OF HIS POSSESSION OF ONE OF THE RINGS.
NOBODY COULD TELL FOR CERTAIN WHICH WAS THE MOST VALUABLE.
Hindus go on claiming that the Vedas are the most ancient scriptures, and they may be right.
That may be the ancient-most book,
but that doesn’t prove anything.
But their effort is:
because this is the first book that came to the world, this is from God.
The Koran and the Bible and other books are not basic.
”Our religion is the ancientmost,”
says the Hindu.
What does the Christian say?
What does the Mohammedan say?
The Mohammedan says,
”Maybe your book is very old;
that’s why it is rotten.
The Koran is the latest, the last message from God
– of course improved, far more relevant.
And when the last book has come the first is cancelled.
What is the need of the first?”
And so on and so forth, they go on arguing.
And this whole argument takes so much time, so much energy,
that no time is left to look into the book,
to search for the key,
and to open the door and become really rich.
There is no time left to live a rich life.
EACH SON GAINED HIS ADHERENTS,
ALL CLAIMING A GREATER VALUE OR BEAUTY FOR HIS OWN RING.
And soon they started finding supporters.
They became churches.
BUT THE CURIOUS THING WAS THAT THE ’DOOR TO WEALTH’ REMAINED SHUT FOR THE POSSESSORS OF THE KEYS AND EVEN THEIR CLOSEST SUPPORTERS.
Nobody was worried about the door.
Who cares about the door?
The basic thing is to prove whose key is more valuable,
whose Master is more enlightened.
That seems to be far more important to people.
This is utter stupidity, beware of it;
and the human mind tends towards this stupidity.
THEY WERE ALL TOO PREOCCUPIED WITH THE PROBLEM OF PRECEDENCE,
THE POSSESSION OF THE RING,
ITS VALUE AND APPEARANCE .
All that was non-essential became essential.
People talk about the beauty of the Upanishads;
now that is talking about the appearance.
People talk about the poetry of the Gita,
but that is talking about the appearance.
Sometimes it happens that an ugly key may open the door
and a beautiful key may be simply impotent.
The beauty or ugliness has nothing to do with opening the door,
but whether the key fits with the lock or not,
whether the key is a true key or not.
Now people go on discussing about the non-essential:
the precedence, the possession, the appearance, the value – all are irrelevant.
ONLY A FEW LOOKED FOR THE DOOR TO THE TREASURY OF THE ANCIENT.
And they also looked without,
and they also thought that these keys were real, literally keys.
They were not literal keys;
they were symbolic keys, metaphors.
BUT THE RINGS HAD A MAGICAL QUALITY TOO.
Yes, they were magical keys.
ALTHOUGH THEY WERE KEYS,
THEY WERE NOT USED DIRECTLY IN OPENING THE DOOR TO THE TREASURY.
Because in fact there is no door, and there is no treasury!
Those keys were something to be meditated upon.
Just by meditating on those Keys in a certain way, the door opens INSIDE you.
The clouds disperse and suddenly the sun is there.
Those keys were not real keys
– real keys in the sense that you were to search for the lock somewhere.
That’s why the father had not said anything about the door.
THEY WERE NOT USED DIRECTLY IN OPENING THE DOOR TO THE TREASURY.
IT WAS SUFFICIENT...
Listen to these sentences very carefully.
They are the definition of meditation.
IT WAS SUFFICIENT TO LOOK UPON THEM WITHOUT CONTENTION OR TOO MUCH ATTACHMENT TO ONE OR THE OTHER OF THEIR QUALITIES.
WHEN THIS HAD BEEN DONE,
THE PEOPLE WHO HAD LOOKED WERE ABLE TO TELL WHERE THE TREASURY WAS,
AND COULD OPEN IT MERELY BY REPRODUCING THE OUTLINE OF THE RING.
THE TREASURIES HAD ANOTHER QUALITY TOO:
THEY WERE INEXHAUSTIBLE.
Those keys were objects for meditation.
That’s what the Bible is for, and the Koran, and the Upanishads
– objects to meditate upon.
But you are not to think.
If you think you will miss.
Meditation means a state of no-thought, a pure watching.
So these are the conditions to be fulfilled:
IT WAS SUFFICIENT TO LOOK UPON THEM WITHOUT CONTENTION.
If you say THIS is truth,
without knowing,
without experiencing it,
this is a contention.
If you become a believer without experiencing it, you are lost.
The believer will never come,
because he has already taken a prejudice,
he has already formed an idea about truth.
He has not experienced himself,
he has taken some borrowed knowledge.
Why are you a Christian or a Hindu or a Jaina?
– because you were taught.
You were born into a Christian family and you were taught Christian dogma from the very childhood.
With the mother’s milk, Christianity was poured into you, so you are a Christian.
But you have never taken this decision to be a Christian consciously.
It is an imposition.
You have been forced to become a Christian.
It is a slavery, you are in a bondage.
You have been conditioned to be a Christian.
You have simply been imitating your parents,
they were imitating their parents, and so on and so forth.
And you will manage for your children too
– they will imitate you.
Imitators all.
And do you know that the smallest child is perfectly capable of imitation?
Now they have researched that a one-week-old child is able to imitate.
Try it – if the child is in a happy mood just show your tongue to him, and he will show his tongue to you.
If he is not hungry, not crying, there is every possibility that the child will show you his tongue.
Now this is very strange, it is not an ordinary phenomenon,
because the child is responding, answering, reacting.
A one-week-old child, a seven- day-old child, is ready to imitate you.
A smile, and the child smiles.
Show an angry face and the child starts screaming.
The child is ready to imitate.
That’s how he will learn millions of things.
He will learn language,
he will learn manners,
he will learn the ways of behavior,
and that’s okay.
That is needed.
For the outside life it is perfectly okay that he learn,
but for the inner life, it is wrong to learn,
because the inner life has to be discovered.
Each one has to discover his God on his own;
then only is it true.
Language is okay,
you can learn from your parents.
Otherwise from where will you learn?
But religion is not language,
religion is not mannerism,
religion is not behavior.
Religion is the only thing that cannot be learned;
that is its specialness, its uniqueness.
And because it cannot be learned it is revolutionary.
That which is learned can never be revolutionary.
It will be orthodox, it will be conventional:
you have taken it from the old generation and you are simply imitating.
And remember,
as people suffer from hardening of the arteries,
they also suffer from hardening of the orthodoxies.
Slowly, slowly your orthodoxies harden.
By the time you are young, capable of thinking,
you are so conditioned that you cannot think.
To move into religiousness
one will have to drop one’s religion,
one will have to drop one’s contention.
One has to be utterly free from contentions.
You cannot go to truth as a Christian or Mohammedan or communist.
You cannot go to God with any idea of your own.
You can go only in SHEER nudity, UTTER nudity.
You can go only as a mirror.
IT WAS SUFFICIENT TO LOOK UPON THEM WITHOUT CONTENTION OR
TOO MUCH ATTACHMENT TO ONE OR
THE OTHER OF THEIR QUALITIES.
And there are beautiful qualities;
in the Upanishads,
in the Bible,
in the Koran,
there are immense statements of immense value,
but you should not become too hypnotized by those beauties.
Those beauties are only in appearance.
The key is beautiful, is studded with diamonds;
good, but that is not its real value.
Its real value is that it opens a certain door to wealth.
WHEN THIS HAD BEEN DONE,
THE PEOPLE WHO HAD LOOKED WERE ABLE TO TELL WHERE THE TREASURY WAS...
Without prejudice,
without contention,
without for and against,
without getting attached in any way,
if you can watch silently,
the door opens.
In that very silence is the door,
the door to inexhaustible wealth.
THE TREASURIES HAD ANOTHER QUALITY TOO:
THEY WERE INEXHAUSTIBLE.
Remember these three points.
Man’s consciousness can have these three stages:
the first is self- consciousness
– rational,
logical,
conceptual.
Too much of it and there is madness,
because you lose balance
– the madness that happens to philosophers, scientists, thinkers;
for example,
the madness that happened to Friedrich Nietzsche.
Too much reason,
too much self,
too much ego,
and you have Leaned too much to one side.
You will fall.
You will fall from the tightrope of life.
The second state is irrational, unconscious, intuitive, emotional.
Too much of it and there is again madness.
This madness happens to poets, painters, artists:
van Gogh,
Nijinsky and
others.
Become too irrational and you will become mad.
Become too rational and you will become mad.
Exactly between the two there is a third state called witnessing.
That is transcendental consciousness,
un-selfconsciousness, sanity, balance, the golden mean;
just to be in the middle, choicelessness, neither choosing this nor that.
Neither this nor that, NETI, NETI:
this is the state where a man becomes a Buddha or a Christ.
If you can watch life without having any contention about it, any belief, God will be revealed to you.
But people go with contentions.
Some go as atheists;
they have already decided that there is no God.
Some go as theists;
they have already decided that there is God.
Now they have not left any space for truth to be, and this is the problem.
If you have decided that there is no God you will not find God,
because you find only that which you have decided.
You go on creating it;
you will create that state of no-God.
If you have decided there is God,
you will create God.
And the question is not to invent but to discover.
These are inventions
– God or no-God.
Your belief functions as a projector and creates them.
Go utterly silently.
Go utterly open, with no idea
– this is what meditation is all about.
This is what I am trying to teach you here:
become a witness of life,
act from the state of innocence,
be a child,
not knowing what truth is,
and you will come upon truth.
The knowledgeable never come to it,
only the innocent.
Function from the state of ignorance.
Always remain ignorant,
never become knowledgeable,
and then truth will come and liberate you.
Only truth liberates,
not your ideas about it.
MEANWHILE THE PARTISANS OF THE THREE RINGS REPEATED THE TALE OF THEIR ANCESTOR ABOUT THE MERITS OF THE RINGS, EACH IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAY.
As time passed, they started inventing stories, mythologies.
They started philosophizing,
they started becoming a little different from each other.
That’s how Jews are different from Hindus,
and
Taoists are different from Jews.
It is the same phenomenon.
Differences are only in your relating the story.
One tradition emphasizes one thing,
another tradition does not emphasize that thing that much, that’s all.
The differences are only of emphasis.
There is no essential difference,
there cannot be!
– because truth is one.
It is neither Jewish nor Hindu nor Taoist.
THE FIRST COMMUNITY THOUGHT THAT THEY HAD ALREADY FOUND THE TREASURE.
THE SECOND THOUGHT THAT IT WAS ALLEGORICAL.
THE THIRD TRANSFERRED THE POSSIBILITY OF THE OPENING OF THE DOOR TO A DISTANT AND REMOTELY IMAGINED FUTURE TIME.
These are the three states in which people are existing.
A few people have decided that they have already found it, so there is no need to search.
What is the need of searching for it if you have already found it.
You go to the temple; what are you saying?
You are saying,
”I have found it in the temple,
that’s why I’m going to the temple.
You also come if you want to find.”
You repeat the name of Christ;
what do you mean by it?
You say,
”I have found it.”
And those who are not with Christ, you feel sorry for them
– ”Poor fellows.
They will suffer, they will go to hell,
Christ will not save them.
I am saved!
I have found! I have found my savior!”
This is the greatest mass of people in the world,
those who think they have found.
This is really a very cunning strategy.
This is how one avoids searching.
The best way to avoid search is to declare to yourself and to the world that you have found.
Now there is no problem left.
You can go on appreciating the key,
you can go on praising the key,
and you can go on writing poetries about the key.
You can go on converting others and you have not found yet!
You have not even tried to find;
what to say about finding?
You have not even taken the first step.
But there are people who don’t want to go on this arduous journey.
They say,
”We have found.
There is no need to go anywhere now.
This is our book, God is in it.
This is our God.
This is our temple.
What is the point of going anywhere?”
This state has prevailed on humanity for long.
It is such a joy to see younger people getting out of this.
The younger generation is getting out of this state.
The younger generation has recognized the falsity of the state.
”We have not found!
Year in, year out, you go to church and nothing is happening.”
The younger generation is disillusioned;
they search.
The hypnosis has broken down,
the conditioning functions no more.
The new generation is naturally bewildered, confused.
Pioneers are always confused, bewildered.
The orthodox is always settled:
he KNOWS all the answers,
he never feels any doubt.
But he is dead.
And whenever one orthodoxy starts breaking down and people start moving out of it
– out of the churches and temples –
naturally they are bewildered.
They don’t have any sense of value,
because the sense of value used to come from the orthodox, from the traditional.
Now it is no more coming, now they don’t know what the criterion is.
But this is a good state;
this chaos is creative.
Spread this chaos all over the earth!
Let more and more people be disillusioned and puzzled and confused,
because only out of this confusion, search starts.
Only out of this bewildered state does one start looking withinwards.
No more values are available from the outside.
The outer Leaders have disappeared,
and the outer gurus have disappeared
– now one starts searching inside.
The priest is no more relevant;
one starts looking for a Master.
Christianity has failed;
now one wants Christ,
nothing else will satisfy.
Buddhism has failed;
now one starts trekking into the Himalayas to search for a real Buddha,
an alive Buddha who is still breathing,
still living in the body,
who is still in contact with matter
– because only one who is still in contact with matter can be contacted by you,
who live as matter.
THE FIRST COMMUNITY THOUGHT THEY HAD ALREADY FOUND THE TREASURE.
THE SECOND THOUGHT THAT IT WAS ALLEGORICAL.
That is another way.
The first is of the common mass,
the second is of those who think they think.
The second is of those who think they belong to the intelligentsia.
They say,
”It is allegorical.
These scriptures are beautiful stories,
they are literature.”
Just the other day I was looking at a book,
THE BIBLE AS LITERATURE.
Not that the Bible is not literature;
the Bible is literature,
but that is non-essential.
The beauty that Jesus’ statements have is non-essential,
the TRUTH is essential.
They ARE beautiful,
but they are beautiful not as poetry,
they are beautiful as truth.
They are beautiful
because truth exists in them.
If you think of the Bible as literature,
then the Bible is reduced to the same position as Shakespeare, Kalidas.
You lose all perspective.
But the intelligentsia have always been thinking like that.
THE SECOND THOUGHT THAT IT WAS ALLEGORICAL
It is allegorical, and more.
It is not just allegorical.
Certainly it is allegorical,
but more
– and that ’more’ is to be remembered.
Don’t get lost in the allegory.
AND THE THIRD TRANSFERRED THE POSSIBILITY OF THE OPENING OF THE DOOR TO A DISTANT AND REMOTELY IMAGINED FUTURE TIME.
These are the poets, the imaginative types, who always look with dreamy eyes towards the future.
The great mass thinks God has been found
– it is a Christian God, a Hindu God, a Mohammedan God:
”All other Gods are false, my God is true.
All that is needed is to convert everybody to my God, to my religion.”
The second belongs to the intelligentsia,
the people who think they think.
I say they think they think because they can’t think.
They are so unconscious.
They are very clever people,
but not wise;
intellectual,
but not intelligent.
They can argue,
but their argument is impotent.
It is just a gesture.
Inside there is no experience to support it.
Their situation is like this:
The athletic young man was practicing push-ups in the park.
A drunk passed by and stopped to watch for a minute.
”Shay, Bud,”
he slurred,
”what happened to your girl?”
The so-called intellectual is just doing that:
there is no girl,
and he is making love – an empty gesture.
But they go on finding great arguments for what they are doing.
They go on convincing others that they are doing something great.
They go on convincing at least each other.
The intelligent,
the professors,
the knowledgeable
– they go on at least convincing each other that they are doing something great.
Philosophers write books only for other philosophers,
and they don’t agree,
and they go on arguing.
Nobody else is concerned about their philosophy.
Even their own philosophy never affects their own personal lives;
it remains superficial.
A man noted a philosopher with his ear close to the wall, listening intently.
Holding up a warning finger to be quiet, the philosopher beckoned the man closer and said,
”Listen here.”
The man listened for some time and then said,
”I can’t hear anything.”
”No,”
said the philosopher,
”and it has been like that all day.”
They go on doing empty things;
they think it is very significant.
All their jargon creates the illusion that something significant is happening.
Whenever somebody has arrived to truth, he speaks a simple language.
His language is not complex,
he is very simple
– like Buddha, like Christ.
Whenever somebody pretends that he’s coming closer, or has come, or has known truth and has not known, he creates a big jargon.
That jargon functions like a cloud.
You cannot find out what really is the matter, what is being said.
You read Hegel or you read Heidegger;
you go on reading and reading and you don’t know what they are talking about.
They themselves don’t know.
One word leads to another and they go on and on in circles.
These are the people who say that religion is allegorical.
These are the people who write a philosophy of religion.
Religion has no philosophy.
Religion is an experience, it is not a philosophy.
And then there is the third type,
the aesthetic,
the poetic,
the imaginative,
the sentimental,
the emotional,
the feeling type.
He’s always focused on the future with starry eyes.
He always looks there, far away.
It happened once:
A great astrologer fell in a well
because he was walking looking at the stars.
A woman, a poor woman, who lived close by, ran and somehow helped him to come out.
He was a great astrologer, very famous.
He told the poor woman,
”You don’t know who I am.
I am the greatest astrologer, the royal astrologer.
My fee is so big that only kings can afford me, or very rich people.
But you have saved my life.
If you want to know anything about your future,
you come to me and I will read your palm,
and I will see about your birth chart
– and free of cost! You have saved me.”
The old woman laughed. She said,
”You must be a fool.”
He said,
”What!?”
And the woman said,
”You cannot even see one step ahead of yourself.
How can one trust your predictions about the future?
You can’t befool me!”
And she was right.
This third type is constantly thinking of a utopia.
He is utopian.
THE THIRD TRANSFERRED THE POSSIBILITY OF THE OPENING OF THE DOOR TO A DISTANT AND REMOTELY IMAGINED FUTURE TIME.
They say,
”It will happen some day”
– the second coming of Christ,
the second coming of Buddha –
”It will happen some day, but it can’t happen right now.”
And tomorrow never comes.
Whatsoever comes is always today.
It is always now.
If something has to happen,
it has to happen now,
now or never!
Remember these two words:
now or never.
You have to enter into reality now,
because now is the only time,
and here is the only place.
If you think ’there against here’,
and ’then against now’,
then you will be simply imagining.
You will play beautiful games
but they will all be dreams.
You have to avoid these three things:
you have to avoid the imaginary
because he lives in utopias;
you have to avoid the intellectual
because he looks intelligent but is not;
you have to avoid the common, mediocre mass,
because it believes it has found.
If you avoid these three,
then the key is with you.
Watch the key.
YOU ARE THE KEY!
All that you need is given to you.
Everything is provided.
Watch your consciousness,
become a witness to your mind.
Without any contention,
without any prejudice for or against,
just go on watching from a state of innocence,
and suddenly you will find the door has opened.
In fact the door has always been open,
you were just not open to it.
The door has remained open from the very beginning.
It has never been closed.
Why should it be closed?
God wants you to enter into it.
Since the day of Adam in the Garden of Eden the door has remained open,
in a kind of waiting,
and God has been searching for you and asking,
”Adam, where are you?”
And you are hiding behind this bush or that.
And these are the three bushes;
avoid these three bushes.
Face your God,
because your God is your innermost being.
Face the reality.
He is within,
He is without.
All that is needed is just a mind
which is not prejudiced,
which is not obsessed with any conception, with any philosophy, with any religion.
A silent mind is needed... and the door is open.
＊ ＊ ＊
beloved osho
”The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha – sammasati.”
sammasati
It means "right remembrance".
”正しく想起する”
meditation & love
osho samadhi
beloved osho
”The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha – sammasati.”
sammasati
It means "right remembrance".
”正しく想起する”
meditation & love
osho samadhi
