Gratitude is the only prayer

Question 1:

Prem Anugraho, it seems almost impossible to miss the goal when you are just one foot away, but people have missed even then. How far away was Judas from Jesus? He was his most cultured, educated and sophisticated disciple. In fact, he was the only one who was educated amongst all the others; and he was really close. But life always remains unknown: it is not something like mathematics or logic, where you can come to a conclusion.

Just because he was so close, he missed. It is very illogical, but if you go deep down, you can understand the psychology of it. Because he was very close, he was hoping - perhaps unknowingly - that he would be the successor of Jesus. I am not saying he was intentionally trying to be the successor. In fact, it was obvious that there was nobody else except Judas to succeed Jesus. In every way he was qualified. In every way Jesus showered his love and his blessings on him.

But the day Jesus said, "Nobody is going to be my successor. I have not come here to create a dynasty, because my kingdom is of the other world. It is the kingdom of God," that distance of just one foot became a distance of thousands of miles. The same night, Judas betrayed Jesus. He sold him to the enemies for only thirty silver pieces. Of course, it was done in a very emotional, hasty way - again unconsciously.

This is the trouble with man. His actions are not conscious. Hence you cannot even condemn him.

He is groping like a blind man in darkness, not knowing where he is going and why he is going. He becomes a little alert when it is too late, when he has done it. And then, there is no way to undo it.

When Judas sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, he was not aware exactly of what he was doing and what it was going to lead to. On the day Jesus was crucified, Judas was in the crowd with tears in his eyes and he threw away those thirty pieces of silver. He had never thought that this was going to be the consequence of an act done in anger, rage, frustration - he was not thinking that this would mean crucifixion.

And twenty-four hours after Jesus' crucifixion, he hanged himself in a tree, committed suicide.

Christians don't talk about Judas much. In fact, his psychology should be understood more clearly, because he is not alone. It has been happening almost always, with every great master. Strangely enough, those who were very close have gone far away. And those who were far away - had never thought, dreamed, of being very close - came close.

There is some very subtle psychological background to it. Gautam Buddha was betrayed by one of his cousin-brothers, Mahavira was betrayed by his son-in-law. And in both cases the situation is the same as with Judas. Because they were so close, they naturally hoped - without being conscious of it - that they were going to be successors.

Now, nobody can be a successor in enlightenment. It is not a treasure of this world, you cannot inherit it. You cannot become enlightened just because your father was enlightened. You cannot become enlightened just because you are very close to somebody who is enlightened. The distance of one foot or the distance of one mile or the distance of one light-year makes no difference. Distance is distance.

I insist on this, Anugraho, so that you will not miss. I do understand your love, your gratitude, your deep commitment. You are asking, "Can one really miss you?" It should not be so. One should not miss; there is no reason at all. But man is so unconscious that he does not function reasonably. He functions irrationally. He functions without any understanding of his own actions, intentions, hidden desires, ambitions.

You are saying, "When love and this incredible pull are there, can one really go astray?" One should not go astray if one is conscious, but the possibility cannot be denied. You have to forgive me, the possibility cannot be denied. The closer you come to a master, the more you are lost, the more you are dissolved. In the fear of dissolution, the fear of your personality being lost, you may start backing off.

You have to understand that this fear is there. Even the moth that is magnetically attracted towards a flame does not go directly into the flame. I have been watching moths - strangely enough, they never go directly into the flame. They first go round and round, perhaps hesitating, perhaps having another thought, perhaps taking time, a little more time before they take the jump. Because the jump into the flame is going to be their death on one plane. And the other plane on which they will be reborn is not yet - there is no guarantee about it.

Only your trust is the guarantee, your love is the guarantee. Other than that, you don't have any solid foundation. You are taking a jump like a gambler.

And the ultimate is available only to the gamblers, not to the businessmen who are continuously counting pros and cons, whether this will be profitable or this will be a loss. These people will go on counting for millions of lives. They may come across a Gautam Buddha, a Jesus or a Socrates, but seventy or eighty years are not enough for them to come to a conclusion. Only a gambler, in a single moment, can take the jump.

I hope, Anugraho, you will be able to take the jump. Nobody can prevent you except yourself. You have asked a very significant question, a question that implies the very quantum leap of the disciple to the devotee, the quantum leap from personality to individuality, from a dewdrop to the ocean.

Have you ever seen a lotus flower with its leaves just above the water? In the night dewdrops gather on the leaves. They look so beautiful in the early morning sun, far more beautiful than any pearls, far more alive, far more radiant. But they are slipping slowly from the leaves, finally dropping into the ocean.

A dewdrop slipping from a lotus leaf is the situation of a disciple.

So close to the ocean and yet - because of the closeness itself - a tremendous fear arises: to pull oneself back. You are saying, "And this incredible pull ..." Just because of this incredible pull, one can start resisting, because you don't understand all the subtle workings of your mind. Nature, as it is, has to be understood if you want to transcend it.

In all the medical "-pathies" developed around the world - homeopathy or ayurveda or acupuncture - except allopathy, nobody has exactly understood the inner function of nature in man's body and mind. I say, except allopathy, because others may be sometimes helpful, but they are not scientific.

And others are helpful not in a small way either; if you look at their help, it is tremendous.

In almost seventy percent of the cases, ayurveda will be successful, acupuncture may be successful, homeopathy may be successful, naturopathy may be successful. But remember the seventy percent - it is no more than that because seventy percent of diseases are false. They are just in your mind, they don't really exist. That's why you don't need real medicine; any hocus-pocus will do. And seventy percent is not a small percentage so I would not like these "-pathies" to disappear from the world. I want them to be recognized, because seventy percent is a big percentage.

And strangely enough, those seventy percent of the cases are the most difficult as far as allopathy is concerned. Allopathy finds itself in a difficulty: how to deal with a person who has no disease but believes he has? Allopathy has no way to help such a person.

So only thirty percent remain to be helped by allopathy. It is a strange world. Thirty percent to the most scientific approach and seventy percent to all kinds of hocus-pocus - superstitious approaches which really don't make any change, but they help. The most scientific approach of allopathy is based on a deep understanding of nature, and that is that the body has a resistance of its own.

Because of this fact, naturopathy condemns allopathy. Allopathy goes on injecting viruses into patients because the allopathic understanding is, the moment the body gets a virus, it immediately creates antibodies. It immediately starts fighting, it has a resistance of its own. The whole body immediately goes on red-alert to destroy the disease.

Naturopathy condemns it because they think you are poisoning people with diseases. You are supposed to take out diseases and you are, on the contrary, putting poisonous viruses into people's bodies.

Naturopathy cleans people's bodies by fasting, by strange methods that you cannot believe. But they can help only those people who are not suffering from any real disease.

It is the same situation with the mind - a scientific approach to the mind will make it clear. The closer you come to the master in deep love, in an incredible pull, your biological mind - which is thousands of years old - immediately creates an anti-pull as a protection, as a defense: you are moving towards a danger. Because of the danger of your personality's death, the mind immediately pulls back.

You always keep a little distance from people you love. You can come very close to the person you don't love. There is no fear, because there is no question of merging or melting. You can come close to your enemy without any problem, because you are not going to melt into the enemy. You can rub shoulders with the enemy without any fear. But with the friend, mind always keeps a little distance.

Coming too close is risky. You may not be able to get back again into your old personality. And in fact, the risk is real.

So when you ask me, "With this incredible pull, can one really go astray?" - just because of this incredible pull, one may go astray. Just to avoid it, one may take a different route. So if somebody is clear about it, the missing can be avoided.

As far as I know, neither did Jesus ever say to his disciples that it is possible to miss, nor did Mahavira, nor did Gautam Buddha. They all took it for granted that those who have come to them, have come to them. But I see deeper into the nature of man, and even their disciples prove what I am proposing.

Jesus had never thought even in his dreams that Judas would sell him for thirty silver pieces - almost impossible. He loved the man so much. And Judas loved him so much. That's why after twenty-four hours Judas felt so repentant that the only way he saw to get out of this guilt was to commit suicide.

To go on living with this guilt was more difficult than committing suicide. He also could not believe it.

He loved Jesus so much ... how could he have done such a thing?

But the whole psychology of man has not been explored. Because it has not been fully explored there are corners, dark corners, which you go on forgetting. You simply remain attentive to the lighted spots of love and trust, and you forget completely that there are corners and nooks in your being where there is no light, no love, no trust. They are also part of you. And in a strange way, they are more powerful than your love and your trust.

On what grounds can I say that? I say it on a very fundamental ground - because your love is spent, your trust is spent, but your dark spots are unspent. Their whole energy is gathering. They are the antibodies against your love, against your trust. They are your doubts, they are your distrust, they are your hate, and they are accumulating.

You go on sharing your love, you go on sharing your trust. What about your hate, what about your distrust, what about your doubt? These go on accumulating. Naturally, these phenomena are the phenomena of darkness. So they hide in dark corners in your being, just waiting for the chance when they can take revenge with full vengeance.

Any moment, when you start wavering a little, hesitating a little - to go one step more or wait - those forces which are repressed in you immediately take possession of you. And they are so powerful that they can pull you away from the source that was going to be a rebirth to you. They can pull you away from your love, from your trust, from your commitment. They can pull you away from the ultimate revolution that was going to happen within you.

But if you are aware, alert, watchful, and not allowing any dark corners inside you, making every nook and corner of your mind full of light, then of course it is impossible to miss. And it is impossible to go astray.

Anugraho, your very name means gratitude. And to me, gratitude is the only prayer. But these small words like gratitude contain so much that you should go deeper into them, so that you can become aware of the whole territory. Your gratitude should not remain a small lighted spot in your being. It should become your whole being. Only then are you absolutely safe from going astray, from missing the message, from missing the master.

Remember, I am not a missionary. And I am not trying to convince you about any ideological, intellectual, philosophical theorization. That is very simple. It is necessary for you to understand that not even a single philosopher has ever been betrayed by his students. I have been wondering about it: what happened? Jesus is betrayed, Mahavira is betrayed, Buddha is betrayed. What happened to the great philosophers like Aristotle, Hegel, Kant? They had thousands of students.

But nobody betrayed, because they were only students, far away; they never became disciples, they never came close. What to say about devotees? They never came so close, where the distance is almost negligible, non-existential. That is the reason why they were not betrayed.

And their whole philosophical teaching was just intellectual: they were giving you arguments in support of their system of thought. And they were great intellectuals: at the most you could argue with them, but you could not win.

Those students who were by the side of Plato or Aristotle or Hegel or Kant, those students were not great intellectuals. They could raise questions, they could argue a little bit, but those philosophers were tremendously logical and they had worked out their systems with such minute detail that it was impossible to win in argument with them. Every argument with them meant that you would finally be more convinced.

But it was just a communication from one head to another head. There was no question of coming close to the heart. There was no question of love or trust. I am not trying to convince you of any ideology. I am trying to impart to you a new being, a new transformation. It is more than mind can do; it is much more than words can express. It is something that goes on happening without words, without mind.

Slowly, slowly, the more you start feeling my presence, the more you become accustomed to my silences of the heart, the closer you will move. The final stop will be when you have come too close.

Just for a moment you will have to think whether to go one step more or a few steps backward or move away - it is too dangerous. The moth has come very close to the flame. Any more closeness and death is sure.

The ancient seers of the East describe the master as death. Strange definition! When I first came across it ... death? But slowly, slowly it became clear. To me they were right, yet their definition is only half. I say, the master is death and resurrection.

Just to stop at death is very dangerous. It will give a totally different idea to the disciple, making him even more afraid. He has to be assured of a resurrection. And that is only possible not by intellectual argumentation, but by opening your heart to the disciple, inviting him within you. By and by his fear will disappear.

He will start feeling a new energy arising in him and a new life and a new way of seeing things and a new approach of looking at the world. And everything becomes so psychedelically beautiful, so colorful, so blissful. Then one does not care. One knows one is on the right path. And it is not a conviction, it is a realization that one is on the right path.

Each moment the silence is becoming deeper, each moment the joy is becoming wider, bigger.

Each moment new flowers are continuously blossoming, new fragrances are surrounding you. Each moment you are coming to something tremendously valuable. But you cannot figure it out unless you have entered into it.

Anugraho, a missionary is an ugly phenomenon. I am absolutely against anybody being a missionary. Neither does he know anything, nor can he help anybody towards knowing or towards being. A master is a totally different thing. A missionary can be prepared in a school, in a college.

There are colleges around the world where missionaries are prepared.

Just a few days ago I was telling you about a Catholic missionary college, where a professor told a student, "When you have become a missionary, how are you going to deliver your sermons in the church? For instance," he said, "when you are talking about heaven, let your face show a radiance, let your eyes become lighted, let your whole being, your body, indicate that you are thrilled."

The student asked, "That's okay, but what about when we are talking about hell?"

The professor said, "For hell, your normal face will do. You don't have to make any effort."

A Catholic is trying to convert a Jew ... he is really taking on a very difficult job. I am the only person who is deeply conversant with the Jews. Half my sannyasins are Jews. It has never happened before and it will never happen again! Jews are difficult people ....

A Catholic trying to convert a Jew tells him that if he becomes a Catholic his prayers will certainly be answered, because the priest will give them to the bishop, who will give them to the cardinal, who will give them to the pope, who will shove them up into heaven through a hole in the Vatican roof, which just matches a hole in the floor of heaven, where St. Peter will take them to the Virgin Mary, who will speak on their behalf with Jesus, who will say a good word for them to God.

The whole channel, of all the right people!

The Jew repeats this whole story with an astonished air, ending with, "You know, I guess it must be true, because I have always wondered what they do with all the shit in heaven. They must throw it down through that little hole in the Vatican, where the pope gives it to the cardinal, who gives it to the bishop, who gives it to the priest, who gives it to you, and now you are trying to give it to me!"

It is in fact an absurd activity to convert anybody just by words. It is not conversion, it is just salesmanship. Authentic conversion comes by experience. But experience is possible only if you allow yourself - you become vulnerable, receptive to someone who has arrived.

Perhaps it was possible with Jesus: it is not possible with the pope. Just look at his picture! Can you think this man can radiate anything that will thrill your heart? And he is God's representative, he is the infallible representative of God. Look at his face! He is just a stupid Polack; everybody knows it.

You cannot make a Polack infallible simply by choosing him as pope; that goes against all the laws of existence.

But if, Anugraho, it happens in your life that you come close to a man who is at home, who has arrived, then don't be worried about taking any risk. Every risk is a great opportunity to have the taste of the infinite, to become one with the eternal mystery of existence. Hence I say again, there is no need to miss, but people are unconscious and go on missing. There is no need to go astray, but people are not alert; hence it is very difficult to prevent them from going astray.

The master can only look on helplessly with tears in his eyes when somebody turns back, goes away; because the master cannot interfere in your independence, in your freedom, even if it is the freedom of going astray, the freedom of going away. He will allow. He respects you and loves you and he cannot enforce anything on you.

Question 2:

Niyama, the master sees you not only as you are, but also as what you can become. He sees in your seeds the spring and the flowers. When you see the master, it will depend from what distance you are seeing. If you are just a student you will see his beautiful words, arguments, ideology. If you are seeing him as a disciple you will see him much more in his silences than in his words, much more in his presence than in his presentation, much more in his eyes than the ideas and the philosophies he is talking about, much more in his gestures, in his grace.

But if you are looking at him from the space of a devotee, then you will see only a mirror, in which your ultimate being is reflected.

So what you will see depends, as far as you are concerned ... It will depend on where you are, where you are standing, at what distance. But as far as the master is concerned, whatever your distance, he sees only two things: what you are right now and what your potential is, which can explode any moment. He will see in your bud the open flower, with the fragrance released.

But there are many who may not even be students, who may be just spectators or just curiosity- mongers. In them the master sees nothing. They are so far away in darkness that it is impossible to see who they are and what they can become. Their distance is too great and they are surrounded with such darkness. Neither will they be able to see anything in the master ... perhaps a faraway echo of his words, but nothing more.

Hymie Goldberg entered the synagogue and began to pray, "Dear God," said Hymie, "please let me win the lottery."

Then he left the synagogue and went home. Nothing happened that day so he returned to the synagogue the next day. "Please, God," beseeched Hymie, "please won't you let me win the lottery?"

He went home and again there were no results, so he arrived back in the synagogue the following morning. "Almighty God," Hymie wailed, "I beg of you, let me win the lottery!"

Suddenly, he heard God's reply, "Hymie!" God thundered. "Meet me at least halfway! Buy a lottery ticket!"

Even without a lottery ticket he wants to win the lottery, just by asking God! Obviously, only to such people has God ever spoken. They irritate so much that he forgets that he's not supposed to speak.

Now this fellow will torture him every day ... and he is not even purchasing a ticket.

With the master also you have to meet him at least halfway!

Question 3:

Niyama, according to me the most hilarious thing in the world is man. Amongst all the animals, trees, mountains, rivers, oceans, stars, clouds, man is the only hilarious animal.

I will give you a few examples:

Hamish MacTavish became a sergeant with the Scottish Highlanders' regiment. One day he walked into the pharmacy and deposited an old condom on the counter. "How much for a repair job?" he asked.

"Well," replied the chemist, "with washing, drying, patching, lubricating, and re-rolling it comes to thirty pence."

"My God," said MacTavish, "how much for a new one?"

"Fifty pence," replied the chemist.

Tucking the condom back in his kilt, MacTavish walked out saying, "I will talk it over with the lads at the barracks and let you know our decision tomorrow."

One day, Paddy, who worked in the local brewery, fell into a gigantic barrel of beer and drowned.

When his wife was informed of the accident she asked if she could see the scene of the tragedy.

At the brewery the foreman explained to her, "He was climbing this ladder when he slipped and fell into the beer and drowned."

"How terrible!" exclaimed Maureen. "It must have been an agonizing death."

"I would not say exactly agonizing," replied the foreman. "He managed to get out twice to go to the bathroom!"

An American, an Englishman and a Frenchman are discussing a good example of 'savoir faire'.

"Well," said the American, "if you came home and found your wife in bed with another man and you did not kill the son-of-a-bitch, that would be a good example of 'savoir faire'."

"Nonsense, old chap," says the Englishman, "if you came home and found your wife in bed with another man and you said, 'Please carry on, sir,' that is 'savoir faire'."

"Non! non!" cries the Frenchman. "If you came home and found your wife in bed with another man and you said, 'Please, sir, carry on,' and the man was able to continue - that is 'savoir faire'."

Except man, nothing is hilarious in the world. Just watch around you. And it is not that there are only a few examples, there are so many examples. In fact every man - if he watches himself - will find himself behaving in a hilarious way in many situations. Or if you are alert enough and a witness, you will find so many people ... you cannot believe why the world is so sad, when so much hilariousness is going on. It should be a continuous festival of laughter.

That's what my concept of an authentic humanity is: it will be hilarious, enjoying every moment.

It will not be serious, it will not be saintly. It will be utterly human and absolutely respectful of its humanity, its laughter, its dance, its song, everything that human beings are prone to.

Niyama, be more alert and watch and note down whenever you see something hilarious happening - and particularly in my place. Where do you think I get all these jokes? My people just go on watching each other and creating jokes and informing me. I never go out. But people are learning watchfulness, so they come across so many hilarious things in themselves and in others .... They go on preparing jokes for me.

I'm never short of jokes, because in my place in twenty-four hours there is nothing else to do. It is a continuous carnival.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.