Just be indifferent to the mind

Question 1:

Prem Christo, the shadow is your old personality. It happens to almost all meditators: a point comes when you have to depart from your personality and recover your individuality, your authentic being.

But associations are very old. The personality may have been there for many, many lives.

And to have a divorce from the personality... the personality feels hurt, and for a time it follows you in the hope that you will again get identified with it.

But it is only a shadow. It cannot strangle you; it can only give you threats. So don't be taken in by its threats -- tell it to strangle you!

Neither can it drown you, but it is making a last effort before it will disappear completely.

Up to now it was trying mildly; now it is becoming more and more terrible. It is coming in front of you and giving some meaning to itself. It is creating feelings of jealousy and resentment, which are absolutely absurd.

Here, nobody is closer to me than anybody else. There is no question of jealousy, resentment -- against who?

I will read your question: "Over the past twelve years since I met you, as flowers of joy and meditation have opened in my heart..."

This shadow comes only when there is a fear of its being dropped. The non-meditator never feels it. The non-meditator is totally identified with it; he thinks he is it. It is only because meditation has opened your heart and flowers of joy have blossomed in your being, that the personality is feeling immensely afraid. The time of its death is very close, and it will struggle for survival. Even shadows try to survive.

And it has been with you for so long that it makes you feel guilty: now that you are being happy and joyous and meditative, you are leaving her! And when you were in misery, in anguish, in anxiety, you used her -- naturally there is anger, resentment, jealousy.

Those are the old strategies of the ego. They used to work in the past, but now that flowers of meditation have blossomed in your heart, those old strategies cannot work.

"I have also been aware of a dark shadow waiting by the side..." It is no one other than your discarded falseness, your discarded hypocrisy, your discarded past identity. "... ready to strangle my growth and imprison me in its cold grip. Sometimes it has been only half-seen, sometimes almost absent. Now in the last month it has leaped with colossal force to the front of my consciousness and revealed itself as my jealousy and resentment. I am so jealous and resentful of the people around me whom I see as close to You and more privileged than me."

The shadow is impressing you. There is nobody who is closer to me than anybody else, and there is nobody who is more privileged. You have just to understand a simple thing: one thousand people cannot sleep in my room; otherwise I will have to get out!

And not to give anybody the idea that somebody is more close to me, I sleep alone.

Nobody sleeps in my room. Naturally, a few people who bring my food will appear to you as closer to me, but it is only appearance. Those who love me are equally close to me and equally privileged. And it is just functional that a few people will be doing things -- somebody will be cleaning my room. Now, one thousand people cleaning my room will make it more dirty. Too many cooks cannot be allowed in the kitchen; otherwise they will kill me.

So you have to be a little more rational and see that your old identity is putting wrong ideas in your head. If you get impressed by those ideas, then there is a possibility that the old shadow will take back its place.

You have to drop jealousy and resentment. Just being my sannyasin, you are so privileged that the whole world can be jealous of you. Just being in meditation, you can create jealousy in others.

That's what happened in the commune in Oregon, in America. Five thousand people being so happy, so blissful, continuously singing and dancing -- it made the whole gang of American politicians antagonistic, because people started asking them: "These people have nothing but a desert, a vast desert, one hundred twenty-six square miles. In that desert, for forty years nobody had even tried to grow something..."

It was for sale for forty years, for three generations, and nobody had even bothered to purchase it, at any price. What you are going to do with a desert? And even when our sannyasins purchased it, the topmost real estate agent wrote a letter to me, saying that "Perhaps your people are not aware that a desert cannot support you. You cannot become self-sufficient. There is still time -- stop them from purchasing it."

And he wrote in the letter, "This is for the first time... I am a real estate agent. My work is to persuade people to purchase things, but I can see that you are getting into great trouble. The fight with the desert will be ongoing, neverending."

But we made even the desert an oasis. The first day I entered the commune, there was not even a single bird anywhere, not a single deer. And that whole part of Oregon is full of deer -- but what will they do in the desert?

But as our people started working and creating reservoirs for water, planting trees, cultivating -- within five years so many birds started coming on their own, and the population of deer became so thick... and they understood perfectly well that these people were nonviolent.

In America, ten days every year are allowed for shooting deer. In those ten days all the deer surrounding the desert would enter the commune. That was a safe place, because we did not allow any hunter to enter the commune.

And once a deer had come in and found people who were nonviolent, they became so friendly that sometimes they started creating trouble. You would be driving and they would stand just in front of your car. You could go on honking your horn and they would behave just like your wife -- they were not going to move. They knew that you would not hurt them, even by hitting them with the car. You had to get out and push them to the side.

But the politicians of Oregon became very much disturbed, because people who had the same kind of land had lived for centuries in poverty. They could not believe what kind of miracle had happened that we were working so hard, and still we had energy enough in the night to dance and sing and enjoy.

My attorney in America, Niren, is here. Just the other day he told me that now the politicians who destroyed the commune illegally, without any reason, are repenting. They are repenting because... the attorney general of Oregon, Frohnmeyer, was the number one enemy of the commune. He was supported by the whole state of Oregon just because he was opposing us, and the stupid fellow could not understand that once we were gone his support would also be gone. Now he has been defeated.

The governor of Oregon, Atiyeh, was also getting support from people because he was against us. As far as I am concerned, I will say they were amateur politicians. They did not understand a small thing: they should have continued harassing us, but not destroyed the commune. The whole of Oregon's population would have been behind them.

Now Atiyeh is gone. These two men destroyed the commune, and the day the commune was destroyed and closed, I told people: "These politicians will repent because they are in power because of us. Once we are gone, their power will be gone too."

Frohnmeyer, the attorney general, was hoping to become governor; there was so much support. Now he is not even the attorney general. Somebody else has defeated him. And when we were there a very competent man -- far more educated in law, has many degrees, Ph.D.'s and D.Litt.'s in law -- was defeated by Frohnmeyer only on one point: because that man was not against us. He made a political mistake by making a statement that "I don't see why these people should be harassed. They are not doing any harm to anybody." And that became the cause of his defeat. Against that man, Frohnmeyer was nowhere close -- the man was an authority on law. But Frohnmeyer was victorious in the election. And now they are all gone. It is a very strange world.

In Oregon there is a law that if somebody lives there for twenty days, he becomes able to participate in the voting. They were afraid of us, so they were changing the law, which for more than a hundred years they had never thought of changing. For that, seventy-five percent of the peoples' signatures were needed.

When we were there, they had collected almost fifty thousand signatures. But as the commune disappeared, nobody was interested in giving them signatures. The campaign had been going very well. But it was going well because of us -- that, they could not understand.

Once we were not there, people said, "What is the need? The law has been there for years and there has been no trouble and the people you were afraid of are gone."

They were so much afraid -- as if we were going to take over Oregon! Because just jokingly I had said, "We are going to take the whole universe. What about Oregon? -- I am not interested in small things."

Now those politicians who had become great leaders have fallen back into the nobodies.

Now they must be repenting, and remembering...

Niren was saying that there is a possibility: "If you want to come back we can get the commune again, because the defeated politicians will support us. And now everybody understands that our presence is necessary for people who are in power to remain in power."

But I said, "Now, to start again in that desert from ABC -- I am not interested."

I feel compassion for Frohnmeyer, and for Governor Atiyeh -- poor fellows. They proved to be retarded, not understanding the ways of politics. I am not a politician but I can see it clearly: in politics you should not destroy your enemy completely. You should go on threatening him -- that's enough -- because by his presence, there is immense support to you, from all those people who are afraid.

Prem Christo, it is just a political strategy of your personality, of your old mind -- which you are discarding, and getting into a new space, a new consciousness. The old mind will try in every way to imprison you. This is its strategy, to create resentment, jealousy. Once you get caught in jealousy and resentment, soon you will be back in the old prison.

And this is the last effort. Your old mind is putting everything at stake, so you have to be very alert.

Nobody is closer to me than anybody else. And there is no need for you to feel resentment against those people, who functionally have to be in my house. Or if you want me to start cleaning the house and the bathrooms, taking care of the library, taking care of the garden, I can do that. But then I will not be able to come in the morning to meet you, or in the evening to meet you.

In these mornings and evenings, if your heart rejoices with me, you are as close as anyone can be.

And you all can be as close as existence allows. There is no need to feel resentful about anybody. It only hurts you, not the person to whom you are resentful.

Don't hurt yourself. And this shadow is going to disappear, you just have to be a little courageous, intelligent, alert.

You are lucky to be here. In the whole world there are five billion people. Out of five billion people, a few people are fortunate to be again in the golden atmosphere of a living master, of a Gautam Buddha.

I will tell you a small joke.

Marty was walking down the street when he saw his friend and yelled to him, "John, how are you?" John replied, "Don't call me John. Call me Lucky."

"Why should I call you lucky?"

John proceeded to tell him that he had been standing on the corner of 52nd Street and Third Avenue, when he stepped off the curb just as a two-ton safe fell from the twentieth floor. It landed right where he had been standing an instant earlier.

Marty said, "My God, you certainly are lucky! That will be your name from now on."

A few weeks later they bumped into each other again, and Marty said, "Lucky, how are you?"

To which came the reply, "Don't call me Lucky. Call me Lucky Lucky."

Marty said, "Tell me now, why I should call you Lucky Lucky?" and he was told that Lucky had been bumped from a flight to Miami that was later hijacked to Cuba.

Marty agreed, "You certainly are Lucky, Lucky."

The next time they met, Marty shouted, "Lucky Lucky, how are you?" to which he replied, "Don't call me Lucky Lucky. Call me Lucky Lucky Lucky."

Marty said, "Why?"

Lucky Lucky Lucky said, "Just last week I took my girlfriend to a hotel room for a martini, and we made such a commotion that the chandelier over the bed came down and landed right in her lap."

Marty said, "But what's so lucky about that?"

To which came the reply, "Ten seconds earlier, it would have cut off my head!"

Prem Christo, you are lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky -- four times lucky. Don't feel jealous, don't feel resentful.

Question 2:

Nishigandha, everybody has cultivated his mind for so long, for centuries, that it has got deep roots in you. You cannot destroy it in one day, it will take a little time.

And if you become depressed that you are losing the opportunity then it will take even longer. What is missed is missed.

Never look backwards. Nothing can be done about it. If you miss a train, the second train will be coming. There is no point in crying and weeping and making a fuss because you have missed the train. One understands that what has happened, has happened: now be more alert so that you don't miss the second train. And also be alert that you don't catch the wrong train.

I have heard... three professors were standing on the platform and got involved in a deep philosophical discussion, and then they suddenly realized the train had left. So they ran -- two of them managed to enter the last compartment. Only one was left behind, who was standing there with tears in his eyes.

A porter was watching all this. He came to the third man and he said, "Many times people miss -- I work here -- but there is no need to cry. Within just half an hour another train will be coming. You can catch that train."

He said, "You don't understand the situation. Those two fellows had come to see me off!

In a hurry they got into the train -- and they have taken my luggage too! What am I going to do with the train that is coming? First I have to get the luggage...

"And those two must be crying inside the train. They were not going anywhere; they had just come to see me off. But it was all such a hurry, so sudden, that everybody forgot who had come to send off and who was going... we all belong to the university's philosophy department."

It happens almost to everybody, so take it naturally.

You say, "My mind, the monster..." Don't call it "monster," because that creates a hate relationship.

Just as there are love relationships, there are hate relationships. People are not aware about their hate relationships.

I am reminded: In the freedom struggle of India, Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah were arch enemies. Jinnah was asking for a separate country for Mohammedans, Pakistan, and Gandhi was insistent that the country should remain one: "Mohammedans and Hindus and Christians and Jains have always lived together -- there is no need for Mohammedans to have a separate country. And why cut the country into parts?"

But Jinnah was very stubborn and he said, "Unless you agree to the separation, India will never become free, because Mohammedans will not agree to that freedom."

And finally, in 1947 Gandhi had to agree, seeing that either you remain a slave forever or you divide the country: "It is better to divide the country; at least both countries will be independent." The country was divided and in 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was shot, assassinated -- of course by a man from Poona. Poona is a fertile land for murderers.

I am telling this because Jinnah was sitting in his garden in Karachi, Pakistan, talking to his secretary about some official work and suddenly a friend came running in and told Jinnah what had happened: "Gandhi has been assassinated!"

Nobody had seen tears in the eyes of Jinnah in his whole life. He was a very strong, stubborn, very logical, very rational man. The shock... his friend and his secretary could not believe it. He should be happy; his arch-enemy is dead -- but there were tears.

He stood up, went inside the house, and told the friend, "Now I will not be living much longer either. Only today I realized how much I was related with Mahatma Gandhi. Without him, the whole world seems to be empty. We have been fighting our whole lives, and I never recognized that this fighting has also created a deep relationship. Without him I am almost half dead. All my joy for living is finished."

Up to that day Jinnah never used to have bodyguards, because he could not believe that Mohammedans, for whom he had been fighting his whole life, could make an attempt on his life.

The next day, Karachi was surprised: he had four people with loaded guns around him wherever he went. And somebody asked him what happened, because he used to go alone even in the market. There was no need even for a single bodyguard. He said, "If Hindus can kill Mahatma Gandhi, who has been fighting for them his whole life, what is the difficulty?

Mohammedans can kill me.

"I am already half dead, and now I cannot trust Mohammedans. Gandhi, who was loved and worshiped as a great soul, as a mahatma, has been killed by Hindus themselves. I was never loved as a great soul, as a mahatma. In fact Mohammedans have never thought that I am a proper Mohammedan," because he never used to do the five prayers every Mohammedan is supposed to do. He never used to go to the mosque. He was a very ultra-modern man.

He was never in any way a man who can be considered a Mohammedan. He was educated in the West. He was not interested in the holy KORAN -- he was just born into a Mohammedan family, that was all. And strangely enough, just within one year, he died.

He started dying the same day Gandhi was assassinated. Hate is also a relationship, just as love is a relationship.

And psychology is now absolutely certain that the energy of love and hate is not different.

It is the same energy: standing upside down it becomes hate, standing right side up it becomes love -- it is the same energy. That's why it is not very difficult -- a friend turning into an enemy, an enemy turning into a friend.

Psychology has become aware of one more very significant thing: that you hate the same person you love. So there is a constant change: in the morning you love, in the afternoon you hate, in the evening you love, in the night you hate -- just like a pendulum of a clock, your mind goes on moving between love and hate.

Don't call your mind the "monster" because you are creating a hate relationship. And relationship is relationship, whether it is love or hate.

Just be a silent watcher.

"The mind distracts me even when I am sitting in discourse."

So let him distract; you simply watch. You don't interfere. You don't try to stop, because any kind of action on your part is going to give energy to the mind. So whenever you can manage, you listen, and whenever mind wanders and takes you away, go easily with the mind.

There is no harm.

It will look strange to you that I am saying go with the mind easily. Just be watchful -- without condemning the mind, without abusing the mind -- just be watchful that the mind is going somewhere else. And you are in for a great surprise.

It will take a little time, but slowly, slowly the mind will not wander so much. You will have a few gaps to listen to me; then those gaps will become bigger. And because you are not creating any relationship with the mind -- of love or hate -- you are becoming indifferent to mind.

Gautam Buddha has made it a meditation. He called it upeksha -- indifference. Just be indifferent to the mind, and it won't be a disturbance for long.

And it is worthwhile to wait and not be in a hurry, because the very hurry will make your mind more stubborn. If you want to push it away, it will come back with force. You just let it do whatever it wants to do. It is none of your concern, this way or that. Suddenly a watchfulness arises. It takes a little time.

It depends on you, how much indifference you can create towards the mind, how much you can be watchful. The mind will become slowly, slowly rejected. It will stop doing its things, because now nobody is interested. For whom to do all the circus?

Just a few days before... my sister is here; her son had come. Now he is married and has children. The moment I saw him I remembered. It must be twenty years ago... they used to live in Kanva.

The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh was also from Kanva. He wanted to meet me and he invited me to have dinner with him, so my brother-in-law took me in his car. And this boy was very small, he may have been five years old. He also went with us. He was sitting on the front seat by the side of his father; I was in the back seat. My brother-in-law got out of the car and told me, "I will go and look, and make arrangements, and inform him that you are here, so he can come out and welcome you."

It took a long time. The minister was phoning somebody in the capital of Bhopal. The little boy fell asleep and struck his head on the steering wheel. I saw it, I heard it, but I started looking out of the window. He looked at me. I did not give any attention to what had happened. He tried two or three times to look at me: whenever he would look at me, I would look out of the window, so he thought: "It is useless."

When we went back home, after two hours, as he got out of the car he started crying. I said, "What has happened? Why are you crying?"

He said, "It happened two hours before! I had hit my head on the steering wheel. But you are strange: whenever I would look at you for some consolation, you would not look at me. So I thought, what is the point of crying? This man will not even say anything, and even if I cry or weep, my father is out. Now we are back and my mother is here. Now I can cry."

"But," I said, "two hours ago?"

But I could see his argument, it was right. If there is nobody to pay attention to you, what is the point in crying? At home everybody is going to pay attention. Then to make a fuss and cry... although now he is not hurting; it had happened two hours before.

And just a few days ago he was here, and I remembered. Now he has a child of the same age.

Mind is nourished by your attention, for or against.

You just be indifferent; look out of the window.

"It simply takes over and thinks all sorts of silly thoughts and by the time discourse is over I get the feeling I missed another golden opportunity to be with You." Don't call them "silly" thoughts. These adjectives are dangerous: "monster" mind, "silly" thoughts. You are taking great interest in it. Maybe you are against it, but the interest is there.

Be utterly indifferent. It is a golden key. And slowly, slowly the mind will start remaining silent.

And afterwards you repent that "I have missed another opportunity." Never repent about the past because that is again wasting the present. First you wasted the past; now you are wasting the present.

If you have wasted the golden opportunity to be with me, now don't waste the golden opportunity to be with the sun, to be with the moon, to be with the trees. It is the same opportunity.

The whole thing boils down to one single point: be silent. And everything becomes a golden opportunity.

But you are taking attitudes. You are saying, "This makes me very, very sad." You are in a vicious circle. First the mind takes you away; it is a "monster," all its thoughts are "silly." And when you are leaving here, you become sad, and you start condemning your mind.

There is no need to be sad: it is mind's nature, and what has gone is gone. What is available herenow, don't make it sad for that which is dead. On the contrary, make it so joyful that you can take revenge for the past too. Dance and sing so that what has been lost in the past moments is gained in the present. By sadness you cannot gain it, but by being joyous you can gain it.

And a few days or a few months are nothing much. In the long, long eternity they are just like small seconds.

Nishigandha, a Frenchman staying at an English country house for the weekend was attracted to a debutante, and without much difficulty, seduced her. Several months later they met by chance at a very select society ball. He stepped forward with outstretched hand, but she walked straight past him without acknowledgement. As soon as he could, the Frenchman cornered her and said, "Surely you remember me?"

"Of course I do young man, but you are not to assume that in England a one-night frolic constitutes an introduction."

In a way she is right. Just a one-night frolic cannot be an introduction. The reality is that you may be living with your wife for thirty or forty years -- even then you are strangers, you are not introduced to each other yet.

You have lived with the mind for centuries, for many, many lives, yet you are not introduced to it. You don't know its workings, you don't know its strategies. The repentance afterwards is also part of your mind; the sadness afterwards is also part of your mind. So you are moving in a vicious circle: first you miss the opportunity, then you abuse the mind, call the mind names: it is a "monster," the thoughts are "silly," then you become sad. And this whole game is of the mind.

You have to detach yourself and be a witness. Let the mind do whatsoever it is doing, but don't get identified with it. It is not you. You are pure awareness.

You are just awareness.

If you can remember only this much... Gautam Buddha has used the words samma sati -- right remembrance -- and the mind will disappear with all its silliness, sadness, monstrosity. A single thing you have to keep: a remembering that "I am not the mind." You are not to say to yourself, "I am not the mind." The moment you say it, it becomes part of the mind, because language belongs to the mind. You have to remember it without any language, just a feel: I am not the mind.

I am using words because I have to tell you, but you are not to use words. You have just to be aware and remember without using language.

The mind will go. It has always happened. You cannot be an exception.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.