Each moment a resurrection

Humanity has suffered more because we have lived in divisions than for any other reason.

Man is one organic whole.

This has to be your fundamental understanding: there is no way to cut any of your parts and yet remain blissful. Yes, all those parts have to be brought into a harmonious whole, just like an orchestra... so many people are playing on different instruments, and if they don't know how all those different instruments should melt and be one, in one music, then there is not going to be music at all - only noise, which will not be soothing to your soul, but a disturbance.

Man's whole history is the history of divisions. Discard this, discard that, and just cling to one part of your being... you will remain in misery, because bliss is born when all your parts are dancing together in a deep harmony, without any conflict.

Why has man created this schizophrenic state of mind? It is not without reason. Those who want to dominate you, those who want to exploit you, those who want you to remain enslaved forever...

this is their device. A man who is whole cannot be oppressed, cannot be exploited and cannot be reduced to a slave. And there are people whose only ambition is for power. Power seems to be their only cause for living.

Friedrich Nietzsche died in a madhouse. It is an unfortunate thing... while doctors were declaring him mad, priests were declaring him mad, his own friends and family were declaring him mad, he was writing his greatest book - in the madhouse. The name of the book is THE WILL TO POWER.

Looking at the book and its greatness, anyone can see that all those people who forced him into the madhouse were simply trying to get rid of someone whose every word was an arrow. They were not able to bear the height of his being. They wanted him to be completely forgotten and ignored.

Certainly he was not mad; otherwise the greatest book of his life could not have been written in the madhouse. He himself never saw the book published - it was published posthumously.

I have looked into all his works. It seems in THE WILL TO POWER he has put together everything that was scattered in many books of his writings. Each statement is so pregnant that it is impossible for a madman to have written it. It is so logical, so profound, that if you are ready to read it without any prejudice, you will be amazed that one of the best books in the world was written by a madman, in a madhouse.

His only fault was that he was not obedient to the society or its out-of-date disciplines, rotten rules.

His simple crime was that he was an individual in his own right - and the slaves cannot tolerate a man who knows freedom, and lives freedom.

His actions and his words are out of freedom, but the slaves feel irritated, annoyed, because they cannot even understand what he is saying. He is shouting from a hilltop to the people who are creeping in the dark valleys of their so-called comfort. They are in the majority, and this man is disturbing them on each point that they have been clinging to as wisdom. He is proving that it is sheer stupidity.

Kahlil Gibran was immensely impressed by Friedrich Nietzsche. In his work, THE WILL TO POWER, he has opened the heart of humanity: Why is there no music, but only misery?

The reason is that the priests of all religions, and politicians of all kinds of ideologies, are so desirous of power that they don't want humanity to listen to a man who is talking of unity, inner harmony, being undivided, one and whole.

Yes, there are going to be changes, because things in your being have been put by the society in such a way that you are in a mess: the servant has become the master, the master is being treated as a servant.

The heart cannot shout, it only whispers; the mind shouting loudly makes it completely impossible for the heart to give his message to you.

These very important statements Kahlil Gibran is making through the mouth of a fictitious mystic poet and philosopher, Almustafa. I have always wondered why he has chosen to speak indirectly, and my feeling is absolutely clear about it: he did not want to suffer the same fate Friedrich Nietzsche suffered - and nobody is serious about poetry. Friedrich Nietzsche writes prose, although his prose is so beautiful that you can call it poetry. But he is speaking directly to humanity.

Almustafa creates a fiction. Kahlil Gibran is never declared mad, is never forced to live in the madhouse, for the simple reason that he is only a fiction writer - at the most a composer of poems.

He has secured himself by hiding behind Almustafa. So I want you to remember, whatever Almustafa is saying are the words of Kahlil Gibran.

AND THE PRIESTESS SPOKE AGAIN AND SAID:

SPEAK TO US OF REASON AND PASSION...

of mind and of heart, of logic and of love.... For centuries man has thought of them as opposed to each other. He has been told by the vested interests that if you listen to both, you are going to be mad - they are contradictory; you will have to choose.

Those who choose reason have all the opportunities to be powerful in the world, but empty inside.

Those rare souls who choose passion, love, the heart, are aflame inside with beauty, blissfulness, fragrance, but on the outside they have no power.

The priestess is asking one of the fundamental questions:

SPEAK TO US OF REASON AND PASSION....

What is your approach to these two things? Both exist in man, and both appear - at least superficially - contradictory. A choice has to be made; otherwise man will be riding on two horses, and the ultimate result cannot but be a disaster.

She was not aware that Kahlil Gibran has a far deeper insight than the priests and the priestesses, the politicians and the people who have power - either of money or of prestige.

AND HE ANSWERED, SAYING:

YOUR SOUL IS OFTENTIMES A BATTLEFIELD..

because you have never gone to the roots of your being.

Reason says one thing, the heart longs for something else, and whatever you choose you will suffer, you will remain miserable, because half of your being will remain starved, hungry. Slowly, slowly, the distance between the two will become so great... as if you have been cut by an electric saw in two parts.

These split people are fighting within themselves; they have become a battlefield. This is a strategy, a very cunning strategy: if a man is put in a situation where he is fighting with himself, he has neither energy nor time to revolt against slavery, against oppression, against exploitation; his inner fight has made him so weak that anybody can dominate him. It is a subtle way of psychological castration.

Man has been made impotent with a very clever device. If you are together and one, you have the integrity, individuality, and energy to fight against anything that wants to destroy your freedom, and if the whole humanity has that integrity, dictators will disappear. Politicians have no place in a right human society. In a cultured society, what is the need of laws, of courts? The judges, the police commissioners lose all their power. So as not to lose the power, they have to keep you divided.

Nietzsche spoke directly, and suffered for it. Nietzsche is one of the greatest sacrifices humanity has made - because of power hungry people. But they are not bothered about Kahlil Gibran. People will read him as a poet, a beautiful entertainment, but nothing more.

YOUR SOUL IS OFTENTIMES A BATTLEFIELD, UPON WHICH YOUR REASON AND YOUR JUDGMENT WAGE WAR AGAINST YOUR PASSION AND YOUR APPETITE.

WOULD THAT I COULD BE THE PEACEMAKER IN YOUR SOUL, THAT I MIGHT TURN THE DISCORD AND THE RIVALRY OF YOUR ELEMENTS INTO ONENESS AND MELODY.

BUT HOW SHALL I, UNLESS YOU YOURSELVES BE ALSO THE PEACEMAKERS, NAY, THE LOVERS OF ALL YOUR ELEMENTS?

Whatever is given to you by existence cannot be without a hidden purpose. You have reason.

Reason has eyes, capacity to think, to find out the right part. You have the heart and all its passions.

But the heart knows how to sing, how to dance, how to love. The heart cannot create science and technology, neither can reason create love, peace, silence - all the qualities that make you transcend ordinary humanity.

The heart can give you the wings for transcendence and the flight of the alone to the alone. The heart is the door to where God can be found.

Reason is absolutely incapable. It can create money, it can create thousands of other objective things, but it has no capacity to enter into your inner world.

There is no need for any conflict. Reason fuctions in the objective world, and the heart functions in the subjective world. And if you are alert, meditative, you can easily manage a balance between the two.

I have called your heart the Zorba, and the flight of your intelligence - which is nothing but refined energy of reason - Gautam the Buddha. Until now, Zorba and Buddha have been fighting. Both are losers, because the Buddha does not allow total freedom for the Zorba; neither does the Zorba allow the Buddha any life of his own.

So there have been Zorbas in the world... all their smiles, all of their joy, is without any depth; it is not even skin deep. And there have been Buddhas whose joy is profound, deep - but there is a constant disturbance from the Zorba because the Zorba does not want to starve. And there is no difficulty in bringing them closer, to create a friendship between the two and finally a deep oneness.

There is an ancient story... two beggars, one was crippled and could not walk, and the other was blind but could walk.... Of course, they were competitors. Begging is a business where there is continuous competition - you don't know which is the beggar who owns you. When I came to know this, it was a great surprise. Because I was traveling continually, I was coming and going to the railway station so many times, an old beggar had become accustomed - in fact, he had started taking it for granted - that whenever I came back from a journey, or went for a journey, he was entitled to have one rupee each time.

In the beginning he used to be grateful. When I, for the first time, gave him one rupee, he could not believe it - Indians don't give rupees to beggars. But slowly, slowly, everything becomes taken for granted. Now it was not a question of gratitude, it was a routine. And I could see from his eyes that if I don't give him the rupee he will be angry - I am depriving him of one rupee.

I never deprived him, but one day I was surprised: the old man was gone, and a young man was sitting in his place and he said, "Don't forget that one rupee."

I said, "How did you come to know about the one rupee?"

He said, "You don't know... I got married to that old beggar's daughter."

Still I could not understand, "If you got married, where is the old man?"

He said, "He has given the whole area of the railway station as a dowry to me, and he has given me all the names - and your name is the first name. You have been giving him one rupee each time, whether you enter the railway station or you come out."

I said, "This is a revelation, that beggars have their territories." They own it. They can give it as a dowry to their sons-in-law. I said, "This is great! Where is the old man?"

He said, "He has found another place near a hospital, because the beggar who used to sit there has died. And he looks old, but he is a very strong man. Nobody wants to fight with him." Beggars are also in continual conflict to own the clients, customers....

Both these beggars were born enemies, but one day... they lived outside the town, in the forest. In the middle of the night, the forest got on fire. There was nobody to save them. The cripple knew that the fire was coming closer and closer, and all the trees were going to be burned; but he could not walk. And the blind man felt intense heat rising. This was for the first time they spoke to each other in friendly terms: "What is happening? - you have eyes, you can see." And they came to a compromise, forgetting all their fights of the past.

The blind man said to the crippled one, "You sit on my shoulders, so that we become one man. I have enough strength to carry you, and you have eyes to see where to go, where to find a way out of this constantly increasing fire." And they both were saved.

The whole town was awake and they were worried about the beggars, but nobody was courageous enough to enter into the forest to find out where they were. They knew that one could not walk. They knew that the other could not see, but they had not thought of the possibility that they both could become one. And when they saw them coming out of the forest alive, they could not believe their eyes. What a miracle had happened!

This is an old, very old story. India has one of the most ancient books of parables, the PANCH TANTRA; from the PANCH TANTRA comes this story. And this is the story of you, about you. The house is on fire, death is coming closer, but you are not yet one solid individual; you are a battle field inside yourself.

Reason can see, but alone, seeing is not of much help. The heart can feel - but alone, feeling is not much of a help. Is it possible that seeing and feeling are no longer competitors, but join in an adventure for the search of the meaning of life?

That is what Kahlil Gibran is saying: "I know the remedy, but...unless you yourself be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements... this miracle is not possible."

Hence, I have been proclaiming the new man as Zorba the Buddha - which is a meeting of East and West, which is a meeting of science and religion, which is a meeting of logic and love, which is a meeting of the outer and the inner. Only in these meetings will you find peace; otherwise, you will remain a battlefield. If you are miserable, remember that the misery is arising out of an inner battle that goes on day in, day out.

There have been great Zorbas in the world. "Eat, drink and be merry" is their simple philosophy.

"There is no life beyond death. God is nothing but an invention of cunning priests. Don't waste your time on unnecessary things; life is short."

In India we have a whole philosophy, the system of the charvakas. Perhaps a charvaka is the most articulate Zorba, and if you try to understand him he is very convincing: "There is no evidence, no eye-witness of any God or of any life after death. There is no evidence or proof that you have an immortal soul. Don't get caught in these words, which have been created just to create a conflict in you so you can become Christians, Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists, Mohammedans."

India has also known great Buddhas. They say the world is illusory; all that is true is inner, and all that is untrue is outside. So don't waste your time in desires, in ambitions; they are nothing but the same stuff as dreams are made of. Use the small time that you have in your hands to go as deep inside as possible so that you can find the temple of God - your godliness.

If you listen to the Buddhas, they seem to be convincing. If you listen to the Zorbas, they seem to be convincing - and then you are in trouble, because you have both within you.

I want you to be a peacemaker, not a battlefield.

Let there be a deep friendship between your reason and your passion, so that you can enjoy what is available on the outside... and much is available. It is not illusory, the actions of the Buddhas prove it. They need food - it does not grow inside. They need water - they have to seek and find it outside.

And still they go on saying, "All that is outside is illusory."

And the Zorbas, although they say that they are only living on the outside, are simply unreasonable - because the outside can exist only if there is an inside. They are inseparable. Have you seen anything which has only outside and no inside? Have you seen a coin which has only one side?

Howsoever thin you make it, both sides will remain together.

The first step to understand is: The most significant approach is to relax and be in love with your body, with your heart. Don't create any conflict, bring them closer - because centuries have made them so unbridgeable. And as they come closer and become one you will not be just a Zorba or just a Buddha, you will be Zorba the Buddha. You will be a total man. And in your totality is beauty, is bliss, is truth.

YOUR REASON AND YOUR PASSION ARE THE RUDDER AND THE SAILS OF YOUR SEAFARING SOUL.

When you have understood their unity and they are no longer in conflict, suddenly you will see a new space arising in you: you will see your soul. Now that there is no conflict in your body, your reason, your heart, you have time, silence and space to see something of the beyond - the soul.

You are basically a triangle: reason, heart and soul. But very few people have reached to the soul, because the battlefield continues. You don't have any time to explore - the Zorba goes on pulling you outside, and the Buddha goes on pulling you inside. It is a strange struggle that has been imposed on you by all those who want you to be weak, who want you to be without souls - just machines, robots.

He is saying:

YOUR REASON AND YOUR PASSION ARE THE RUDDER AND THE SAILS OF YOUR SEAFARING SOUL.

IF EITHER YOUR SAILS OR YOUR RUDDER BE BROKEN, YOU CAN BUT TOSS AND DRIFT...

and that is what almost all of humanity is doing, tossing and drifting...or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas - that is a kind of death before death.

FOR REASON, RULING ALONE, IS A FORCE CONFINING.

Reason has its limits. It cannot accept that which is limitless.

AND PASSION UNATTENDED IS A FLAME THAT BURNS TO ITS OWN DESTRUCTION.

Your passion is your fire - fire of your life. But unattended, unlistened to, ignored, the fire is going to destroy itself. The same fire could be used by reason to destroy the limits, to burn the limited imprisonment, and you would have the whole sky for yourself.

THEREFORE, LET YOUR SOUL EXALT YOUR REASON TO THE HEIGHT OF PASSION.

Passion knows no limits. Your energy is a source inexhaustible, because your energy is the energy of the whole universe.

LET YOUR SOUL EXALT YOUR REASON TO THE HEIGHT OF PASSION, THAT IS MAY SING.

Blessed is the man whose reason starts singing and dancing - because reason knows only curiosity, doubt, questioning; it does not know anything about singing, dancing, celebrating - those belong to your heart. But if your soul, your awareness, brings them together they will become partners in a dance, partners in a song so deeply in tune that all their duality disappears.

To me, this disappearance of duality is the beginning of a new life without any conflict, without any battlefield. Your life starts to become the garden of Eden. All your energies are enough to create a paradise within you.

It has been told to you that if you follow certain conditions as a Christian, a Hindu or a Mohammedan, you will enter into paradise. But I say to you: You never enter paradise. It is paradise which enters you the moment the battlefield has disappeared, and your heart and your reason are dancing in tune. Paradise is waiting for the moment when it can enter. In this joy, silence and peace, paradise has to come to you.

The whole idea of you going to paradise is nonsense. There is no paradise outside you, and there is no hell outside you. You are living in hell when you are in conflict, fighting with yourself. And heaven is in you when there is absolute silence, and a song arises in your being of totality, of organic unity.

AND LET IT DIRECT YOUR PASSION WITH REASON, THAT YOUR PASSION MAY LIVE THROUGH ITS OWN DAILY RESURRECTION...

What Kahlil Gibran is saying.... Never forget, because these are not only words, they are seeds which can transform you into a beautiful garden where birds will start singing, flowers will start opening and paradise is waiting for that moment to knock on your doors: "I have come, you are ready."

What he is saying is that the first thing is that reason should be raised by you, your awareness, to the height of passion, "that it may sing." And the second thing is more important: and let it direct your passion with reason... so that you are not lost in a blind groping. On the heights, having no eyes is very dangerous - then it is better to remain in the valley with all other blind people. Even if you fall, you will not die - maybe a scratch, or maybe a fracture, but not death.

Let reason direct your passion, let it become the eyes of your heart, and then you will come to know why Christians say that after the crucifixion there was resurrection. It may not be - perhaps it is not a historical fact - but it has a deep psychological and spiritual depth.

Each moment your passion dies, because passion knows nothing of the past and nothing of the future; those are the accumulations of reason. Passion knows only this moment - each moment it dies, and if directed with the eyes of reason, each moment there will be a resurrection. It will die and it will be reborn fresher, younger, better, more refined.

... AND LIKE THE PHOENIX RISE ABOVE ITS OWN ASHES.

The mythological bird, the phoenix, is really a way of telling you that you should learn to die each moment and be born again each moment. Your life should be a continuous death and a continuous resurrection so that you remain fresh to the very last breath; otherwise dust goes on gathering, and you die almost thirty, forty years before people understand, "This fellow is dead."

The hippies used to say, "Never trust anyone who has passed the age of thirty" - because almost at the age of thirty or nearby a person dies, and then he lives for forty years, fifty years, a posthumous life, because resurrection does not happen.

But hippies were only a reaction, that is why you don't find any old hippies. They had all died at the age of thirty; now they are living their posthumous lives in the marketplace very efficiently. They have forgotten all about that, it was just a dream that every young man has to pass through; now they laugh about it - it is nothing but a fading memory.

I have been in search of an old hippie - I have not been successful. Old hippies don't exist for the simple reason that they don't know: It is not a question of reacting against the society. It is a question of inner transformation, of learning the alchemy of how to die peacefully and allow the energy to resurrect - just like the phoenix bird - on its own ashes.

That is one of the most powerful and meaningful metaphors. I have not come across another metaphor that is so significant and so strong. It is the whole philosophy of religion: Dying and being reborn you remain always fresh, you remain always in a flow; you don't just grow old, you grow up.

Growing old is not a great quality - all animals grow old, all trees grow old. Only man has the privilege, the prerogative, that he can grow up and can remain as fresh and young, even in old age, as he was when he was below the age of thirty. Full of dreams of the beyond, even on the deathbed he is not sad that he is going to leave this earth; on the contrary, he is immensely excited about the new pilgrimage that is going to start, because he knows that no death is a death... every death is a resurrection too.

This becomes a truth only when your reason and your passion are together, when your Zorba and Buddha are not fighting, but hugging each other.

I WOULD HAVE YOU CONSIDER YOUR JUDGMENT AND YOUR APPETITE EVEN AS YOU WOULD TWO LOVED GUESTS IN YOUR HOUSE.

SURELY YOU WOULD NOT HONOUR ONE GUEST ABOVE THE OTHER; FOR HE WHO IS MORE MINDFUL OF ONE LOSES THE LOVE AND THE FAITH OF BOTH.

I have heard about a man who was in love with two women. Both the women wanted an assurance, a security, "Be honest and say whom you are going to marry." And it was difficult for the poor man, because the woman who was very beautiful was very poor, and the woman who was just homely was immensely rich, and all those riches were going to be his. You can understand his dilemma.

They had gone in a boat just to enjoy the sea and the sun. Suddenly the rich woman told him, "Stop the boat here in the middle of the ocean. I cannot wait anymore. You have to make the decision.

Tell us whom you love!"

The man must have been very intelligent. He said, "What kind of question are you asking? I love each of you more than the other." And both the women were immensely satisfied.

AMONG THE HILLS, WHEN YOU SIT IN THE COOL SHADE OF THE WHITE POPLARS, SHARING THE PEACE AND SERENITY OF DISTANT FIELDS AND MEADOWS - THEN LET YOUR HEART SAY IN SILENCE, "GOD RESTS IN REASON."

AND WHEN THE STORM COMES, AND THE MIGHTY WIND SHAKES THE FOREST, AND THUNDER AND LIGHTNING PROCLAIM THE MAJESTY OF THE SKY - THEN LET YOUR HEART SAY IN AWE, "GOD MOVES IN PASSION"

AND SINCE YOU ARE A BREATH IN GOD'S SPHERE, AND A LEAF IN GOD'S FOREST, YOU TOO SHOULD REST IN REASON AND MOVE IN PASSION.

This is the greatest synthesis which man needs - and needs immediately - because the whole humanity of the past has missed this synthesis, this synchronicity. But I want my people to enjoy God in every possible situation - when it is day, God is light, and when it is night, God is darkness.

Don't create any conflict.

Once you are no longer a battlefield, you have become a temple - and you are not going to purchase a statue of God to enshrine in the temple. The living God has always entered into the being of the man who has turned into a holy place, who has become sacred.

You have all the elements that are needed.

You have all the possibilities that are required.

If you miss, nobody else will be responsible for it except you.

God is just waiting on the door, but you are in such a mess that who would like to enter inside? And even if He knocks on your door, you cannot listen... there is so much going on, so much fight, that you are not going to listen to the small knock on the door. And there is no strong electric button on your door that God can go on pushing... He still uses the old human way of knocking with His own hand. That gives Him the idea whether you are prepared or not, whether you are ready to receive Him or not: Have you become a host that he can become a guest?

Okay Vimal?

Yes, Osho.