God the father - just another teddy bear

Question 1:

Prem Matwala, aloneness is not only your way to truth, it is everybody's way. It is the only way. Your whole approach from the very beginning has been wrong. First, life is a reason unto itself. The moment you make something else a reason for living, you have moved on a wrong path.

You are saying, "When my father died ten years ago, he was my last reason for living." This is a very wrong approach, a wrong way of looking at things. Everybody's father is going to die sooner or later.

Your father's father must have died... and still he lived.

You have not lived on your own, you have always needed somebody else to be your reason for living. That reason can disappear at any moment: the father will die, the mother will die, the wife can go with somebody else, the business can go bankrupt. If you make anything other than your own being a reason for living, you are insulting yourself, you are humiliating yourself - and this kind of humiliation is being supported; your father must have supported it.

Every father wants, and every mother wants their children to live for them. It is a strange demand: if it is to be fulfilled, then nobody can live in this world, you have to live for your father, and your father has to live for his father, but nobody can live for himself, and unless you live for yourself you cannot find any joy, any bliss. You have degraded your life; you have lost your dignity, your self-respect.

Your father had to live for himself and had to die for himself. You could not die for your father; how can you live for your father? And it is not insulting to your father that you have to live for yourself.

If parents were really understanding, they would help their children not to be dependent on them, not to get any kind of fixation - father fixation, mother fixation; all fixations are of a pathological mind.

Only freedom, and living for oneself totally, is the sign of spiritual health.

Then you met me and you started the same old story again. Your father died and you had to live alone every day. Could you not find a friend? Could you not find a woman to love? Could you not create your own life, devoted to music or poetry or dance or painting? The father is not going to be with you forever.... And then, meeting me, you shifted your father fixation onto me - without even asking my permission. You had a gap and you thought you had found a father.

It is not coincidental that the religions call God "the father." These are the ideas of psychologically sick people. Christians call their priests "father." These religions which call God "father" and religions which call their priests "father" - rather than helping you to come out of your pathology, your sickness - help you to be more sick, to be more pathological. Their whole business depends on your sickness.

You should have at least asked me whether I was willing to be your father. That very day I would have tried to persuade you to change your direction. Life is enough unto itself. One does not live for somebody else. Even if you love somebody else, you love because of yourself, because you feel joyous. The other is only an excuse. If you enjoy friendship, it is your enjoyment; the friends are only helping you to fulfill your own longing.

Then life has a health, and only the healthy person, the psychologically healthy person, can discover his spiritual being. The sick person cannot move, he is so much involved with his pathological desires - which are going to remain unfulfilled, which are going to remain like wounds. Otherwise, the death of your father would have helped you immensely to become aware not to depend on anyone else again.

But you did not use your intelligence at all. It was your dependence on your father that created the sadness, the misery. Now the father is gone; the first step of any intelligent person should be that this should not be allowed to happen again. One has to learn to be alone.

That does not mean that you have to cut yourself off from friends, from family, from people, from society - no. The art of living alone does not mean renouncing the world; the art of being alone simply means that you are not dependent on anybody else. You enjoy people, you love people, you share everything with people, but you are capable of being alone, and yet blissful. That is the path of meditation.

Accidentally you arrived here, and you committed the same mistake again: you replaced your dead father with me. You started looking at me as if I am your father. But I am nobody's father... I am not even married!

It is very strange that God, who is not even married, is called "father;" priests, who are not even married, who don't have any children, are called "father." But they are called "father" because some day or other, everybody is going to miss his father; then they will be the replacement. They are substitute fathers, but they are also mortal, so they can die any day. Even the pope can pop off at any moment. So the religions have created an eternal father - at least God will remain with you always; and all the religions define God as everywhere present - omnipresent; all powerful - omnipotent; all knowing - omniscient.

I have heard about a nun who used to take her bath in a closed bathroom with her clothes on. The other nuns became aware that this seemed to be some kind of insanity. They asked the nun, "What is the matter? Why don't you take your clothes off and take a good shower?"

She said, "How can I do it? Because God is present everywhere." Even in the bathroom, with closed doors, you are not alone. God seems to be a kind of Peeping Tom, so whenever you close the door of the bathroom, look all around - he must be hiding in some corner and watching what is going on.

The nun was logically right because, if the hypothesis of God's omnipresence is true, then certainly he cannot leave the bathroom just because a lady is taking a bath - he is not that much of a gentleman. Even if he was outside, if the lady is taking a bath he would enter the bathroom; that nun was doing absolutely the logical thing.

But this God is created just to help those people who are always in need of some father figure who is protecting them, who is their security, who is their bank balance. Without him, they will be left alone in this vast existence. You carried the idea even here. But I cannot support your pathology. I am here to destroy all kinds of psychological sicknesses, to give you a spiritual well-being.

The first principle is: freedom from everybody: father or mother, husband or wife. And remember, I repeat again, freedom does not mean that you have to renounce. In fact, the people who renounce are not free: they renounce out of fear; they are afraid that if they don't escape from home, they cannot be free. But if they cannot be free in the home, they cannot be free even in the Himalayas.

They may be sitting alone in the Himalayas, but they will be thinking about their wife, about their children, about their father, about their mother, about their friends. The whole crowd will be there.

You have to learn the art of meditation. The whole art consists of a simple fact: move withinwards, because there is no society, no father, no mother; you are alone - absolutely alone. Move inwards and find your being; and suddenly your loneliness will go through a transformation; your loneliness will become aloneness. Loneliness is sick, aloneness is beautiful, immensely beautiful.

You say, Matwala: "Now, with You, I feel more and more alone." That's my whole business, to make people feel more and more alone. But remember, feeling alone is not loneliness. The distinction is subtle, but has to be clearly understood: when you are feeling lonely, you are missing someone; when you missed your father, you were feeling lonely. If you are not missing anyone but you have found yourself, then you will be alone but not lonely.

And to be alone is so beautiful. All fetters have been dropped, all relationships have disappeared, nothing pollutes your consciousness. You are like a cedar of Lebanon standing alone, high in the sky; the higher you go, the more and more alone you will become.

So if being here, you feel more and more alone, it is perfectly good. But I know you have used a wrong word, you wanted to say, "more and more lonely." If you were feeling alone, you would also have felt a tremendous joy arising in you - the joy that only freedom can bring, a blissfulness that comes to you from your own inner core. And because you are knowing yourself, you know there is no death; hence, there is no need of any security, no need of any protection.

Out of this aloneness arises love - you will be surprised when you hear it - because only a man who is full of joy can be loving. Only a man who is so overflowing with bliss can share, can give it to someone as a present. Love is nothing but sharing your joy - but first you have to find your center of being.

Matwala, you are asking, "What can I do? Is aloneness my way?"

It is certainly your way too, but it is everybody's way. It is the only way. But remember to distinguish between loneliness and aloneness: loneliness is a sickness and has to be destroyed; aloneness is a tremendous revolution - freedom from all, no dependence on anything, no fixation. You are enough unto yourself; nothing else is needed.

I am reminded of Alexander the Great meeting Diogenes. Diogenes used to live naked. Outside India, perhaps he is the only one who can be compared with Mahavira.

In India, there have been many great masters who have lived naked, but the West knows only one man, Diogenes. And they have been ignoring him, ignoring his philosophy. But he was such a rare man that even Alexander the Great wanted to meet him, because he had heard so many beautiful stories about the man.

He had heard that he carried a lantern in the daylight, a lighted lantern. And whenever he is asked, "What kind of nonsense is this? First, you are naked; second, in full daylight you are carrying a lighted lantern?" Diogenes used to say, "I am naked because clothes were a dependence. I had to ask somebody, and that I don't like. And it took me only a few years to become seasoned, just like animals. Now I don't feel the summer, I don't feel the rain, I don't feel the winter; on the contrary, I enjoy the changes of the seasons. And I carry the lighted lantern because I am searching for an authentic man. I want to see everybody's face to see whether there is a mask or not."

And people used to ask him, "Have you found anybody with his original face?"

He said, "Not yet."

Alexander had heard that in the beginning, he used to carry a begging bowl - just like Gautam Buddha. One day he was going to the river because he was feeling thirsty - immensely thirsty. It was a hot summer day, and as he was reaching close to the river, a dog came running by, passed him, jumped into the river and started drinking the water.

Diogenes thought, "This is great! No begging bowl, nothing. He was behind me and he jumps ahead of me. If a dog can manage without a begging bowl, it is beneath my dignity to carry a begging bowl."

First he threw the begging bowl into the river, and then he jumped in, just like the dog, and drank the water. He said, "It was such a joy."

Such stories Alexander had heard about him. So when he was coming to India, and he heard, on the way that Diogenes was very close by, he was living there by the side of a river, Alexander stopped and said, "I would like to see the man. I don't want to miss this opportunity, I have heard so much about him."

It was morning, a winter morning, and the sun was rising. Diogenes was lying on the beach of the river, taking a sunbath. He did not even get up when Alexander reached there. Alexander said, "I have heard much about you and I have loved all those small anecdotes about your life. I wanted to see you, and just seeing you, I can understand that you are a beautiful man."

He had such a beautiful body, almost like a statue, and was so joyous that Alexander said,"I would like to give some present to you. You just ask - anything! Don't feel embarrassed. Whatever you ask for - even if you ask for my whole empire - I will give it to you."

Diogenes laughed. He said, "That is not the thing that I am feeling embarrassed about. I am going to ask something else... that's why I am feeling embarrassed."

Alexander said, "You just say it."

He said, "Just stand a little to the side, because you are blocking the sun and I am taking my sunbath, and this is not my meeting time." And he closed his eyes.

That's the only thing he asked from the man who was the world conqueror. Alexander must have felt a poor beggar in comparison to Diogenes. He did not care at all about his empire, and yet he was feeling embarrassed to ask such a small thing: "Just stand to the side. I am taking my sunbath."

These people have known the beauty of aloneness. They are unburdened by anything. I am not telling you that you have to be naked, that you have to throw away all your possessions. Once in a while, one Diogenes is good - but I am certainly telling you, you should not be possessive.

Possessions don't matter; you should not be possessive. You can use all that is made available to you by existence - but don't become attached to it.

I have been condemned all over the world because of my ninety-three Rolls Royces - but nobody has bothered to notice that I have not looked back: what happened to those ninety-three Rolls Royces? You can have the whole world in your hands; the real issue is: don't be attached. I have never looked back.

A few sannyasins have even purchased those Rolls Royces thinking that if I need them, they can present them again to me. They have written letters to me, they have phoned me: "We have got one of the cars and we are not using it. We are keeping it; if you want it back...."

I said, "What is gone, is gone. You use it; you enjoy it. Just remember that your master never looked back at anything."

The real thing is not that you don't possess anything - just don't be possessive. Enjoy everything of the world - it is for you; but enjoy it the way you enjoy the moment - don't possess it. Don't be like those two drunkards who were lying down on a full moon night by the side of a tree, enjoying the full moon. One of them said, "Sometimes I think I should purchase the moon." The other said, "Forget all about it because I am not going to sell it." Just enjoy it - why bother about purchasing and selling?

Your aloneness is a deep, inner experience. It is the experience of your own consciousness. There is not even a shadow of misery or pain. It is pure bliss, it is absolute benediction, as if God is showering on you. Only when you are alone God showers on you - only then.

So, Matwala, remember it is the only way to bliss, to freedom, to truth, to godliness, to eternal life.

Don't be addicted to anything and don't be fixated psychologically - by your father, by your mother, by your friend.

Whenever I see people who are fixated - and there are rarely people who are not - I always remember small children on railway stations, at airports, carrying their teddy bears - dirty, smelly, greasy, almost looking like Italians, as if they are stuffed with spaghetti. But they are clinging to them, they cannot sleep without them. Wherever they go, they carry their teddy bears.

You also have your teddy bears, but they are not visible. It is okay for small children but one should get out of this kind of childish psychology; one should become more mature.

No Catholic can be mature, no other religious person can be mature, because there is always the teddy bear above - God. They cannot live without a false hypothesis, a lie, but that lie helps - it gives you a certain solace. To seek solace or consolation is to remain retarded. Come out of this retardedness and become mature.

Question 2:

Prem Purna, it is one of the greatest statements made by Socrates: "Know thyself." But I have always thought it is incomplete. Unless another statement is added to it, it will not be complete, and that statement is: "Be thyself."

To know thyself, first you have to be thyself; otherwise, how can you know?

The second thing: as you enter into the inner world of mystery, of being oneself, of knowing oneself, you will come to a point where you become aware that the word ?self' is confusing - confusing in the sense that it has two meanings. Its true meaning is your soul; and its pseudo meaning is your ego.

And that's what is creating your problem: whenever we use the word ?yourself', usually we mean your ego, your I-ness.

When Socrates says, "Know thyself," or when I say, "Be thyself," we are not using the word ?self' in the sense of ego. We are using the word ?self' in the real sense of soul - your consciousness. That will explain to you why you are puzzled.

You are puzzled because you are accustomed to the linguistic meaning of the word, but not to the existential experience of it. The ?self' as ego will be absent when the ?self' as soul becomes present to you. Those two meanings are very dangerous. Either you can be an ego or you can be a soul, and the word 'self' has been used for both. If you want to know yourself, you have to be absent as an ego, as an entity separate from existence. You have to become pure presence.

The ego is your personality, the ego is your person, and the soul is your presence; it is not a person.

So when you are here with me, you feel as if you are not: IN MEDITATION, AND BEING IN YOUR PRESENCE, IN THE GOOD MOMENTS THERE IS NO "MYSELF." That's absolutely true. That is the right space, when you can know yourself - when you are not and there is only a certain "am-ness;" no "I," but only an existential "isness" - no boundaries to it, just an oceanic feeling.

So there is no contradiction. In your good moments you find you are not. Now, wait a little more: go deeper into this state of not being yourself, and you will discover the immense depth of your "isness,"

of your being.

One Taoist master, Hui Hi, used to say to his disciples: "When you come to meet me, leave yourself out." And he was not one of the so-called saints you have become accustomed to hearing about. He used to keep a big staff; if a disciple entered in with his ego, he would get a good hit.

So the disciples used to be very afraid to enter into the room of the master, unless their meditation was complete, unless they were absolutely clear that now they could leave themselves outside where they left their shoes, and could enter.... And whenever some disciple entered without his ?self' with him, the master hugged him with immense love.

Prem Purna, you have already done half the process - that in good moments, in blissful moments, sitting here, listening to me, or meditating, you don't find yourself. Just wait a little more. When every trace of yourself has disappeared and you are just pure space, being will arise in you as a great peak arises suddenly out of the ocean.

It happens once in a while that a sudden island arises out of the ocean - it was not there one moment before and now it is there. You will be surprised to know that the greatest mountains in the world, the Himalayas, are the youngest mountains. In the oldest Hindu book, RIG VEDA, there is no mention of the Himalayas. It is very strange, because it was written so close to the Himalayas. They have mentioned rivers - even one river, the Saraswati, which has disappeared since then - but they have not mentioned the Himalayas. The Himalayas are very new, very young, very fresh, are still growing. Each year they go on growing one foot higher.

The oldest mountain in the world is the Vindhyachal. My village, where I was born, is very close to the Vindhyachal. It is so old, that just like an old man, it cannot stand erect; just like an old man, it has bent down.

A beautiful story has arisen out of its situation. One great enlightened master, Agastya, was going towards the south. And Vindhya bent down to touch the feet of Agastya, and the master said, "Vindhya, remain in this position - because it will be easier for me to pass over you in this position.

When you are standing erect - I am old... it will be very difficult for me. And soon I will be returning.

My disciples have been inviting me continually, and now, seeing that death is very close, I should fulfill their desire. So I am going to see them, and I will be coming back soon - so don't stand back up in your erect position."

Agastya died in the south, he never came back; and Vindhya is still waiting, bent over, for the master to come back. It must have been thousands of years ago when the master went to the south....

The story must have arisen because of the situation of Vindhyachal. Vindhya is the oldest mountain in the world; it came out of the ocean in the very early days of this planet. And Himalaya is the latest, the youngest - almost a child in comparison to Vindhyachal.

If you can remain in a space of being no-self, no-ego, in a state of egolessness, then there is the possibility of a sudden rising up of the Himalayan peak of your own being. You will be, for the first time, your reality; and at the same time you will know what it is. It is immortality, it is eternity. It is there from the very beginning - and it is going to remain there to the very end.

Question 3:

Prem Turiya, Walt Whitman is perhaps the only man in the whole history of America who comes very close to being a mystic. Otherwise, the American mind is very superficial. It is bound to be very superficial because it is only three hundred years old. It is a child's mind which is curious about everything: it goes on questioning this and that and even before you have answered it, it has moved to another question. It is not much interested in the answer; it is just curious, it wants to know everything simultaneously. It goes from one religion to another religion, from one master to another master. It goes on searching for answers at the farthest end of the world - but everything remains almost like a fashion.

The psychologists have found that in America, everything lasts not more than three years. That is the usual limit for any fashion - a certain toothpaste, a certain soap, a certain shampoo, a certain hair conditioner, a certain guru - they all come into the same marketplace.

Now you don't hear anything about The Beatles. Just twenty years ago, they were on top; now, nobody even cares who they are. What happened to those poor fellows? Now you hear about the Talking Heads; the same is going to happen to them. During these twenty years, many musicians and many dancers, many singers, have risen to the heights and disappeared.

It has been calculated that in America, every person changes his job every three years, changes his wife every three years, changes his town every three years. Three years seems to be long enough:

something new is needed.

Walt Whitman seems to be a rare individual to have been born in America. He should have been born somewhere in the East - and he was immensely interested in the East.

This small piece that Turiya has sent is from his long poem, PASSAGE TO INDIA.

SAIL FORTH - STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY, RECKLESS, O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME, FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET DARED TO GO, AND WE WILL RISK THE SHIP, OURSELVES AND ALL.

He is saying that a spiritual seeker needs to be aware that he is going into unknown waters where no mariner has ever dared to go. And the risk is not small because the challenge is "Steer for deep waters only"... leave the shallow waters for shallow minds. Those who want to know their own depths have to steer into deeper waters.

SAIL FORTH - STEER FOR DEEP WATERS ONLY, RECKLESS O SOUL, EXPLORING I WITH THEE, AND THOU WITH ME, FOR WE ARE BOUND WHERE MARINER HAS NOT YET DARED TO GO...

Our goal is where no one has ever dared to go. "And we will risk the ship" - if the worst comes to the worst, we are ready to "risk the ship, ourselves and all." But we are determined to explore the unknowable. It is a tremendously beautiful passage for every seeker of truth, every searcher for the ultimate mystery of existence: shallow waters won't do.

People want everything without risking anything, and because of this, there are so many exploiters.

They tell you, "Just go to church every Sunday and you need not worry. Believe in Jesus Christ, and on the day of judgment, he will sort out those who believe in him. They will enter into paradise; and those who are not chosen by Jesus will fall into hell for eternity."

A very cheap, very shallow solution: just believe in Jesus Christ. Hindus say the same: "Just believe in Krishna. Just go on repeating, ?Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.'"

The other day, I saw in a news cutting, that the head of the Hare Krishna, Hare Rama movement in Europe had escaped with all the money back to America - he was American, just his name was Indian. He had left all his followers starving in France. The American mind is so dollar-oriented that when it comes to a question of choosing between a dollar and God, he will choose the dollar - because God is going to be there forever. First use the dollar, then we will see about God. And, in fact, without the dollar how can you enter into the kingdom of God?... some baksheesh will be needed.

And what are you going to choose? If you choose God - unnecessary trouble. You cannot live twenty-four hours a day with God, because the very idea of God is judgmental. God will be continuously judging you: you are doing wrong, you are doing wrong... this is a sin... I will throw you into hell. I don't think any man can remain sane and live for twenty-four hours with the so-called God. It is good that nobody has up to now had the misfortune to have such an experience.

Walt Whitman is one of the people who is not understood in America at all - and yet, he is the only one America can be proud of.

O MY BRAVE SOUL!

O FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

O DARING JOY, BUT SAFE! ARE THEY NOT ALL THE SEAS OF GOD?

Don't be worried about safety. Is not this whole existence one? Are you and existence separate?

Don't you belong to the same source, the same God? All these seas are of God, so you are safe.

Don't be worried; you can "Risk the ship, ourselves and all," - and yet, you are safe in the hands of existence.

O FARTHER, FARTHER, FARTHER SAIL!

Go as far as possible. Don't leave any place unexplored.

He is not saying these words about the outside world; he is saying these worlds are within you.

When he is saying, "farther and farther," don't misunderstand him. His meaning in the whole poem - this is only a passage, a part - is to go into the inner and risk everything - "the ship, ourselves and all."

And there is no need to be worried about security, about safety, because all this is part of one whole.

To see this whole existence - outside and inside - as one, is an immense insight; only very rarely does a poet rise to such heights.

He had something of the mystic in him. Although he was born in America, he had something of the East in him; hence, this PASSAGE TO INDIA. India has been for centuries the symbol of the inner journey. It is not just a political entity - it is a spiritual phenomenon. As far back as we know, people have been coming to India from all over the world in search of themselves. Something is in the very climate, something is in the very vibe, that helps.

I have seen it - going around the world I was watching - and it was a very puzzling experience. And those who are here and who have also been in the commune in America, all feel it. So many letters have come to me: "it is strange... we were in the commune for five years, but we never felt the same joy, the same song, the same dance, that we are feeling here." And I was also seeing the fact that because there has been no spiritual inheritance, the air is empty, dry. It does not have the juice that nourishes the soul.

And then I went around the world and I could see the difference. Perhaps, because for thousands of years the eastern genius has been consistently in search of the soul, it has created a certain atmosphere. If you meditate in the East, it seems as if everything helps: the trees, the earth, the air. If you are meditating in America, you have to meditate alone - there is no help coming from anywhere.

In Spain, in Portugal, there was every possibility to create another commune, but I saw the same thing would happen. The whole effort of five years in America was simply destroyed by the fanatic Christians - who don't understand anything of religion - and the fascist politicians.

In fact, they were afraid of the commune. It became their basic concern: the attorney general declared, "To destroy this commune is our priority," and the commune was not doing any harm to anybody.

But I can understand: deep down the commune was vibrating on a different wavelength; it was not part of America, and it could never be part of America. Its vibe was so strong that there was no way to defeat it - because America knows nothing about spirituality; it has never gone deeper than the skin.

And moving around the world my experience was the same. The East has fallen politically, economically, but it still carries a shadow of its golden flights. And those who are in search of themselves will find here, in this poor third-world country, immense nourishment for their souls.

Scientifically, technologically, it is not advanced; and poverty is growing every day more and more.

But still, in spite of all this, it remains the richest land in the world as far as the spiritual search is concerned.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.