Dying Into the Master

The first question

Anand Navin,

IT IS TRUE. I KNOW THIS FELLOW John the Baptist! In fact, every Master has been doing that. It is absolutely necessary because the disciple has to pass through a death process. Unless he dies -- dies to his past, dies to his knowledge, dies to his beliefs -- he cannot be reborn. And baptism is only symbolic: it is the symbol of death and resurrection.

That's exactly what I am doing here. You cling to your beliefs -- political, social, religious, philosophical You cling to whatsoever you have accumulated -- although it is all junk, although it has not given you a single glimpse of truth, you cling to it.

Somebody has asked: "I was initiated by a Master five years ago, and now I am feeling deeply interested in you. But the problem is: can a man have two Masters?"

If your first initiation has opened the door to truth, there is no need for me to work on you. Why waste my time? I have so many other people to work upon. If the first Master has not been able to open the door, or you have not allowed him to open the door, or who knows whether he was a Master or not, then why not drop him?

One cannot have two Masters; that is utterly stupid. If the first has done the work then I am not needed; if the first has not done the work, for whatever reason -- he may be a pseudo Master, you may have been a pseudo disciple.... Something must have gone wrong somewhere. One thing is certain: that initiation did not work. He could not drown you, he could not kill you -- you are still there. But you don't want to drop your old Master and whatsoever he has taught you.

Now you are asking me: "Can a man have two Masters?" I don't accept such people because this is the wrong type of people. Sooner or later you will go to a third person and you will ask: "Can a man have three Masters?"

The first thing to remember here is: to be with me means you disconnect yourself from your past, whatsoever it is -- your initiation, your Master, your church, your religion.

Unless you disconnect yourself you can't be with me. To be with me you have to be reborn; you have to be a new being, utterly fresh as the dewdrops in the early sun. Less than that won't do. You have to pass through fire. And it is very difficult to pass through fire, because one can see that the familiar is disappearing and the promised is far away.

The promised land may be, may not be, and the familiar is going out of your hands. And the mind says, "It is better to have half the bread that you already have than to lose it for the whole bread which you don't have, which is only a promise."

A Master is only a promise: a promise of something that can happen, a promise of your potential becoming actual, a promise of a flowering. But right now you are only a seed, and the seed cannot believe in the promise; it is very difficult for the seed to believe in the promise. The seed would like to remain a seed and yet be a flower. So we go on clinging to the familiar beliefs, systems of thought, ideology. And still we want to be reborn!

It is like a child who wants to cling to the womb and yet wants to be born. That is impossible. Either he has to be in the womb and die in the womb -- because after nine months to be in the womb is going to be sure death -- or he has to take the risk, the adventure, of going into the unknown.

And, certainly, the child must feel the birth as death. It is death to his life as he has known it up to now: for nine months the darkness, the soothing darkness of the womb, the warmth, the absolutely responsibility-free existence, total rest, relaxation. And he has been floating, swimming, in a body-temperature liquid. He has never lacked anything; all was supplied by the body of the mother. Even before he needed anything it was there, ready to be given to him. Now suddenly he is being thrown out of his home into the unknown. Who knows what is going to happen? He is being uprooted. He clings! It is natural to cling.

And that's exactly the situation when you are with a Master: you have lived in a psychological womb. When you are with a Master he starts pulling you out of your psychological womb. It is far more difficult than the physical process of leaving the womb because you feel closer to the psychological womb. You are a Christian, you are a Hindu, a Mohammedan, and you would like to remain that. And still you want to be transformed. Then you are in a double bind, then you are split.

Two Masters can only mean a deep split in you. I am not here to create schizophrenia.

No, one cannot have two Masters -- one is more than enough!

You have heard rightly, Navin:...JOHN THE BAPTIST NEARLY DROWNED HIS DISCIPLES WHEN BAPTIZING THEM.

That's the only way to baptize.

You ask me: IS THIS TYPE OF EXPERIENCE SOMETHING THROUGH WHICH A DISCIPLE MUST PASS?

Yes, it is a must. Unless the disciple passes through it he never becomes a devotee. And unless you become a devotee you don't know what it means to be with a Master. It is not an intellectual relationship; it is a deep merger with the being of the Master. It is something very existential.

The second question

Prem Judy,

YOU MUST BE CARRYING TOO MUCH OF THE CRAP that the Women's Liberation Movement is creating. You are too full of it. Next time you come to me I will have to look into your eyes, because when people are too full of crap, up to their heads, their eyes are brown! And you must have some lesbian tendencies.

You say: I THOUGHT YOU KNEW EVERYTHING.

You are absolutely wrong -- I know nothing. NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

If you have come here with this idea, you have come to a wrong person and to a wrong place. We celebrate ignorance! We destroy all kinds of knowledge. Our whole effort is to bring innocence back to you, the innocence that you had before you were born. The Zen people call it the original face. The innocence is intrinsic. Knowledge is given to you by the society, by the people around you, by the family. Innocence is yours: knowledge is always of others. The more knowledgeable you are, the less you are yourself.

Enlightenment has nothing to do with knowledge. It is freedom from knowledge, it is absolute transcendence of knowledge. It is going beyond knowing. That's why we started this series of talks with the great sutra: NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

An enlightened person is one who has no barrier between him and existence. And knowledge is a barrier. Knowledge divides you from existence; it keeps you separate. Not knowing unites you. Love is a way of innocence. Innocence is a bridge: knowledge is a wall. Who has ever heard of knowledgeable people becoming enlightened? They are the farthest away from enlightenment. Enlightenment grows only in the soil of innocence.

Innocence means childlike wonder, awe. The enlightened person is one who is continuously wondering -- because he knows nothing, so everything becomes again a mystery. When you know, things are demystified; when you don't know, they are RE- mystified. The more you know, the less wonder is in your heart. The more you know, the less you feel the great experience of awe. You cannot say "AH, THIS!" You cannot be ecstatic. The knowledgeable person is so burdened that he cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot love. For the knowledgeable there is no God, because God only means wonder, awe, mystery. That's why, as knowledge has grown in the world, God has become further and further away.

Friedrich Nietzsche could declare that God is dead because of his knowledgeability. He was certainly a great philosopher, and philosophy is bound to come to the conclusion that there is no God because God simply means the mysterious, the miraculous. And knowledge reduces every miracle to ordinary laws; every mystery is reduced to formulas.

Ask the knowledgeable person "What is love?" and he will say, "Nothing but chemistry, the attraction between male and female hormones. It is no more important than a magnet attracting iron pieces; it is the same -- like negative and positive electricity. Man and woman are bio-electricity."

Then everything is destroyed. Then all love and all poetry and all music are reduced to nonsense. The lotus is reduced to the mud. The lotus certainly grows out of the mud, but the lotus is not the mud. It is not the sum total of its parts; it is more than the sum total of the parts. That MORE is God, that MORE is poetry, that MORE is love. But science has no place for the "more." Science reduces every phenomenon to a mechanical thing. And do you know what "science" means? "Science" means knowledge; the actual word "science" means knowledge.

Religion is not knowledge; it is just the opposite of knowledge. It is poetry, it is love. It is basically absurd. Yes, you can say that I am talking nonsense. If science is sense then religion is nonsense. But that's the beauty of it.

You say, Judy: I THOUGHT YOU KNEW EVERYTHING.

That is YOUR thought -- and I am not here to oblige everybody's thought. I cannot be according to YOUR thoughts. I have more than one hundred thousand sannyasins; if I am to fulfill everybody's thought I will be absolutely torn apart, into millions of pieces. I cannot fulfill your ideas about me; that is YOUR mistake. And it is not too late -- either drop that idea if you want to be here with me....

You ARE here with a paradoxical person, with a person who is trying to convey something mysterious to you -- not knowledge -- who is trying to pour his experience of wonder and awe into your beings -- it is more like wine than like knowledge -- who is trying to make you intoxicated, who is trying to transform you into drunkards. Yes, for the rational person it will look like nonsense.

That's what one of the most important thinkers of the West, Arthur Koestler, has written about Zen. He calls it "all nonsense." If you look rationally, it is -- but is reason the only way to approach reality? There are other ways, far deeper, far more intimate -- NOT KNOWING IS THE MOST INTIMATE.

I am not a man of knowledge, although I use words. I am not even a man of words.

"I am a man of few words. Will you or won't you?"

"Your apartment or mine?" said the chick.

"Look," he said, "if there's going to be such a lot of discussion about it, let's forget the whole damn thing!"

I use words, but I am not a man of words. It is just out of sheer necessity: it is because of you that I have to use words, because you won't understand the wordless. I am waiting eagerly for the day when I will be able to drop words. I am utterly tired...because words can't convey that which I am and I have to go on trying to do something which is not possible.

Get ready soon so that we can sit in silence and listen to the birds or to the wind in the trees. Just SITTING SILENTLY DOING NOTHING, THE SPRING COMES AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF. That is going to be my ultimate message and my final work on the earth.

You say: I THOUGHT THAT'S WHAT BEING ENLIGHTENED IS ABOUT:

KNOWING.

You cannot think anything about enlightenment, and whatsoever you think is bound to be wrong. It has nothing to do with knowing; it is a state of not knowing.

BUT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT WOMEN AND THAT THEY TRUST PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY KNOW EACH OTHER'S HEART.

I know about nothing. What to say about women? -- I don't even know about men! So don't be worried about that. If you know what a woman is or what a man is, beware of your knowledge, because that is not real knowing; it is just opinion that you have gathered. Yes, man has been propagating ideas against women; now women are propagating ideas against men. It is the same foolish thing! And we go on doing this: we go on moving from one extreme to another extreme.

Now, you say: WOMEN'S HATE FOR WOMEN IS A MALE MYTH INVENTED TO KEEP WOMEN SEPARATE AND POWERLESS.

Man has created many myths about women, but now the women are doing the same.

They are creating myths about men which are as false as man's myths about women. But I am not here to decide which myth is right and which myth is wrong. I am not here to make you a propagandist for women or against women. My work consists in freeing you from man/woman duality.

And now you say: WHO WANTS TO BE A MAN?

Judy, if you really don't want to be a man you would not have written this. It is just like the ancient parable of the fox who was trying to reach the grapes and could not reach: the grapes were too high. She tried and tried, and failed again and again. Then she looked around -- foxes are very cunning people -- to see if anybody was watching, any journalist, any photographer. There was nobody, so she walked away.

But a small hare was hiding in a bush. He said, "Aunty, what happened?"

The fox puffed her chest up as big as she could and said, "Nothing. Those grapes are not worthwhile. They are not ripe yet -- they are sour."

Why should you write: WHO WANTS TO BE A MAN?

Deep down somewhere you must be hankering to be a man. Every man wants to be a woman, every woman wants to be a man, for the simple reason that every man is both -- man/woman -- and every woman is both -- woman/man. You are born out of the meeting of male and female energies; half of you belongs to your father and half of you belongs to your mother. You are a meeting of two polar opposites, two energies.

The only difference between man and woman is this: that the woman has the consciousness of a woman and the unconscious of a man, and the man has the consciousness of a man and the unconscious of a woman. But BOTH are both!

That's why it is possible to be homosexuals, lesbians; otherwise it would be impossible.

This phenomenon has been happening down the ages; it is nothing new. The reason is simple: because the man is only half man and half woman; the woman part is hidden deep in the darkness. But the conscious part can become tired, and when the conscious part becomes tired the unconscious takes over. Hence he may have the body of a man, but he starts functioning like a woman. And the same happens to a lesbian: on the surface she is a woman, but deep down the unconscious male energy has taken possession. Things have become upside-down. It will affect her physiology too.

There are a few lesbians here. Their physiology is bound to be affected by their psychology, because psychology and physiology are not two separate phenomena; they are joined together. Mind and body are not two; you are mindbody. So whatsoever happens in your physiology affects your psychology. That's why hormones can be given to you and your psychology can be changed. Now we know a man can be changed into a woman, a woman can be changed into a man.

And this is MY observation: that in the coming century millions of people will change their sex. That will become something avant-garde; that will become something very progressive. That will be a new kind of freedom. Why remain confined to being a man your whole life when you can have both the worlds? If you can afford it you can change your sex. For a few years you remain a man and you look at the world from the male's viewpoint, and then you go for a simple operation and you are changed into a woman; now you can look at the world through the feminine eyes. And it is possible that a man may change many times. If the process becomes simpler, and it WILL become simpler -- that's the whole work of science: to make things simpler and simpler -- if the process becomes very simple, millions of people are bound to change.

It will release a great freedom in the world, but a great confusion also, a great chaos also.

One day suddenly your husband comes home and he is a woman! Or your wife returns from a holiday and she is no more a woman....

Because each is both, the desire to be the other is in everybody. Judy, it must be there and very insistently there. Hence you are writing: WHO WANTS TO BE A MAN? Judy wants to be a man! I don't know about anybody else....

And you ask me: OSHO, I AM TOTALLY UPSET.

That's good! So I am succeeding! I want you to be completely uprooted, upset, disturbed.

I want to create a chaos in you, because only out of chaos are stars born.

You ask me: HOW CAN YOU TALK NONSENSE?

What else?! Sense cannot be talked...only nonsense is left. So I don't take it as a criticism -- it is a compliment! Many many thanks to you. At least you are talking some sense!

You say: MY MIND IS HAVING A FIT AND SO IS MY HEART. WHAT TO DO?

I don't think anything can be done now. It is too late. You CAN'T go back -- I will haunt you! -- you can only go ahead. Drop all these ideas that you are carrying within yourself, this antagonism about men. Drop all these ideas! I am neither for men nor for women. I am only for transcendence.

And don't take my jokes seriously! You are such fools that you can't even take jokes playfully. Another woman has written: "Osho, you have been talking too much against women. The other day you called them 'big-mouths'." Now this woman simply proves that she is a big-mouth, nothing else! Nobody else has felt offended. A joke is a joke! But why are you so touchy? Now this woman must have a big mouth. At least her husband must be telling her again and again, "You big-mouth, shut up!" And now she comes here to hear something beautiful said about her, and I tell a joke...and again that big mouth comes in.

Don't take jokes seriously. In fact, don't take anything seriously. You miss the point if you start taking things seriously. Even scriptures have to be taken non-seriously; only then can you understand. Understanding has to be with a deep, relaxed, non-serious, playful attitude. When you become serious you become tense. When you become serious you become closed. When you are playful many things can happen because in playfulness is creativity. In playfulness you can innovate.

But your ideas are continuously there; you can't put them aside.

Judy, now nothing can be done. You are a sannyasin. Now, being a sannyasin means you are neither man nor woman. Finished -- that game is finished!

The third question

Sudarsho,

ESSENTIALLY YES, BUT ACCIDENTALLY NO. At the center yes, on the circumference no. Essentially we are made of the same stuff called God, but on the circumference God comes in every shape and size, in every color, in every form. There is much difference And it is beautiful because if people were really the same, both at the center and on the circumference, the world would be a very boring place. But it is not a boring place. It is immensely interesting; it is immensely beautiful, rich. And the richness comes because of variety.

No two persons are the same on the circumference, although everybody is the same at the center -- not only people but trees and rocks, they are also the same at the center. Call that center the soul and it will be easier for you to understand. Our souls are the same, there we meet and are one, but our bodies and minds are different, there we are separate.

And no effort should be made to make us similar on the surface. Down the ages people have been trying to do that; that creates only fascism. That's what Adolph Hitler was trying to do. That's what happens in every army: we try to make people similar even on the surface. In the army names disappear, numbers take their place. If a person dies you read on the board, "Number 14 has fallen." Now, number 14 has no personality. Anybody can replace number 14, anybody can be given number 14; number 14 is replaceable. But the person who has died, is he replaceable? Can anybody in the world ever replace him?

Who will be the husband of his wife and who will be the father of his children? And who will be the son of his old parents? And who will be the friend of his friends? Number 14 cannot do that. Number 14 is perfectly okay in the army; he will carry the gun and he will do the same things -- the same stupid things -- that the other number 14 was doing before.

But as far as their real personality is concerned, number 14 is a different person.

All the military leaders of the world have been trying to force a certain pattern on people.

They would like machines, not men. They would like God to make men the way Ford cars are made, on an assembly line, so similar Fords go on coming. God does not work with an assembly line; he creates each individual with uniqueness.

So, Sudarsho, you have to understand two things. One: the variety, the difference, and love the variety and love the difference....

Mohammedans have been trying to convert the whole world to one religion; Hindus have been trying to do the same, Christians have been doing the same, Buddhists have been doing the same. The whole effort is to make all the world similar, so there are all Christians and Christians. It will be a poor world where no temple exists and no mosque, where there are only churches and churches, and the same prayer and the same scripture and the same silly Pope...it won't be good! It is beautiful that there are three hundred religions in the world; more are needed.

In my vision, each person should have his own religion. There should be as many religions as there are people. Only then this conflict, this continuous conflict, will stop, this fight between religions will stop: when everybody has a religion and it is something unique like your signature, like the print of your thumb -- unique. Then there will be no problem, no conflict; nobody will try to convert anybody. You don't try to convert people saying, "Make your signature just as I do." In fact, if somebody does it you will inform the police: "This man is trying to imitate me."

Religion should be a personal, intimate phenomenon. But there are people who want to change the whole world into Christianity or communism. They want to make the whole world Catholic or Mohammedan or Hindu.

Mohammedans say there is only one God and only one prophet of God, that is Mohammed. Then God seems to be very poor -- just ONE prophet? Can't he create more prophets? Mohammed has not exhausted all the possibilities; nobody can exhaust them, neither Buddha nor Jesus. They are all unique peaks, but no peak can exhaust all the peaks. The Himalayas have their own beauty, but it is different from the beauty of the Alps; and the Alps have their own beauty, but it is different from the beauty of the Vindhyas. Each mountain has its own beauty, each peak has its own beauty, and it contributes to the richness of the world.

I would not like all people to become Christians or Hindus or Mohammedans. I would like everybody to be free from these prisons, everybody to be just himself. This is a fascist idea, that everybody should be like everybody else. And this fascist idea is being imposed in different ways on different aspects of humanity.

The heterosexuals will not allow anybody to be homosexual. Why? Who are you to decide? Who has given you the right to decide? If two persons are feeling joyous in being homosexual, it is nobody else's business to interfere. But every society interferes.

Just the other day Aditya said Hamid had suggested that there was no reason why he should not think of turning into a gay person. Hamid must have joked. And when I talked about it Hamid was very much disturbed: "What will people think about me now?" He must have been joking with Aditya. Now he is very much disturbed about his reputation.

And of course, he is our Ayatollah Hamidullah Khomaniac! So his prestige.... Even Divya wept when she heard that Hamid had invited Aditya! He must have been joking because Iranians are very much against homosexuality.

In Iran, the punishment for homosexuality is death -- although because of this punishment, more Iranians are homosexual than anybody else. Because when something is so dangerous, people become interested: "Naturally there must be something in it.

When the punishment is death, that means there must be something higher than life in it, more than life in it. It is worth taking the risk!"

But why should people be worried about others? About everything the society remains alert: nobody should have his own individual way about his sex, about his love, about his clothes, about his way of talking, manners. Every society imposes a fascist rule on its members. It destroys much that is beautiful.

Sudarsho, you ask me: AREN'T ALL PEOPLE REALLY THE SAME?

Not as you know them.

The pretty co-ed nervously asked the doctor to perform an unusual operation: the removal of a large chunk of green wax from her navel.

Looking up from the ticklish task, the physician asked, "How did this happen?"

"Well, you see, doc," said the girl, "my boyfriend likes to eat by candlelight."

Nothing is wrong in it. This should be nobody else's business. If somebody wants to eat by candlelight he should be allowed. And where can you put the candle? The best place seems to be the navel -- so natural Some idea!

Abe and Me talked of their no-account sons.

Abe said, "My no-good son. I give him a job in my clothing business. I give him $50,000 a year, a new car, a beautiful apartment, and what does he do? He stays up all hours of the night, comes into work eleven or twelve o'clock and plays around with the models all afternoon."

"You think you've got trouble?" Me said. "My no-good son is worse. I give him a job in my clothing business. I pay him $50,000 a year and give him a new car and a beautiful apartment, and what does he do? He stays up all hours of the night, comes in eleven or twelve o'clock and plays around with the models all afternoon!"

"What's worse about that?" Abe questioned.

"You forget," Me replied. "I am in men's clothing!"

On the circumference people are different, and they SHOULD be different, and everybody should maintain his individuality on the circumference. One should never compromise for any reason. Then only can we create a really democratic world. Real democracy means that the mob, the crowd, is no more in control of the individual life.

Democracy is less a political phenomenon than a religious phenomenon; it is far more important than politics. Democracy is a totally new vision of life. It has not yet happened anywhere; it has yet to happen. Democracy means each individual has the right to live according to his light; he should not be prevented. Unless he becomes a disturbance or a nuisance to others he should be allowed every freedom in all the aspects of life.

That's my vision of a really democratic world. That's how I would like my sannyasins to function: no interference in anybody's life. A great respect has to be given to the other.

But at the center, everybody is the same. When you meditate you move towards the center. In the deepest moments of meditation, all differences disappear. You are universal there, not individual.

And you have to be both: individual and universal. And you have to be very flexible and fluid between these two. It should be as easy as when you come out of your home, out of your house. When it is too cold inside you come out, you sit in the sun. When it becomes too hot you go in. It creates no problem; you just go in, you come out. There is no problem -- it is your house.

A person should be capable of living on the circumference and at the center easily. He should be able to move from the marketplace to the meditative space and from the meditative space to the marketplace -- with no problem, playfully, easily, spontaneously.

The fourth question

Devaprem,

ALL NAMES ARE FOOLISH. That s why I have to explain the name to you, so at least it looks as if it is not foolish. I have to give it a beautiful meaning...otherwise names are names! They are just labels. "Devaprem" means divine love. What a beautiful name I have given to you! But, still, names are names.

There is an ancient Chinese ceremony in which the parents of a child choose the baby's name: as soon as the baby is born, all the cutlery in the house of its parents is thrown in the air. The parents then listen to the falling knives, forks, and spoons and choose a name -- Ping, Chang, Tang, Fung, Chung....

That's also perfectly right! That seems to be a wise way to find out the name, as if God himself has chosen. And that's how I go on choosing your names. Do you think there is much esoteric, secret knowledge behind it? Nothing of the sort! Just anything, and I make a name out of it. I don't even think twice.

But I can understand why you feel that the name does not fit you. You have become a closed person and love has become difficult. It happens to many people -- in fact, to the majority of people, more or less.

The child has to become unloving, unspontaneous. He has to deaden his sensitivity just to survive -- every child, more or less; the difference is only of degrees. Every child has to learn tricks to survive. And the basic trick is: never be spontaneous. Be formal, never be natural, because your spontaneity is bound to be punished and your formality praised, rewarded.

The parents enforce a subtle strategy: they create fear in the child if he says the truth.

Nobody wants the child to say the truth, and the child is not yet capable of Lying. But he has to learn.

When Cleo's parents threatened to forbid her to see her boyfriend unless she told them why he had been there so late the night before, she began to talk.

"Well, I took him... him into the loving room, and..."

"That is LIVING, dear," said the mother.

"You're telling me!"

Children are careful watchers, observers of what is happening all around. Of course, their senses are very clear, unclouded. They see the truth immediately. You cannot cheat a child; he knows it immediately, intuitively. And he is so innocent that it is impossible for him to be formal. But he has to be formal to survive. And man's child is very helpless. It is because of man's child's helplessness that our whole civilization exists. We can manage, mold the child in every possible way, whatsoever way we want.

Children are not supposed to say things that they know. They know much more than they ever tell you. They pretend to be innocent because you don't want them to know more than is taught in the school, than is taught by the preacher, than is taught by you; and they certainly know more. They move in society, in life, with keen, alert senses. They are watching everything, whatsoever is happening all around. But they learn one thing sooner or later: that they have to be diplomatic -- with the grown-ups you can't be true, honest, sincere.

Three young French boys were spending the summer in the country. One afternoon they were strolling through a field when they happened to see a couple Lying under a tree, locked in a loving embrace.

"Mon dieu," exclaimed the youngest boy, who was only six, "those people are having a terrible fight."

"But no, mon petit," replied the more sophisticated nine-year-old, "those people are making love."

"True," agreed the oldest boy, a lad of eleven years, "but what amateurs!"

But children cannot say these things to their parents or before their parents. They know much more than you think they know. They are so alert, so available to life. They are so open and vulnerable; they go on allowing every sensation to reach into their being. But they have to deaden themselves sooner or later; they have to become stiff, they have to become closed. They learn one thing: that unless they follow their parents, their priests, their politicians, they will have to suffer much. Respectability is only for those who are obedient.

Devaprem, you say: MOST OF MY EARLY LIFE WAS SPENT IN DEADENING MYSELF TO UNBEARABLE PUNISHMENT. THE DEADENING WAS ENTIRELY NECESSARY FOR ME TO SURVIVE THOSE TIMES, BUT THOSE DAYS NO LONGER EXIST, AND AFTER THIRTY-TWO YEARS, I AM TERRIFIED AND LACK THE COURAGE TO GO WITHIN.

Now there is no need to be terrified; that has to be understood. You can snap out of it! It is just an old habit. A little intelligence...and that much intelligence everyone has. If you had the intelligence in childhood to deaden yourself to survive, you ARE an intelligent person.

Now, the parents are not there...nobody is forcing anything on you, nobody is punishing you. It is just an old fear, a memory. You can snap out of it!

You don't need primal therapy: to go screaming against your parents for three years. That is not going to help -- that is simply stupid. If it takes three years to shout and scream at your parents, and only then will you come out of it, that means you don't have any intelligence. And what is the guarantee that just by screaming for three years and shouting at your parents you will become intelligent? I think you will be less intelligent than you were before -- three years of screaming and shouting? You will lose any intelligence that is left by your parents in you! There is no need! One has simply to see that those days are over. Meditation is enough.

Meditation means SEEING, becoming aware, that those days are over, the fear is no more there, nobody is going to punish you. It is just an old habit. Snap out of it with as little fanfare as possible. Don't make much fuss about it. Because you make much fuss about it so many therapies have evolved. They are just aids for you so that you can make a fuss scientifically, so that your fuss is rationalized. But they are not needed by intelligent people.

An intelligent person is one who can see that it is no more night, it is day. Why are you afraid of darkness? Do you need first to scream for three hours against the night and the dark and the fear? That will be utterly stupid! That will destroy the day. Why waste it?

The night is no more.

That's why in the East we have not developed any therapeutic methods like the West, for the simple reason that we came to understand one thing: that all that is needed is a little intelligence -- and everybody has it. And meditation helps the intelligence to become sharp.

Just seeing is enough; seeing brings transformation. And when transformation comes without any long process it is far deeper. When it takes a long process that means it will remain superficial.

So I have not come across a single person yet whose primal therapy has totally succeeded. It can NEVER succeed. Psychoanalysis has not been able to create a single person who is totally psychoanalyzed; even Sigmund Freud was not in that totality. Janov is not really what he is talking about -- the primal man, the primal innocence -- he is not.

You can see in his face all kinds of tension, anguish, anxiety; it is so apparent. He needs a few more years of screaming; and then too I don't think those tensions will disappear.

They may even become more subtle, more nourished, because if you scream for years, remember, you are practicing it; it is a kind of practice, a kind of cultivation of it. Then you become addicted to it; without screaming for a few hours you won't feel good. Then it is an intoxicating process, a kind of auto-hypnosis. Yes, screaming for one hour every day will make you feel a little relaxed, but it is a stupid kind of relaxation.

Seeing is transformation. That is our experience in the East. All the Buddhas in the East have given only one meditation: watchfulness, awareness.

Now, Devaprem, you know, you are aware of how this fear has arisen in you: out of thirty years of fear, continuous fear of punishment, you have become closed, encapsulated, and you are always on guard. You cannot relax, you cannot be true, you cannot be honest. You cannot say the thing that you want to say, you cannot do the thing that you always wanted to do. You KNOW -- and now....

It was right in those years -- you behaved intelligently. Nothing was wrong, otherwise you would not have survived. Now you have survived, get out of it -- it is no more needed. The disease is no more, why go on carrying the bottles of medicines and prescriptions? Do you need a therapy to throw the bottles and the prescriptions? Will you go to a therapist and say, "Now the disease is no more, but I can't let go of this prescription. I go on carrying it, and these bottles. I don't need them any more. How to drop them?" Is any "how" needed? No "how" is needed. Go to the Rotary Club and donate them! They collect medicines, etcetera, which are not needed by anybody else.

Their motto is: We serve. So help them serve people.

It is very simple to come out. But why do people make so much out of it? -- because that is part of your ego. You don't want it to be so simple. Thirty years of life -- and I am making a joke of it! You would like to pay some therapist good money and you would like to invest some time. That feels good; it makes you feel important.

In fact, in the West now people brag that they have been in psychoanalysis for three years or seven years. And somebody else brags that "Psychoanalysis is out of date. I have been in gestalt therapy, in primal therapy." And there are "groupies" now who go on moving from one group to another group. Their whole life consists of moving from one group to another group.

Many groupies come to me and they say, "We have done ALL the groups." And they say it in the same way as in the old days people used to say, "We have fasted, prayed, and we have sacrificed all our joys, and we are saints" -- in the same way! This is a new kind of holiness that is arising in the world: "I have passed through all kinds of groups." And I look in their eyes and they say, "And nothing has happened."

They are saying, "My problems are far more complex, far more deep-rooted than these therapies can go. They can't help me. I am no ORDINARY person; my problems are extraordinary."

People enjoy saying it. I see a light in their eyes when they say, "Nobody has been able to help me. Osho, can you help me?" They are giving me a challenge! All that they want is to add one more name to their list: "I have been to this guy too and he cannot help. My problems are such...not ordinary problems that anybody can help."

People brag about their diseases too, remember. They may just have some ordinary disease, but who wants to have some ordinary disease?

Have you ever watched your own reaction? When you go to the doctor with a throbbing heart, thinking it is cancer, and he says, "It is nothing. It is just a common cold"...have you observed? -- you feel a little sad. Just a common cold? A desire arises to visit another doctor. you and a common cold?! You are not a common person, how can you have a common cold? Ego is such that it thrives on every kind of thing, right or wrong.

So don't be much worried about it. It is past, it is finished. Slip out of it -- and without making any noise, without making any ceremony that you are getting out of it. Just start being again alive, sensitive, as you had always been in your childhood. That is your nature so it can be reclaimed easily. What you have learned is not your nature so it can be unlearned very easily.

The last question

Nisha,

THE PROFESSION OF A JOURNALIST is such that it lives on lies. Truth is not news; lies are news, beautiful news. The bigger the lie the better the news, because it has a certain quality in it: the quality of creating a sensation. Journalism lives on lies. If journalists decide only to be true, there won't be so many newspapers, so many magazines. And there will not be much news either. Truth you can write on a postcard.

I have heard that in heaven there are no newspapers because no news ever happens there.

George Bernard Shaw has made a definition: "When a dog bites a man it is not news, but when a man bites a dog it is news." In heaven no man bites a dog. In the first place it is very difficult to find a dog there; in the second place nobody is interested in biting anybody, so what news can you have?

But in hell they have really great newspapers and there circulation is in the millions. They have news there. Every day, every moment, things are happening -- everybody is biting everybody else.

When journalists come they come to find something sensational. If they cannot find it they have to invent it; otherwise their coming and going has been useless. And if a journalist goes back to his office without any news again and again, his job is gone.

Either find something sensational or invent it.

Journalism depends on invention. And then slowly slowly a journalist starts having a certain kind of approach towards things: he immediately sees the negative. He can't see the positive because the positive is not his business.

It is like a shoemaker: he looks only at your shoes, not at your face. What does he have to do with your face? In fact, looking at your shoe he knows your whole biography; a real shoemaker just looking at your shoe can say everything about your life far more accurately than any astrologer can. The condition of the shoe will show the condition, the financial condition, in which you are. If you have to walk too much, that will show that you don't have a car, that you don't have any money. The shoe will say so many things.

The shoemaker looks only at the shoe, and the tailor looks only at your clothes, and the doctor looks only at the diseases. Bring a perfectly healthy man to a doctor and you will be surprised: he will find many diseases.

I have heard that one doctor friend of Picasso had come to visit him. Picasso had just finished a portrait. He invited the doctor friend to see the portrait. He looked; he looked from this side and from that side, and then he asked for a torch -- in the daytime!

Picasso was puzzled, but he was intrigued also so he gave him a torch. He looked into the eyes of the portrait and he said, "Pneumonia."

A doctor is a doctor! His profession gives him a certain eye.

The journalist comes here with a certain eye, with certain fixed ideas, prejudices. He comes to pick up on something negative which can become sensational. And then, of course, he can find it; and if he cannot find it he can invent it. And they look only from the outside; they are too afraid to get involved deeper. A few journalists have got involved -- once they get involved they are no more journalists.

You can ask Satyananda. He was a famous journalist in one of the most important magazines in Germany, STERN. He got so much involved...he didn't function here like a journalist. He tried to know things from the inside . He participated in groups, in meditations, and then...he became a sannyasin.

STERN refused to publish his story because they said, "You are no more a journalist.

Now you have become part of this orange movement, so whatsoever you say will be favorable."

For months he had to insist, "I have worked hard!" They cut his story almost by half.

They destroyed his whole story, distorted the whole story, and only then did they print it.

And he lost his job!

Now he has come here forever. There are a few other journalists also, at least a dozen.

Subhuti is here and others are here....

A journalist is taught by his profession to always remain at a distance: "Look from the outside." And from the outside you can never know how things are.

A pretty young woman was traveling in a train across Texas. A dapper looking man walked up to her and whispered something in her ear, whereupon she gave him a stinging slap in the face.

A tall Texan seated across the aisle stood up and asked her, "Is this man molesting you, Ma'am?"

"He certainly is," she replied. "He just offered me ten dollars if I would go with him to his sleeping compartment."

Without hesitation, the Texan pulled out his pistol and shot the man.

"Good God!" cried the woman. "That's no reason to kill him!"

"I will kill any man," replied the Texan, "who tries to raise the prices in Texas."

If you had looked only from the outside you would never have thought about this, what was inside the mind of the Texan. You would have thought him a great saint or something.

But the journalist has to keep a distance. He thinks that by keeping a distance he will be able to know better. No, he will only gather information, bits of information, in fact irrelevant, unconnected with each other, because he has no approach to the center. And he is going to distort it more to make it more sensational.

A group of Rajneesh sannyasins in Bonn, Germany, were taking a boatride down the Rhine river when they noticed that a well-known journalist was aboard the boat. They decided to do something to give sannyasins a more positive image in Germany. So, before the eyes of the journalist, they stepped off into the water and did a whirling Sufi dance all the way around the moving boat. Then, completely dry, they climbed back onto the boat's deck.

The next day the sannyasins eagerly scanned the newspaper to see what the journalist had written about their fantastic feat.

There, in the back pages, they found a small article with the headline: WHEN WILL RAJNEESH SANNYASINS FINALLY LEARN TO SWIM?

Ah, This!