Whenever the ego gains, you are the loser

Question 1:

The question is from Vivek.

I can understand her difficulty.

The same will be the difficulty of all those who have come close to me, loved me, received me in their hearts as a master.

I have been saying that I am your friend, and you are my friend for a very strange reason that may not be obvious to you. There was another question from Milarepa -- why are a few sannyasins feeling very resentful towards you, angry with you?

This has been an historical thing, that amongst disciples there are always a few who are accidental. The wind was blowing this way and they arrived. They saw a tremendous energy in the disciples, and they became greedy. But it was not a search for truth, it was not a search for love; it was simple greed. They also wanted to be spiritually powerful.

They became sannyasins, they became disciples, but the distance between me and them remained the same. They could never become my intimate people. They could never become my people. Even though they were with me, deep down they were resentful, angry. I wanted them to drop their resentfulness, to drop their anger. It was not my problem, it was their problem, and I wanted to help them in every possible way.

It was for this simple reason that I had said, "I am your friend, you are my friend." Those who were not really with me were immensely happy that now their status and my status was the same. And amongst these were people that you would never have imagined... Just the other day I had the message from a sannyasin that Teertha is saying to people that my state and his state are now the same -- we are friends. For this he was hanging around for fifteen years. Rajen is saying to people, "Now I am no longer a disciple but a friend, and I have the same status."

These were the people that I wanted to get rid of as peacefully, as lovingly as possible.

But those who had loved me felt hurt -- because they have loved me as a disciple, and to be a disciple is something so valuable that who cares to be a friend?

There is a story in Gautam Buddha's life.... One of his closest disciples, Sariputta, was found to be not meditating enough. Even people who had come after Sariputta had gone deeper into meditation, people of lesser genius and lesser intelligence. Buddha called Sariputta one morning and said, "What is the matter?"

He said, "You know it. I never want to be enlightened while you are alive. I simply want to sit at your feet the way I have always been sitting. To be your disciple, to be showered with your love... who cares about enlightenment? This is my enlightenment!"

So I can understand Vivek's difficulty. She has been for sixteen years with me. When she came she was only twenty years old; now she is thirty-six, almost twice the age. And all these sixteen years, day in, day out, she has been taking care of me with as much love as possible, with a deep devotion. It is difficult for her to think of herself as being a friend. It would not be a gain to her, it would be a loss. Those who have understood the joy and the celebration of being a disciple, of being in love with a master, will all feel the same: that to be a friend is nothing compared to it; everything is lost. To be a friend becomes formal.

So those who were really with me have been shaken, hurt, and those who were not really with me have been tremendously happy. Just by me calling you my friend, you do not achieve the state in which I am. If it was so easy I would have called the whole world my friend, and they all would have come to the same state.

Milarepa's question is concerned with it. After the American government destroyed the commune, illegally but systematically -- it was a criminal act against human consciousness and its evolution -- people had to leave the commune. Now, a few of these people are feeling resentful; that simply means they were around me for a certain reason.

There was some greed -- although I have been insistently destroying all greed, all ego, all jealousy, all competition, all ambition. But they are so deeply rooted that although intellectually you may feel they have left you, they are there.

These people are now feeling resentful because deep down they had the greed that if they die in the buddhafield they will become enlightened, and now the buddhafield has disappeared. They are angry, and they are angry at me, because in spite of me telling them continually that I do not believe in miracles, they continued to believe, so it was a shock to them that I was arrested. They would have loved it if I could have gone through the walls of the jail, and then a miracle... Those were their desires... the commune had been destroyed and I should have done something to prevent it from being destroyed.

Naturally, they are angry.

But this is their misunderstanding. They can't see real miracles; they can't see how I lived for those twelve days in jail, how the people in the jail -- the authorities and the inmates - - almost became sannyasins. All these people in the jail were saying that it was absolutely unjust, unfair, against the constitution, and when I left their jail, there were tears in their eyes.

One of the jailers said, "This is the first time that I have tears in my eyes when I am releasing a prisoner; otherwise I am always happy to make somebody free. But if you ask me, I really want you to be here always! You have changed the whole atmosphere. How you have done it, I don't know; perhaps it was just your presence."

I was in the hospital section, and the head nurse told me, "This is the first time that the jailers, the assistant jailer, and other officers continually come to this department; otherwise nobody comes here. They come here, they sit with you, they talk with you.

They are hurt that you have been harassed, and they are ashamed that they are all instrumental in the harassment."

They made every arrangement for me -- they have never done that for anybody else. I call this a miracle, not coming out of the walls or breaking the chains; those are not miracles.

But this impact on human consciousness... All the six nurses and the doctor -- who was also a woman -- were crying when I left. They said, "We know you have to go... we know that you have been only three days with us, and we have become so attached to you; what must be happening to your people, who have been living for years with you? You have to go, but our personal feelings do not listen to logic -- we want you to be here. You have changed the whole atmosphere."

Even the inmates were not smoking so that I was not affected. They were trying in every possible way so that the government might think they are harassing me but I was not harassed. I was not taking showers -- the prisoners' shower booth was so dirty that it felt cleaner not to have a shower -- the nurses found out, and they made available to me their own shower.

They made available to me their own place -- the office of the nurses, the office of the doctor -- so that wherever I wanted to sit, I could sit; wherever I wanted to lie down, I could lie down; I did not need to go to the cell. And whenever I wanted I had simply to knock and they would open the cell and bring me out. I said, "You need not be worried -- I am perfectly good in my cell."

They said, "It is not a question of your being perfectly good in your cell; we love you to be in the office. We will remember forever that this is the place you used to sit."

The same happened in Crete: the chair I was sitting in for almost seven hours... By and by the chief superintendent relaxed, started talking to me, and finally he said, "I am feeling proud that you are sitting in my office. So many of your people come, and I have seen you only in the picture of their locket. Now I will be able to say to them, `This is the chair your master has been sitting in for seven hours with me.'" He phoned his wife, saying, "I will not come until Osho is safely sent to Athens." He became so concerned that he allowed Devaraj to drive me to the airport. The police officers were sitting at the back, I was sitting in the front and Devaraj was driving! This would have never happened...

These people who feel resentment may have other causes also.

Just the other day Anando was showing me one book published against me in Australia by a couple who have been sannyasins for three years and have been in the commune.

But just looking at their ideas, it seems they have never seen me. They are saying that they were working, working hard, and with their work I was purchasing Rolls Royces.

You can see the absurdity: their work was not bringing any money. Their work was making their own houses to live in, the roads -- which were needing money, not producing money. But in their mind -- and for all those three years also -- they must have been resentful.

Those Rolls Royces were not produced by the commune. They were presents from outside, from all over the world. And I was not their owner -- I had given them to the commune. They were commune property, and I have not brought any of them with me; I have left them with the commune. Everything that I had has been left with the commune.

I never owned anything. But there must have been the idea that they are earning money, and I am wasting money. That is their resentment.

What money were you earning? In fact you needed money to make houses, to make roads, to make a dam -- a dam needed two and a half million dollars to make. You were contributing your labor, but we were not creating money out of it so that I could purchase Rolls Royces, so that I could purchase anything. I have not purchased anything from the money produced by the commune because the commune never produced any money. The commune was absorbing money. In fact all my royalties, all my books, all their profits were going to the commune. The situation is just the opposite -- that I had given everything to the commune. Now, four hundred books in different languages were bringing millions of dollars in royalties, and those royalties were going to the commune.

If I had wanted to purchase Roll Royces, I could have purchased my own Rolls Royces, as many as I wanted, just out of my royalties.

But the resentment, the anger, is blind. In the commune we invested two hundred million dollars. Those sannyasins perhaps think they had brought two hundred million dollars there! Without me and the people who love me around the world, those two hundred million dollars would not have been possible. And now you can see: Sheela is trying hard but is not getting even enough money to pay the attorneys. No sannyasin is going to see her.

Shanti B and Puja have been given bail by the magistrate -- ten million dollars each. But they cannot collect even ten dollars, what to say of ten million dollars! Who is going to put up ten million dollars for Puja, ten million dollars for Shanti B? These people played with two hundred million dollars, and they remained in the illusion that this money was coming to them! The money was given to me, but because I don't receive anything, I had given the whole money to the commune. And still they feel resentful towards me. They are angry at me.

Just to pacify these people, before I left I did everything: I dissolved the religion, because that gives hope to people -- and they start believing that the responsibility is mine, that they should be raised in consciousness, awareness, and finally made enlightened.

I made them free -- saying that you need not wear red clothes, you need not wear a mala, it is not compulsory anymore -- simply to drop all the load of responsibility that they were unknowingly putting on me. They were hoping that just by wearing red clothes and putting the mala on, their work was finished, that now it is my responsibility to make them enlightened. I dropped that. They think that I was giving freedom to them; in fact I was simply making my own life as light as possible. I was simply dropping unnecessarily imposed responsibilities. And finally, not to let them feel that they were inferior to me in any way, I told them, "I am your friend and you are my friend."

And the people who wanted it, who had been waiting for it, rejoiced.

But the people who understood cried and wept.

Now in Rajen's groups even my name is not mentioned. What is the need of mentioning the name of a friend? You have many friends -- you don't mention their names.

Teertha has made an academy. Devageet was there; he worked hard to find the place, to arrange it, hoping that it was going to be Osho's meditation academy. But when he saw the board being put up it said simply "Meditation Academy."

He asked, "But no mention of Osho?"

And Teertha and Vedana and others who were involved in it simply said, "We are all friends -- why put Osho's name there?"

They printed a brochure, and Devageet was saying to me, "I cried, and I had to fight almost physically because Your name was not even mentioned in the brochure. It was not even mentioned that the meditations they will be teaching have something to do with You. They have all their pictures in the brochure, but Your picture is not there." Because he fought so much, finally they agreed to put in a picture of me, a strange picture, an old picture that nobody would recognize -- it must be a picture taken by someone in '74 -- and that too a small picture, and without mentioning my name or saying anything about who the person is.

Devageet, simply out of disgust, left the place. And now these same people are trying to have a world festival -- in which my name is not mentioned. There is no need, naturally, to mention the name of a man who is your friend; you have many friends! But they will be exploiting the sannyasins.

The strategy is very clear, because I have been seeing: when they advertise their groups in our newspapers, newsletters, magazines, then they are in orange clothes with the mala.

None of them is using red clothes or mala, and in the group not even my name is mentioned. But in advertisements, to attract sannyasins to participate in the groups, all of them are publishing their pictures with malas, with orange dress -- as if they are old sannyasins. Just to make these people feel at ease, I withdrew myself from their lives.

But, Vivek, you need not be worried about it. Those who love me, those who know me, know perfectly well that I am their master, and they have traveled a long way with me, in devotion and love. And of course, it is impossible for them at any moment -- even if they become enlightened -- to call me a friend. That will be simply ungratefulness.

Again, I remember Sariputta. One day finally he became enlightened, and Buddha said, "You have to go to preach. Now you are enlightened there is no need for you to sit here by my feet."

He said, "This was the trouble! I was ready to drop the idea of enlightenment. You forced me to go on deeper into meditation, and now I am in a fix. I knew that this was going to happen -- once I become enlightened you will tell me to go to spread the word. I don't want to go anywhere. While you are alive, I want to be just your shadow."

But Buddha persuaded him. Finally he agreed, when Buddha was so insistent, but he said, "One freedom I want..." Just see the use of the word `freedom', and you can see the freedom that your so-called resentful and angry sannyasins have: "One freedom I want, that wherever you are I should be allowed to bow down and touch your feet, from a faraway distance, in your direction."

But Buddha said, "You are already enlightened -- you need not touch my feet!"

He said, "You have to give me that freedom."

Love asks for a freedom which logic cannot understand.

Sariputta was asked again and again in his journeys... Every morning he would get up, take his bath, and the first thing he would do was to bow down on the ground with folded hands towards the direction where he knew Buddha was dwelling.

They would say, "To whom are you praying this way?" -- because there is no God in Buddhism.

And he would say, "I am not praying to any God, but Buddha is God to me; he is my master."

And they would say, "But you are enlightened!"

He said, "That does not matter. I am enlightened because of him. Without him I don't think it would have happened in many lives' time, I cannot conceive how it could have happened. So he may say he is not responsible for the happening, but I cannot accept the idea. This freedom I have asked from him, and this is a special privilege."

I am feeling very relieved -- relieved of all those who were not my people but somehow were hanging around. Now I want only those who are really with me.

Yesterday while Vivek was reading the questions to me, when she read her own question she started crying. I said, "What is the matter? Whose question is this?"

She said, "It is my question."

And I know that is the situation of many hearts -- but only those hearts who have learned to love a master.

All those egoist people were pretending to be disciples. I did not want to hurt them, so the best, the graceful way was that I declared: you are my friends, and I give you total freedom. And they accepted immediately, joyously, not knowing what they were accepting. They were free... they met me; now they are again free, in the same position.

They have lost something, but they think their egos have gained something. Whenever the ego gains, you are the loser.

It is one of the reasons that I don't want to have another commune. I want only a mystery school, so those who really are interested can come, learn, go back. It has been a tremendously meaningful experience, but it was not new. At every turn of my life I have had to drop a few people. And I don't want to say to somebody, "I am dropping you." I can't be that unkind, ungraceful. I have managed things so that they drop themselves.

It has happened many times -- this was not the first time. And it is natural that as you go along, you start gathering some junk, some unnecessary luggage, and there comes a point where it has to be dropped. But these are living people. Although they are junk, they are just luggage, useless, I am still respectful towards them. So I have to find a certain device so they can go happily, not feeling that they have been dropped, but on the contrary, that they have gained what they wanted.

It was simply hilarious when I read Teertha's letter. In the end he writes, "I am doing the same work as you are doing; the only difference is that you are doing it on a bigger scale and I am doing it on a personal scale, individual to individual. But the work is the same."

And then came this second news that he told somebody on the phone, who informed me, "I am of the same state."

It is good that they are feeling good.

As far as reality is concerned, those who were real disciples are still disciples -- even if they become enlightened, they will not lose their disciplehood. In fact, they have attained to the ultimate of disciplehood. Their gratitude and their love towards the master is not less but more than ever.

Question 2:

They are not opposite phenomenon. My whole work is not to make something of you, but to help you to remember something. Your innermost reality, your truth, has not to be brought to you; it is already there. It just has to be remembered.

The word `remember' is very beautiful. Ordinarily you don't think about words.

`Remember' means to "make it a member again." Its root meaning is that you have forgotten some member of your being. `Remember' means you suddenly become aware that it is there.

And my talking to you is not the talking of a teacher, because I am not teaching any theology, any doctrine, any cult, any creed. I am speaking to you in a totally different context. I am speaking to you in such a way that it creates inside you a synchronicity, it hits a deep chord in you. And in that, simultaneously something is remembered... You feel that you have heard it for the first time and you also feel that it is a truth that has always been with you, just you had forgotten it. Both are true. From the outside you have heard it for the first time. From the inside it is part of your being; you had forgotten it.

I know so many people in the world, and so intimately, but still I forget their names sometimes -- but I never forget their faces, I never forget their eyes. Even in a crowd of millions of people I can find them. But as far as names are concerned... because deep down I know names are just given to you, they are not part of your reality. So I forget.

Then I have a simple technique for how to remember... It is strange that there are a few names which I go on forgetting. I will remember and will forget again... there must be something in those names.

So what I do is I simply close my eyes and start repeating the alphabet -- from A to Z, slowly -- and it helps. I say to myself "A" and wait for a moment to see if something is remembered, if the "A" hits something... then "B", then "C." And it never fails.

For example, Geeta is sitting here. Now Geeta is one of the names that I should not forget; it is the bible of the Hindus -- in India the most respected book, the holiest book.

But perhaps that is the reason I go on forgetting it! So this poor Geeta suffers.

Yesterday I was answering her question, but I could not remember her name, and there was not time while answering to go through the alphabet. Later on, walking up the steps, I went through the alphabet and caught her immediately as "G" came; I immediately remembered -- it is Geeta. And then I was surprised because this is such a common name; it is not uncommon. But perhaps it is the Hindus and their holy book -- that seems to be the only reason. I have spoken on it... not in English, so you don't know; otherwise twelve big volumes I have spoken on it, twelve thousand pages, although it is a small book.

But I had to go always... it was not only once. Once I can understand -- one can forget.

Then the next day I saw her coming to clean my bathroom and I thought, "My God! I have to go through the alphabet again!" And I caught her at "G" immediately, that "G" hits some chord, and I remembered "Geeta." And there are many names like that, that I go on forgetting. But they are there, just waiting to be struck rightly, then they become alive.

Different people use different techniques for forgotten names; they make associations.

For example, if I don't want to forget Geeta's name I can simply make it associated with Krishna. That name I never forget, and it is his message -- Geeta. So I can simply connect these two, so that whenever I see Geeta I don't have to bother about her name; I have to think of Krishna, then immediately I will remember Geeta. That too I have tried just this morning. Coming in, I said, "Hey Krishna!" I remembered that she is Geeta and no one else.

So if it happens when I am speaking that something hits a deep cord in you, you feel it is something new that you have heard. But suddenly, in an even deeper and darker part of your being, something else is remembered. And suddenly you are in a puzzle: have you heard it new or you had just forgotten, and hearing this you have remembered?

Both are true -- there is no need for any puzzle. It is new as far as you are concerned; it is as ancient as existence as far as your being is concerned. For your ego it is new, but for your being it is just a forgotten message.

Sometimes you feel you know something, you remember something. You are absolutely certain. In all the languages this kind of phrase is available, "It is almost on the tip of my tongue." It is, but still you cannot say it. And it feels very, very strange, a little awkward inside, with both the things together: you know, you are perfectly certain that it is on the tip of the tongue, but you cannot verbalize it, you cannot simply say it. The more you try, the more you become tense... tense because it is so close. And it is close, but something is hindering the path, something is coming in between -- a very thin layer of something, some other word. But because you are becoming tense, it is not possible to remember it.

Then different people have different methods. you start smoking a cigarette -- you forget all about it. Just smoking a cigarette you relax, and suddenly it is there. Or you go into the garden and start watering the plants -- you forget all about it. You are no longer tense, you are no longer worried even about remembering it, and that is the moment you remember it. It seems relaxation plays a great part in letting it come to the surface.

Perhaps when I say something it relaxes you deep down, and that helps. Just sitting with me, listening to me, is not a tense affair. It is not the lecture of a professor, where you are taking notes.

In India I had continuously to tell people, "Please stop taking notes because you are destroying the whole atmosphere. I am not a professor and this is not a class, and when I am speaking and you are taking notes, you can't hear me. You are concentrated on taking notes; you will miss many significant things."

Listening to me, sitting relaxed, suddenly a deep relaxation happens inside, and something that you have forgotten....

Now I would like again to remind you of the meaning of the word `sin.' The religions have destroyed the beauty of the word -- so much so that it has become almost impossible to use it, because all the connotations that they have given to it are in everybody's mind.

But in reality the word `sin' simply means `forgotten.' In that sense I accept it.

Our only sin is that we have forgotten ourselves, and our only enlightenment will be that we remember again.