Doing is going to be your undoing

Question 1:

The relationship between the master and the disciple is in a subtle way a kind of slavery. To cover it, the disciple reveres the master, adores the master. The master tries to be a fatherly figure to the disciple, but deep down the master is nothing but a politician. By increasing his followers he is increasing his power. He manipulates people. All the disciplines, rules, regulations - they are meant for you as psychological chains.

The disciple has hatred deep down in him, for the simple reason that he has to bow down to the master, because the master knows and he does not know. He is angry, enraged, but what can he do? To know as much as the master knows, he represses his feelings and creates a phony personality, hypocrisy, humbleness.

You will have to understand one thing very clearly: in all cultures the love relationship between brother and sister is absolutely prohibited. There is no bigger sin than a love relationship between brother and sister. Why? You may not have looked into it. The reason is, if there were no prohibition of that kind, the first love would be bound to happen between brother and sister.

To prevent it, they have done two things. They have made it a great sin, so that you are afraid.

Secondly, they have raised the relationship between brother and sister to great heights of purity, pure love, spiritual love. But the fact is, both are strategies to hide the simple fact that if there were no inhibition, the love between brother and sister would be bound to happen - they are together in the same home.

All the cultures want the son to respect the father. Why? - because psychologically every son disrespects the father. The reasons are clear. The father is trying to mold him in a certain way that is not natural to him. The father is making him according to his own image, just as God did - he made man in his own image. Every father is doing that.

But who wants to be made by somebody else in his own image? Everybody wants to be individual.

That is a very deep longing and desire in every being - to be himself. And the father is not allowing him to be himself. And the son is helpless, because he is dependent for everything on the father; hence, he has to suppress himself, be obedient.

Every father wants the son to be obedient. God wanted Adam and Eve to be obedient. Their only sin was that they disobeyed the father. And the great God - who is compassion, who is love, who is forgiveness - could not forgive his own son, his own daughter? And they had not done anything so big that for thousands of years to come the dependents should also be punished.

These stories are significant. There is no God and there has never been any Adam and Eve, but the story is very psychological; it is happening every day in thousands of places. The father wants the son to be just his mirror image; it fulfills his ego. But on the other hand, it hurts the ego of the son. Being helpless he has to compromise, being helpless he has to surrender; but the unconscious bears the scars.

It was one of the greatest things that Sigmund Freud said, for the first time in the history of man, that the father is respected by all cultures for the simple reason that in the beginning the first father was killed by his own sons. Every son is doing his best to remove that guilt.

Human relationship, because of religions, cultures, education, has become very complicated.

The relationship between master and disciple repeats the same circle. The master is your father figure, and the master is trying to create you in his own image. To disobey the master is the greatest fall for the disciple. And what is virtuous? To obey the master blindly without questioning, never thinking whether he is right or wrong. You have just to do it, whatsoever he wants; there is no question of asking why.

Can you really love such a man? Can you really respect such a man? It is impossible. You may show love, you may show respect, you may pretend humility, humbleness, but deep down just the opposite is the case.

Judas sold Jesus into the hands of the enemies for thirty pieces of silver. This is significant, because Judas was the only educated and cultured disciple amongst all the apostles of Jesus; the others were simply village fools. Why did he betray him? Every disciple wants to betray deep down, and all the great masters have been betrayed by their disciples. Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus - it cannot be just coincidence.

And why am I trying to be just your friend? I don't want to become your father figure. I don't want you to be split inside about me - on the surface all that is beautiful, and underneath all that is ugly.

I am descending every day from the throne where you have put me. It is a psychological revolution.

And for the future I am making the path so that no master should be betrayed again, so that no disciple should be split again. The only way is that the master should not put himself higher than the disciples. He should come closer to the disciple, so close that they become friends. In that friendship the split personality of the disciple will disappear. In that friendship the politics of the master will disappear. He is no longer ruling over millions of people, he is just one amongst them - a friend, a fellow traveler.

That's why the more I insist on being your friend, the more great reverence arises in you. This is true and authentic reverence. Because I am your friend there is no need to hate me in your unconscious.

You cannot be a Judas to me. I am just your friend, you cannot sell me for thirty silver pieces.

It is a significant question. Ponder over it, meditate over it.

This breaks the whole history of the past, and makes the future discontinuous with it. Masters should be friends, disciples should be fellow travelers. Hand in hand, singing and dancing, they should move towards the real, the true, the beautiful.

Naturally, great reverence will arise in you, great humbleness will arise in you. But this is going to be authentic, not out of a personality split against itself; it will come out of your wholeness. And whenever anything comes out of your wholeness, it has a grace, a beauty, a splendor of its own.

And that's what I want to happen here.

I want to help you become what you are. I have no designs for you, no disciplines for you.

I will explain to you my consciousness and how consciousness dispels all darkness; and with that darkness, anger and hate, sexuality and jealousy, all disappear. But this I am going to do as your friend, hand in hand.

Perhaps for the first time in history, a disciple will love his master because the master is no longer pretending to be the master, and he is no longer forcing the disciple to be the disciple.

Question 2:

It is good that you don't believe in me. I am relieved, because if you believe in me, sooner or later you will take revenge. But if the thing had stopped there - that you don't believe in me - everything would have been perfectly good.

You say, I have said fight fear. I cannot conceive myself saying that, ever. Fight is not my teaching.

You must have heard something which has not been said. In fact, what you are doing is what I have been teaching: face fear, encounter it, be a witness to it. That's the only way to overcome, and not only to overcome but to release all the energy that is hidden in fear, for better purposes, for more creative things.

Everything has energy: fear, anger, jealousy, hate. You are unaware of the fact that all these things are wasting your life. Your energy is leaking from so many holes. This way you are going to become, sooner or later, bankrupt. In fact, most people become bankrupt by the age of thirty. After that there is nothing. It is posthumous life, dragging on somehow towards the grave.

It is good that you have tried to face your fear. Do the same with anger, do the same with jealousy, do the same with hatred.

And another significant point to remember: if you witness anything - fear, anger, hate - they will disappear, leaving a tremendous amount of energy in you which you can use for creativity. You will have to use it, the leaking holes have disappeared; you will be overflowing with energy. But if you witness your love, compassion, kindness, humbleness, they will not disappear. They also have tremendous energy, but the more you witness them, the more they will become strong in you; they will overpower you, overwhelm you.

So this is the criterion to decide what is right and what is wrong. If by witnessing, something disappears, leaving all its energy to you, it was wrong.

I don't give you ready-made labeled things - this is wrong and this is right, this you have to do, and this you have not to do. I don't give you ten commandments. I give you the whole secret of spiritual life: witness. If the thing disappears and leaves a great amount of energy behind it, it was wrong. If by witnessing, the phenomenon becomes even bigger, love becomes more Himalayan, that means this is the good you have been searching for.

If you become more sensitive to beauty, to poetry, that means your love has blossomed. And all the energy that has been left by fear, anger and hate, will be taken over by your love, your sensitivity, your compassion, your creativity. This is the whole alchemy of changing base metals into gold.

This is what alchemists were really doing, but because of Christianity they could not say it openly.

This is one of the sad things about religions, that rather than helping really religious people, they prevent them. So the alchemists in Europe had found a device to deceive the pope and his agents.

They had small labs in which there were many tubes and bottles, many-colored things, and stoves.

It gave the appearance that they were doing something material, that they were scientists, that they were not mystics - because the mystic was dangerous to the pope, the mystic was dangerous to organized religion. These people were just trying to change base metals into gold. That was perfectly good. In fact, if they succeeded, then they would be in the service of the church. So with the blessings of the pope....

But this was only a facade. The reality was something else which was going on inside. Being scientists was just the superficial mask. They were not doing anything; not a single iota of base metal was changed into gold in thousands of years. Can't you see? All those bottles and tubes and water with many colors passing from one bottle into another - that was simply to hide behind. And who is not interested in changing base metal into gold? Everybody was interested. Alchemists were respected for their facade.

What they were actually doing was of a different dimension. They were trying to change fear, anger, hatred, into love, compassion, creativity, sensitivity. They were trying to bring a transformation in the soul of man.

So this is the basic alchemy: you watch, witness without any judgment. There is no need of any judgment. That which is wrong will disappear, leaving a great energy behind. And that which is good will become bigger and will start absorbing the energies that have been left; only a great fragrance of love, light, and laughter remains behind.

Question 3:

Please, don't go for it. You may destroy the grass that was growing by itself. If you cannot sit silently and watch, go somewhere else, but not for it!

You say, "How to combine both?" That is impossible. Letting the grass grow by itself and going for it? You want to combine both together? Man, you must be greedy. But man, you are asking for the impossible - greed always asks for the impossible. Hence the greedy man always lives like a beggar and dies like a beggar. And I want you to be emperors, because that is your potential.

You have not understood what I have been saying to you. You have not become non-serious about life. Life is very non-serious, a beautiful song without any meaning, a colorful sunset without any meaning. The sky full of stars has no purposes.

The trouble arises in you because you are serious. You want the grass to grow. In fact, you want it almost like instant coffee. Now, this is asking too much from the poor grass. The grass grows by itself, in its own way, slowly. There is no hurry, the whole eternity is there. The grass can go on growing for the whole eternity. What is the hurry? But you are in a hurry.

And what do you mean by "going for it"? Will you start pulling it up so that it grows faster? You will destroy the whole game. Millions of people in the world have destroyed the whole game of life.

Never do that! Pulling the grass upwards you will take its roots out of the earth. What will be left in your hand will not be something living, but something dead.

Learn to wait. Be patient!

And why should you think yourself responsible? To think yourself responsible for doing some things - for example, for grass growing faster, quicker, with jet-speed - how do you manage to be responsible for such idiotic things?

The word "responsibility" is beautiful, but it has been made ugly by the priests, by the politicians, by the parents, by everybody around you. Responsibility does not mean responsibility to someone; it is not a duty, that you have to do. Responsibility simply means the capacity to respond. When the sun is rising, what is the responsibility? To make it rise faster? No. Responsibility to the rising sun is that you be silent and respond to its beauty. It has nothing to do with the sun, it has something to do with you.

Response means mirroring exactly what is happening. If the grass is growing slowly, you mirror it.

And remember, mirrors don't run after anybody. Don't go for it. You will destroy the grass, you may even destroy the mirror. And that will be bankruptcy. You are finished; you lost everything for which life was an opportunity.

You listen to me saying, "Sitting silently, and the grass grows by itself." It feels good, that if you can sit silently, and the grass can grow by itself, what more can you desire? But then suddenly you are overtaken by fear: "If the grass does not grow by itself, then? Who knows whether the grass grows by itself or not?"

In your life you have been doing everything. You have been taught from your childhood, "Do it! Go for it! Put your whole energy into it!" And I am asking something just the opposite. Please don't do it!

Doing is going to be your undoing! Just rest, relax. Don't even bother whether the grass is growing or not. Forget all about grass! Your responsibility is to relax, so you can be a pure mirror. And you know perfectly well everything goes on moving, there is no need to push.

How did you become a young man from your childhood? Were your parents pulling you, one by the legs, another by the hands, to make you a young man? You would have been in the grave by now.

But they allowed the grass to grow itself, although they poisoned the mind of the grass, telling you that in life you have to struggle for everything. Just to survive you have to fight, compete. It is from that conditioning that the other idea arises in you.

Yes, the grass grows by itself, but not the gold. So please, understand the meaning of grass. Perhaps you want to sit silently, doing nothing, while the gold grows into mountains by itself, and the dollars go on falling from all sides over you. Who then bothers about grass?

The man who wrote these lines, a mystic of Japan, Basho, was not interested in dollars, was not interested in gold, was not interested in the presidentship of the country. These things don't grow by themselves, remember. These things, you have to go for - and to go with as much speed as possible, because many others are also going. Be cunning, be deceptive, lie as much as you can, promise things which cannot be fulfilled. Do everything that is wrong, only then do you become Ronald Reagan. The White House does not come closer by itself, you have to go for it!

That's why the word "running" is used when somebody is standing for the presidency. He is running for president. Walking won't do.

There was one question: "Osho, would You like to run for the president of the whole world?" I said, "Run? Never! I don't even walk. I will be still sitting in my chair." And I enjoy grass; who bothers about being a president? And basically I love to be lazy, to sit silently, doing nothing.

Running is not for me. Even if somebody asks, "Osho, run for God," I am not going to do that.

Running is just not for me. Sitting in my chair, certainly I am sitting more comfortably than Basho who wrote those lines. He was sitting in a yoga posture on a rock. It is not for me - even that kind of sitting is not for me!

I love my laziness, because the lazy people are the only people who have never done any harm in the world. Can you give me the name of even a single lazy man who created a war, murdered somebody, committed suicide, raped some woman? A lazy man? Impossible! Even if he finds Cleopatra, he will be still sitting silently and letting the grass grow by itself. He is not going for it!

It would have been a great blessing to the world if Adolf Hitler were lazy, if Joseph Stalin were lazy, if Benito Mussolini were lazy and went on eating spaghetti as much as he wanted. The world would have been a far better world. These people were very active - too active, madly active, running all over the place not knowing where they were going. The only thing they knew was that you have to run faster than the other. All these active runners, joggers - they have created this mess all over the earth.

So I don't think the word "lazy" is in any way condemnatory.

Buddha was lazy - did nothing except sit silently under the bo tree, but found the greatest treasure, one that no president can find. Just relaxing all that was inside him, he became aware of it. And just sitting silently, that which was his potential started growing. That is the grass. And it is so satisfying, so utterly blissful that you cannot imagine anything better or beyond it.

So please decide. Both cannot be combined. You are trying to have wheels on your chair, with a motor, so you can relax in the chair and still the chair will be running for the president of America.

Perhaps that may be possible as far as the president of America is concerned. But for the kingdom I am talking about, there is no way that you can do anything to gain it, except allow it. You just be on the receiving end, not a doer, but a patient waiter.

The greatest experiences of life come only to those who are ready to wait for infinity, for eternity.

Just this moment you are sitting silently. What is missing? You are full of silence, peace, a great opening inside which leads to the ultimate ecstasy.

It is in your hands, but please don't try to do anything about it. Non-doing is the most difficult thing in life, because you have been prepared always for doing. Your whole education, upbringing, is for doing.

My childhood - it was a constant problem, and I know the same must have been the case... it happens to every child - everybody was after me to do this, to do that. And in India there are joint families. In one family you may have many members, and everybody is after you, "Do this, do that."

I simply declared to everyone, "If you say to me to do something, it is certain that I am not going to do it - whatever the consequences."

First, they tried to put me right, but soon they found it was impossible: "This boy is crazy." By and by they forgot all about me. It used to happen that I might be sitting in the room and my mother from inside the house would tell me, "If you see somebody - because I don't see anybody in the house...."

I am sitting there, and she does not see anybody in the house! With whom is she talking?

And she would say to me, "If you see somebody, just tell me that somebody is in the house, because I need some vegetables." And the market was not very far away, just two minutes walk - not even running was needed. If you started running, you might bypass it; it was a small village. You had to go slowly so that you would reach the market.

But I was accepted as absent. They all thought, "He is absent-minded." For me, it was perfectly good.

They stopped asking me to do anything. But it took years for them to understand that "something is impossible with this boy," because in the family there were many children, and they were all doing whatsoever was said to them.

Slowly slowly, that silence became so deep, even the Pacific is not so deep, became so vast that even the sky is not the limit. And I am enjoying, and the grass is growing all over.

You are my grass! I have dropped the idea of green grass - red grass, growing all over the world....

And I don't go anywhere; just sitting in my room, the grass, red grass, goes on growing all around the world, even in countries like the Soviet Union. Nobody can prevent it from growing.

You can be the proof of it. I have not gone for you; I had no idea where you are, who you are. I did not have your name or your address, but suddenly from somewhere you have gathered around a lazy man. Just seeing me, just seeing my people, you can understand Basho's lines.

Silence is a tremendous power. You cannot measure it in horsepower. Relaxation is a great opening towards reality.

So please, don't try to mix both. If you are hankering to go for it, then go for it. But remember, you will spoil the whole game. And those who go for it never reach it. That is the sure way of not reaching it.

Those who simply sit patiently, trusting existence.... If existence can give you eyes, ears, if existence can do such a miracle... because your eyes are nothing but specialized skin. And what is your ear?

- just a specialized bone. If such miracles go on happening on their own, don't be worried about grass. It will grow.

You just shower it with your silence, with your peace, with your love, with your patience, and wait.

The miracle certainly happens. I say it on my own authority.

Question 4:

I don't think anybody has known so many women as I can claim - closely, intimately. I can assure you, you will never find the woman for whom you are waiting. That kind of woman does not exist at all. A woman that will not run your life? What are you asking? That is one of the basic qualities of a woman, to run your life. If you fail, it is your fault. If you win, she is the one who made you run.

And you say Socrates and his wife, Xanthippe, have set the pattern for all the couples to come. That is not true. It is only half-true, because all the husbands are not Socrates. But with all due respect, every woman is a Xanthippe. Xanthippe is synonymous with woman. There is only one kind of woman, and that is Xanthippe. The faces may be different, the length of noses may be different, the color may be different, but something deep in the very womanhood is exactly similar to Xanthippe.

And thirdly, drop the idea that if you get Xanthippe, then you will become as intelligent as Socrates.

Don't be foolish! Otherwise, all husbands would have been Socrates by now. Socrates became not because of Xanthippe, but in spite of her!

Question 5:

We are living in the country of the dead. It is not coincidental that there is a town called Fossil. In fact, it should be the name of the whole state of Oregon.

Another town named Boring.... I know people from almost every country, every race, every religion, but nobody can defeat Oregonians as far as their great quality of boring you is concerned. They are bored, utterly bored. I see their faces sometimes on the television, and I cannot believe it. Is there some natural law that all the boring souls are born in Oregon?

And I wonder, where have we landed? Perhaps there is some existential purpose in it, because my people are the people who live, laugh, enjoy, rejoice, dance in ecstasy and in abandon. Perhaps existence has a purpose in landing us here in the country of the bored, fossilized, grim. Perhaps we have to bring some laughter to those who are grim, some excitement to those who are bored, some life to those who have been dead for centuries. And we are doing it.

Since we have come here, Oregon is no longer the same. The dead have come out of their graves, because your laughter is so loud. Natural curiosity - the dead want to know what is happening. For centuries no laughter was heard here, and now suddenly a strange species of human being has appeared, and they are laughing for no reason at all. They don't even think of the dead people who are lying in their graves. They laugh so loudly that even the dead have to take another look.

We have made Oregon world-famous. And we are changing the name of their towns, so don't be worried. Fossil cannot remain Fossil for long. We will give it some beautiful name: Resurrection!

Just a question of time.

What kind of people must be living in a town called Boring? Even if it is boring, why name it Boring?

But they must be utterly bored, and they want the world to know that "we are bored!"

We are going to take over all these places. Boring will become Laughter, Grim Drive will become Ecstasy Drive. We want to do everything for these dead people, but the dead are after all dead; they obstruct. They cannot do anything else, but they can obstruct. What can a dead body do? It can obstruct the way. And it is not one dead body, the whole land is full of dead people who are still breathing, walking - grim, bored, fossilized. But we are also determined! We have taken the challenge: to change Oregon into Orgasm!

Question 6:

Gurdjieff was really a remarkable mystic, one of the most remarkable who has ever walked on the earth. But to understand him is more difficult than to understand anybody else.

With Gurdjieff it was true - he was very secretive. If anybody wanted to get anything from him, it was not an easy job. Even if you read his book, you cannot read more than ten pages. It is a one-thousand-page book. ALL AND EVERYTHING is the name of the book, but you cannot go on more than ten pages, for the simple reason that he writes in such a way that to find out what he is saying is difficult. One sentence goes on running over the whole page. By the time you end the sentence you have forgotten the beginning. And what happened in the middle, nobody knows.

He was inventing words of his own, so you cannot consult any dictionary. Those words belonged to no language, he simply invented them. And they are long words - sometimes half the sentence is only one word. Even to read it is difficult, to pronounce it is difficult.

In that book of one thousand pages, perhaps there are ten sentences at the most which are really profound. Gurdjieff could have printed them on a postcard, but that man was a category in himself.

He wants you to find those ten sentences in that one-thousand-page book, which he has made as difficult as possible.

No book has been written the way Gurdjieff's book was written. People go to silent places, holiday homes, beaches, mountains, to write books. Gurdjieff used to go to restaurants, pubs. And sitting in the middle of the restaurant where everything was going on - hundreds of people coming in and going out, all kinds of talk - he was writing his book, his masterpiece.

Every day, in the evening, his disciples would gather in his house, and one disciple would read what he had written that day. Gurdjieff would watch the faces of the other disciples, to see whether they were understanding it or not. If they understood it, he would have to change it the next day. If nobody understood it, it remained. It took ten years for him to write that book, and he has hidden the secrets in those one thousand pages. He is right: you have to steal. It is almost like stealing.

You enter a house you have never been in. In the darkness of the night - when even the people who live in the house cannot move, in case they stumble upon some table or some chair - the man who has come to steal has a tremendous artfulness. In the darkness, in a strange house, he manages not to stumble, not to make any noise. And miraculously, he finds the place where the treasure is.

He has no map, he has no way to find out where the treasure is. But the master thieves have an insight.

Gurdjieff's sly man is the man who has a knack for finding the right door when there are thousands of similar doors all around.

It is true that Gurdjieff was a difficult man, almost impossible to cope with. One of his disciples, Nicoll, was traveling with Gurdjieff in America. In the middle of the night, they went aboard a train, and Gurdjieff, although not drunk, started behaving like a drunkard, utterly drunk.

The disciple said, "What are you doing, Master?"

Gurdjieff hit Nicoll, and he said, "Who are you? I have never seen you before." He woke up the whole train, because he was stumbling from one compartment to another compartment, shouting obscenities, waking people who were asleep, throwing their bags out of the train.

Finally the train was stopped; the driver and the conductor came in. But Gurdjieff was a very strong man, solid rock, and nobody dared to catch hold of him; he might throw the man out of the window!

And Nicoll, poor man, was trying to tell the people that he is a great master! The people started looking at Nicoll and they thought, "You are mad. He is a drunkard and you are mad. He is a great master? - in the middle of the night waking strangers, throwing their things around, shouting obscenities, speaking strange languages!"

Somehow Nicoll persuaded the conductor and the driver, "He is a famous master, but what to do?

This is his way."

They agreed to let him stay on board only if Gurdjieff and Nicoll went into the compartment and they locked it from the outside. Then whatsoever they wanted to do inside they could do - the great master and the great follower - "But don't disturb the whole train."

As the door was locked, Gurdjieff relaxed, laughed, and he asked Nicoll, "How was the scene?"

Nicoll was perspiring in the air-conditioned compartment. He said, "The scene? You almost killed me. They thought I was mad, and I knew perfectly well you were not drunk, because up to then you were absolutely alright. And suddenly...?"

Gurdjieff said, "It was a test for you, whether you can stay with me if I behave in such a manner. Can you still see the master in me?"

Nicoll said, "I am ready to go to hell with you. Whatever you do, there is a deep trust in me that it must be for something good. I knew it all the way, but what to do with the passengers, the conductor, with the driver? The whole crowd was against me, and I am not so strong a man as you are."

Gurdjieff was Caucasian, and the Caucasus is famous for producing really strong men. Another Caucasian was Joseph Stalin. The word 'stalin' in Russian means man of steel. But Gurdjieff was far ahead of Joseph Stalin.

This was a test for the follower. Just think of yourself - you would have escaped. Seeing the situation, that he is going to be caught and thrown into a jail.... That's what the driver and the conductor and the engineer were all saying: "If you don't stop, we are going to throw your master into jail. At the next station the police will be there, we have already informed them."

But to trust a man like me is very simple. I will not put you in any such situation. You need not steal anything from me, because I am putting everything on the table before you. So Gurdjieff's statement is relevant only to him and to his disciples. It is absolutely irrelevant to me and you.

I am not your master, I am not hiding anything from you. You need not steal. I am trying to give you the gift and you go on running! I am trying to present you the truth, as a gift. But truth - even to accept it as a gift - is a difficult phenomenon, because if you accept the truth, then all the lies that you have been living up to now have to be dropped.

Gurdjieff was his type. I am my type. And I know there is no need for me to hide anything, because you are hiding from me, and I am trying to push truth, love, compassion, meditation - everything - into your pockets. And you go on running away from me because you know that I am a lazy man and I will not run after you.

You have simply to receive with grace. There is no need to steal here. Why should you be reduced to thieves? Why should you be made the sly man? I want you to be the innocent child, who is ready and open and vulnerable.

And I am so full of my ecstasy that I want to rain on anybody without asking his qualifications, his characteristics. But you are so afraid seeing the rain cloud coming up, you rush into your homes just to save your clothes, afraid that they will get wet. Yes, it is true you are dry, and if you allow me to shower on you, you are going to become juicy.

People have asked, "We see the women here in the commune are becoming juicier and juicier, and the men are becoming more and more tight, straight, afraid." The reason is simple: the woman is always ready to open her heart. The man thinks a thousand times before opening his heart. He takes all precautions, because "Who knows what a man is going to do when you open your heart?"

But the woman is more trusting, more loving, more feeling. That's why they are becoming juicier and juicier. Soon they will all be rain clouds ready to shower.

Now, it is up to you, a great challenge to man. Are you going to save your clothes? Then you will remain dry bones, straight, tight, but with no juice.

I am available.

You just drink out of me.

The well cannot run after you, you have to come to the well. But there is no need to steal, because the well is available, waiting for you.

This is one of the fundamental laws of spiritual life, that the more you give, the more you have. And I can say from my own experience that the law is one hundred percent true. The more I have given, suddenly I have found, from unknown sources of existence, more juices have flowed towards me.

Question 7:

(OSHO SIMPLY LAUGHS AND ASKS FOR THE NEXT QUESTION.)

Question 8:

Sex has nothing to do with jealousy, anger, possessiveness. But man's mind has been conditioned in such a way by the vested interests that they have exploited the very source of your life energy - sex - to fulfill their own interests.

For example, man is naturally polygamous - and by man I don't mean only men but women too.

Human beings are polygamous, but all the societies have forced monogamy. Now that creates the trouble. The trouble is not coming out of sex, the trouble is coming out of monogamy.

You find yourself tied together with a woman or with a man, and it is a natural longing once in a while to have some different food. The same man-the same stink; the same woman - the same geography which you have explored thousands of times. Again you have to explore it and there is nothing left to explore - all is explored. You get fed up. That is intelligent; only intelligence gets fed up. You would love to have once in a while another woman, another man.

If society were run by intelligent people, not by people who want to exploit you, but by people who want to fulfill your nature to its uttermost capacity, there would be no jealousy. The wife would understand that once in a while the husband needs some other woman, "just the way I need some other man." And it is perfectly natural. We are all human beings.

What is wrong if you play tennis with one partner today, another partner another day? Is there any jealousy? There is no question of jealousy. And it is nothing more than tennis - two energies meeting and merging. And after the pill, the basic argument of all the religions is completely outdated.

All the religions were insisting that monogamy has to remain because of children; otherwise, who will be responsible for children? The pill has made it possible that now sex need not be a bondage, because children are not a problem any more. Sex is free from the bondage of biology. Hence I say again and again that after the discovery of fire, the pill is the greatest revolution, the greatest discovery.

When there is no jealousy there is no anger, and all the qualities that I speak of will come automatically. A woman who gives you freedom, a man who never tries to possess you - you are allowed to move in the world according to your own wishes - do you think friendship will not arise between these two persons? A man giving freedom to the wife, a wife giving freedom to the husband - there is bound to be great friendship, great intimacy.

The wife can tell her husband how the other man was. The man can describe to his wife how the other woman proved to be. He need not hide it. The friendship makes it possible to come closer, to be more intimate. But the societies of the past never wanted this to happen. They wanted people to remain bored: tie one woman to one man forever, and you have started a pilgrimage to the ultimate boredom. These bored people, suffering, cannot revolt. They cannot achieve their climax of intelligence; the boredom goes on destroying every possibility.

Why was Xanthippe angry with Socrates? Why did she use to beat him? Why did she once pour hot boiling water, which was being prepared for the morning tea, over Socrates' head? Half his face got burned and remained black for his whole life. What was the trouble?

The trouble was that he was more interested in his disciples. He was talking to his disciples when this great incident of pouring hot water on his face happened. And his wife was telling him again and again, "Come in, breakfast is ready." But to a man like Socrates, when there is great intellectual conversation going on, breakfast means nothing.

Finally she got mad, threw the water over him. But Socrates was one of the greatest men in history.

He wiped his face and continued his conversation where it had stopped. One of the disciples said, "We cannot understand - how can you tolerate this kind of a woman?"

Socrates said, "I don't tolerate her. She has helped me to learn many things - for example, patience.

I am grateful to her. Right now, she has again given me another lesson, that even if hot water is poured over you, you can remain cool. Without her, it would have been difficult for me to discover these spaces." Socrates was never angry towards his wife, he was always compassionate.

When two persons give freedom to each other, they both grow rich in experiences. Perhaps there was a treasure in your wife that you were not aware of. Making love to another woman, you discover it; the other woman becomes a tremendous help. Now your wife is not just the old geography:

something new, some new opening, some new corner, some new space.... You start searching for that new space that you have found in the other woman - because each woman is unique, just as every man is unique.

A man should be allowed to come in contact with as many as women as possible. A woman should be allowed to come in contact with as many men as possible. Both will be richer, and rich in experience, intimacy, friendship; they will know the heights of love which otherwise are missing.

But the vested interests don't want you to be intelligent, to be rich in experience, to reach to the climax of your potential, because that is dangerous to them. You can remain slaves only if you are poor in experience, if you are poor in intelligence. You can remain slaves only if you are a hen- pecked husband. You know perfectly well that you cannot even control your wife. You will never try to make any effort to rise higher in any field, you know your wife can pull you down immediately.

And the wife has been imprisoned in the house. On whom is she going to take revenge? Who is responsible for all this? She finds nobody other than the husband.

This ugly situation is our own creation.

My effort is to help you understand that love is not a commodity. You think that that if your wife goes with another man for a few days, she will be spent; when she comes back she will be hollow and there will be no love. Love is not a commodity. In fact, tasting, experiencing a different man, from different angles, she may become aware of different angles in herself. She may come back more loving because she is more experienced, and she may give you a surprise - you had never known her this way.

I am for richness in every dimension of life. I am against poverty in every dimension of life.

And you have been kept poor psychologically, spiritually, physically, so that a few people can become presidents, prime ministers, kings and queens, a few people can become popes, Ayatollah Khomeini.... Just for a few people the whole humanity is sacrificed!

I want you to rebel against any effort that takes away your freedom.

Freedom to me is the ultimate experience, the most beautiful, the most divine.

Never, for any reason, let your freedom be disturbed. Whatsoever the cost, keep your freedom intact. That will make you real man, real woman. Right now, you are just puppets: nothing real in you, everything unreal. And because everything is unreal, you feel miserable.

Reality releases you from misery, and brings you into a new world of blessedness. That is the kingdom I am trying to move you towards.