Only reflecting, but not identifying

Question 1:

Latifa, mind is almost like the ocean, waves upon waves. Some waves are higher, and between two waves there is a depression. There are two ways to get out of this continuous up and down process.

The easiest is that when you are ecstatic that is the moment to be aware. In depression, in agony, awareness becomes more difficult. When you are flowing with joy, blissfulness, that is the moment to be aware, but people do exactly the opposite. When they are happy who cares about awareness?

And when they are in anguish, then certainly they start thinking it is time to be aware and get out of anguish. But nobody has ever been able to get out from anguish directly.

First, one has to get out from ecstasy. If you can be aware of your joyful moments in the first place, the depression, the downs will not come. The door to get out is from ecstasy. So this is the simplest way:

Be happy and be aware.

Rejoice and be aware.

Love and be aware.

Don't put awareness aside saying, "This is a kind of disturbance; I am in such a great ecstasy."

Awareness becomes like a disturbance; it is not. It may appear like this in the beginning, but soon you will see it will take your ecstasy to higher peaks. Ultimately awareness and ecstasy become one. Then those downs, depressive moments, agonies disappear.

The second way which is unnecessarily followed by a few people is difficult, but your being German, perhaps the second may be right for you. Try to become aware when you are suffering - and it is not only you, many people around the world throughout history have tried that. If there was no suffering, they created suffering just to be aware of it. They would fast, and that created a suffering; they would live naked in the cold winters without clothes, and that created suffering. Man is very inventive - he will torture himself in many ways.

Once in a while, a person has become aware from that experience also; it is unnecessarily inhuman, but almost all the religions have been preaching that. Whatever is difficult is appealing to the human mind, and whatever is obvious and simple, you tend to forget it.

But here, you are not in Germany. And even in Germany, you are not going to be German. Once you are with me, you have to drop all these diseases of being German, of being Indian, of being Chinese... Just be human and it is enough.

I teach you the easy. I am not in favor of any kind of unnecessary torture. If it is inevitable that is another thing, but we have even been trying to make inevitable suffering into a transformation.

To me the easiest door is whatever you find joyful. Dance, sing... and while dancing and singing, be aware.

Don't be lost and don't be identified.

The old habit of the mind is to be identified with anything. Whatever is happening the mind gets immediately identified. The mind does not function like a mirror, it functions like a film. Whatever comes in front of it becomes imprinted on it. The mirror remains empty. People come and go, ups and downs... the mirror does not lose itself in any identity.

Here, I teach you celebration, rejoicing, because I know that is the door closest to your ultimate awakening. A man full of joy is close to existence. Greater is his joy, less is the distance between him and the heart of the universe.

In your agony you are alone; far away is the heart of the universe. Your agony has created the distance. So when you are in agony - it is human and once in a while it happens - remain alert.

And if you have been able to remain alert when the dance was descending on you and flowers were showering on you, it won't be difficult at all to be aware when something has gone wrong. You can be a watcher - standing aside, unidentified.

This is the way of the mirror. And this is the way of those who have known human nature more deeply than your so-called religions and psychoanalysts, your so-called wise people. But it is up to you. If you enjoy self-torture, then choose moments of misery for the practice of awareness. But if you are understanding and intelligent, you will choose the easiest and the closest way.

Anyway, whatever you choose the result is the same: awareness will make you free from identification. You can try both; a few people get lost when they are happy. Perhaps for them it is difficult to be aware when they are happy. The mind says, "What is the need of awareness? In such a blissful, happy moment don't bring religion in. You are young, and you are healthy, and you are in love, what is the need for the church at this moment?" Yes, when you have become old, one foot in the grave then you remember God - but it is too late; then you pray to God - but it is too late.

Just the other day, Anando showed me a picture of a very famous Christian missionary, an old man of thirty years' standing. He had been giving television sermons, and millions of people were listening to him every Sunday. Now he has been caught coming out from a prostitute's house. He did the right thing: he appeared on the television, tears in his eyes.... I looked at the picture, and I could not believe that at this age he is weeping. Millions of viewers felt sympathy for the old man, and he is saying, "I will ask God to forgive me, and you to forgive me. I have been going to prostitutes all these years. Now for three months I will not speak as a penance." But most probably during these three months he will visit prostitutes. What else will he do? God is always available. Today, or three months afterwards, you can ask forgiveness.

But with me there is no God. Nobody can forgive you and there is no point of any prayer. You have to change. You have to understand the mechanism of transformation and it is very simple.

In an early morning walk when the birds are joyous and the trees are glowing in the sun and you are feeling a peace, become alert. Whatever is happening should not happen in an unconscious state; just be conscious. That does not mean that you have to be verbally repeating inside yourself, "Look, birds are singing. Look how the trees are happy. Look, what peace prevailing..." Then you have destroyed everything.

You are not to verbalize.

You have to experience.

And whenever you find the moment which is worth rejoicing, in that moment, be alert. Slowly, slowly your alertness will become part of you. And the work of alertness is to destroy identifications.

Once in a while you will be down - dark clouds, life seems to be meaningless... for any reason.

Your alertness gained, strengthened, crystallized in moments of joy, will come to your help. You will remain far away and you will know deep down: "All this is happening but not to me, only around - and it goes on changing. My awareness remains just like a mirror, only reflecting but not identifying."

But old habits, Latifa, die with difficulty, with great effort; we have been taught them from the very beginning. If there have been other lives before, we are carrying conditions, calculated by scientists to be at least ten million years old. And the most dangerous conditioning as far as awakening is concerned, enlightenment is concerned, is identification.

Within a split second, you get identified, you forget that this too will pass. Just wait a minute... the old boyfriend has left? Feel blissful, "What a great opportunity." That's what I have been teaching:

let the old go because the new is coming. It will take a little time. In that space, it is up to you to be miserable or to be awaiting with alertness.

But every day, it goes on. In the morning, your mood is bad and you know that this mood has been bad many times before; it does not remain, so why bother? Let it be bad. Why be concerned? Why give any attention to it because every attention is nourishment?

Just watch, let that old mood get shocked....

"What is the matter? Latifa has been always welcoming... something has changed. She is sitting silently, not even bothering that there is an old bad mood."

But you don't remember your own life and its pattern. These ups and downs are not happening to you, they are only happening in the mind - and you are not the mind. You can stand aside and watch the whole game. Choose any way but drop the old habit of again and again falling into the same trap.

One time you can be forgiven because you were moving in an unknown territory, but the second time if you fall into the same trap, and the third time, and the thousandth time...! Then it seems that you have decided to fall into the trap whatever happens. It is not the trap, it is your decision - or perhaps you are not at all conscious and just stumbling in your darkness like a somnambulist. Even they do better.

But this old habit has to be changed. And there is not a question of any effort to change it. Don't decide, "I will change." A simple understanding, a simple clarity of the whole situation and the old changes. But even grown-up people behave like small children without maturity, without really proving that they are grown up. All that seems to be is that they are growing old, not growing up.

Little Ernie's parents are horrified. Their four-year-old son is just learning to talk fluently, which is charming, but he uses the word 'fucking' in almost every sentence - which is very impolite. They try every strategy to get him to stop, but nothing seems to work so they try bribery.

They tell Ernie that he can go to Janet's birthday party if he stops swearing. His father has asked Janet's mom to send Ernie home at once if she hears the filthy, disgusting word.

On Saturday at two-thirty Ernie sets off, but at three o'clock he is back again in tears.

"I told you not to use that disgusting word," his father cried.

"I did not use the fucking word," shouts Ernie. "The fucking party is not till next fucking Saturday."

If we look at our own behavior, you will not find much difference. The same thing goes on and on.

Let understanding prevail - a simple understanding. Just be aware of this silence. Don't use words inside; don't judge.

Let whatever is happening simply be reflected. And this has to be the method used to get unidentified with our ups and downs, and bring a balance to our life.

Question 2:

Navin, life is very interdependent. It is very difficult to decide who is responsible for what. In truth, we are all responsible for whatever happens; we contribute in some way to it. If somebody becomes aggressive towards you, rather than thinking in the ordinary way that he is aggressive, start thinking from the standpoint, "What is in me that is making him aggressive? - he is not aggressive to everybody." He is not aggressive to the trees; he is aggressive towards you. There must be something you are doing, some way you are behaving that creates aggression in him.

You may not be doing it to him. That's what I mean, it is so interwoven. Perhaps you remind him of his father who used to beat him, and he was so small that he could not do anything. And when he sees you, he is not aggressive at you, you are simply symbolic. He is aggressive at his father who is no longer in the world.

So rather than reacting to his aggression, which will make things worse, try to understand. Ask him, "Why are you aggressive to me? Is something wrong in me that hurts you? Have I done something to you? - because I am not aware of doing anything to you. There must be some other reason for your aggression."

That should be the way of the man of wisdom. And if you ask that person, perhaps tears may come to his eyes and he will start asking your forgiveness, "You have not done anything, you just remind me of my father. When I was small, I was beaten so much that I used to think that when I became big and strong, I would show this man.... By the time I was big and strong he was dead. So something has remained incomplete in me. The moment I see you, that sleeping aggression comes to me.

Forgive me, you have not hurt me. It is not your problem, it is my problem."

If people start behaving in this way, we will soon create a totally different kind of life. You fall in love with a woman - have you ever asked why you have fallen in love with a certain woman when there are so many women around? You never ask. Perhaps she reminds you of your mother? Perhaps the way she walks reminds you of your mother, and you loved your mother so much that the same love is revived again.

Before becoming a fool and falling in love, make a little analysis of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Perhaps that will save great misery in the world. Unconsciously, without understanding your inner sleeping desires, your tendencies, you fall in love with a woman, but you don't know - you will not be able to love her, because she is not your mother. And as you come closer, you will see, "My God, she is not my mother." And naturally, that woman has not married a son; she has married a husband. She cannot behave the way your mother may have behaved.

She may be expecting you to behave like her father whom she loved. And some trait in you - and those traits may be very small, very simple: perhaps your mustache is exactly the same - and that's enough, it triggers the memory of the father who is no more. She has fallen in love with you, but not with you. If before acting people try to understand that whatever they are doing must have a reason within themselves, and that the other is not obliged to fulfill it... The woman may have the same hairdo; that does not mean she is the same kind of person. And if you love the hairdo you can purchase one from a shop which deals in wigs, made just exactly according to your mother - worship it, love it. That will be more sane because that wig will not hurt you, will not demand things which your mother has never demanded. But a new woman, where the only similarity is the hairdo, is not going to fulfill your desires. You are searching for a mother.

Now, psychologists are very much concerned that most problems are because we are brought up by parents. So the girl starts loving the father and the boy starts loving the mother - which they will never find. For their whole lives they will miss the women they are seeking or the men they are searching for.

Your question, Navin, is significant. It reminds me of George Gurdjieff. He was only nine years old when his father died. And his father must have been a man of great wisdom. They were poor people. He called Gurdjieff close to him and told him, "I am sorry I am not leaving any heritage for you. I am leaving you alone in this vast world of competition, violence, greed. I want to tell you one thing; my whole life's experience is contained in it. Perhaps you may not understand now, but keep remembering it; one day you will understand."

And the advice was very simple. The advice was that if anybody is angry at you, don't react immediately, don't start fighting. Listen silently to what he is saying. Be very calm and cool. And when he is finished, tell him, "Please give me twenty-four hours to think over what you have said and then I will come with my reply."

A strange advice but of tremendous psychological implications. Gurdjieff said in his old age that this simple advice changed his whole life because, "Sometimes I would find that his anger had nothing to do with me. I didn't even have to reply to it; it was not addressed to me. Perhaps he was angry and it was just a coincidence that I happened to be close by - or I would find that what he was saying was right, I had done something wrong..." Then he would go and ask for forgiveness saying, "You were right."

Gurdjieff says that it shocked people. They said "What kind of boy is this? Even if you hit him, he says, 'After twenty-four hours, I will come to give you the answer. And if I don't come that means I don't have any answer for it. That means it is not a question addressed to me.'"

I have told you a strange anecdote....

In a world psychology conference a very famous psychoanalyst is delivering his thesis, his findings.

And just in the front row, an old psychoanalyst, famous in his own way, is sitting beside a beautiful young woman who is new but has produced papers of tremendous insight into human behavior. She has been conferred honorary D. Litt.'s from many universities - but she is so young and so beautiful.

She was attracting his attention, distracting him, but more than that...! That old fellow was playing with that young woman's breasts. That is too much, and just in front... How can you read your thesis?

The psychoanalyst becomes angry. He says things which are not relevant. Even the conference thinks, "What has gone wrong? He has always been a very consistent thinker, but he is looking very disturbed." And his disturbance is about this old man: "This idiot is playing with the breasts of the beautiful woman." And certainly a deep desire is there that he would have liked to be in his place.

All this combination of things - and his whole paper was disturbed. He even forgot what he had come to say. He could not complete the paper. In the middle of his thesis, he left the podium and went directly to the lady and said, "You don't object to this old idiot who is playing with your breasts?"

She said, "It is his problem. He is doing no harm to me. He is very soft, very nice. Why should I bother about his problem?"

It looks strange, but it is true; the problem is of the old man. And the young lady is certainly wiser than both the fellows. "Why should you be disturbed?" she asked. "You are not playing with my breasts; he is playing - it is his problem. I am not disturbed. There is no harm. In fact, he is being very respectful to a beautiful woman, but why are you disturbed? Certainly, deep down, you are thinking, 'If I had been by the side of the woman...'"

Where can you find such a woman with such understanding... that you play with her breasts - and she does not know you and she allows you because she understands...? That poor fellow must have suffered in his early life. Perhaps he was not breast fed.

All the painters and poets and novelists go on continuously painting breasts. Strange, because the breast is simply a mechanism for the child to be nourished; it is not for old men! Women all over the world who have become a little liberated are against breast feeding because it distorts their breasts.

It distorts the roundness of the breast because the child goes on pulling it downwards - and the child has to do it; he is milking the mother - and the breast becomes long.

Existentially, a long breast is very necessary for the survival of the child. If the breast is really round, the child cannot survive because he has such a small face. If he starts milking, his nose will close, he will not be able to breathe; either he can milk or he can breathe. In either case he is going to die.

So naturally, he goes on pulling it longer - and no woman wants long breasts; certainly, they don't look aesthetically beautiful. So there are many devices to keep at least the appearance of a round breast: bras... And even if a few women have to lose their breast in cancer surgery, they will replace it with a rubber breast which is far more perfect, looks really beautiful - but it has to be under the clothes.

A man entered into a circus manager's office and said, "I have something to offer."

The manager said, "I am tortured by so many people. What have you to offer?"

He said, "I have a very beautiful woman."

The manager said, "Can she dance?"

He said, "Dance? You just see her act and you will forget all about dancing."

The manager said, "Okay. Tonight, bring your woman."

The woman had such long breasts, so heavy that she crawled on the stage and then tried to stand up.

The manager said, "But where is the dance?"

He said, "This is far more difficult than any dance. And you can see that everybody is laughing.

Nobody has laughed at any dance."

And then the woman went down again. She could not carry that much weight even just to stand.

There are women who are trying to make their breasts bigger with injections or smaller with injections. But this concern with breasts is as ancient as you can conceive: old statues, but the same concern... So you may be interested in a woman whose breasts look rounded, but they may just look rounded and behind the clothes is rubber, not real breasts. So it is perfectly good on the sea beach to talk romance and poetry and have film dialogues. But just on the first night of the honeymoon, everything is going to be a disaster. When you get hold of the breasts, they will both come off in your hands. And the woman can go to sleep telling you, "You can play with them."

Problems are there, but problems come from within you and then they are projected on other people.

The same is happening to other people. They have problems, they have repressed desires, they have incomplete experiences. And if by chance it happens that you fit with something in their psychological poverty, either they can fall in love with you or they can be angry or they can hate you.

There are people who say, "I hate certain persons - just to see them. They have not done anything; I have not even talked to them but just to see them is enough for me to hate." It cannot be enough to hate but perhaps your experience of the past, of a certain man has damaged the image inside you, and that image fits completely with this man. Naturally, hate arises, love arises, anger arises.

But the man of understanding always looks inwards to find what the cause is: Why am I doing it? And if it is not harmful to the other, and if the other is also willing, that means the other also is expecting some experience of the same kind. Then things go perfectly well; otherwise, every moment problems arise. And you can create actual situations in which you can see how problems arise.

For twenty-four hours, watch your judgments about people - are they good or are they bad? Your responses to people, just watch from where they are coming. Are they coming from them or are they coming from within you? This whole world with all its misery and suffering is within you. This whole world can be a world of bliss and benediction if your inner being changes.

This is my definition of a religious person: he has changed his inner being, cleaned his inner being so he becomes just a pure mirror, reflects but does not react. He feels compassionate, even for those who are full of anger, feels compassionate for those who are sad, miserable, destroying their life by drinking alcohol or using other drugs. All that he feels is compassion. And out of that compassion comes a response: if he can help, he helps.

You cannot create a reaction in the man of wisdom; he never reacts. This is the difference between these two words - they look similar - 'reaction' and 'response'. Reaction is blind and unconscious and it blames the other. Response is conscious and clear and sees things as they are. If he is to blame, he accepts the blame; there is no need to fight. And if he is blameless, then too there is no need to fight: it is your mind; I have nothing to do with it.

I must have received thousands of letters from around the world. A few people say they love me - and they have not even seen me; they have not even read me. From where is their love coming?

Perhaps their whole lives they wanted to be in revolt, and hearing about me they see their desire fulfilled - somebody is in revolt. But it has nothing to do with me. It is their own desire, their own projection.

There are thousands of others who go on condemning me for strange reasons. Just a few days ago, a man wrote an article in which he said, "If Shree Rajneesh had not been controversial, he would have been accepted as the greatest intellectual of the last part of this century."

I asked Anando to write a letter to him and to inquire, "Can you tell us of any great man, just a single name will do, who was great and not controversial?" He has not answered. Then we published the letter - but he is hiding; there is no answer. Every great man, Gautam Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu... were to their contemporaries the most controversial people. Only people who are making shoes, who are cleaning the streets are not controversial.

The moment you say something original, it hurts many people because their prejudice comes into a clash with the original idea. They can't see that they are angry not because of me, they are angry because they are prejudiced. If they were people of silence, they would have balanced thoughts about both: "Who knows, perhaps the original idea is right? It has to be given a chance."

And certainly it needs to be respected, because I am not imposing my ideas on you, I am simply expressing. But everywhere there seem to be thousands of locks on every mouth. It is all nonsense talk which says, "freedom of thought."

There is neither freedom of thought nor freedom of expression. And these people who have been condemned as controversial are the cause of the whole evolution. The noncontroversial, the mediocre, the retarded... they have not contributed anything. They have destroyed much but they have never contributed anything.

So whenever something happens, remember Navin, first look within yourself. Perhaps what is being said is right, and if it is not right then it is none of your concern, it is somebody else's problem who is projecting it on you.

Just to break your silence because sometimes it becomes too heavy...

Paddy and Sean go hunting together in the Oregon mountains. After a while, Sean stops to take a piss, and a rattlesnake bites him on the prick. He calls out to Paddy and tells him to go to the nearest village and ask what to do.

Paddy runs off and after half an hour runs breathlessly into the doctor's office and asks for advice.

The doctor says, "Take a sharp knife and make an opening in the wound and suck out the poison."

Paddy rushes back and as he approaches, Sean calls out, "Paddy, hey, Paddy, what did he say?"

"I am sorry," replies Paddy, "but he says you are going to die."

Little Ernie asks his dad, "Dad, is it true that God exists everywhere?"

"That's right, son," replies his father, still reading his newspaper.

"Is he in the garage?" asks Ernie.

"Yes, son," replies his father, "he is in the garage."

"Is he out in the garden?" asks Ernie.

"Yes, he is, son," replies his father.

"Is he under mummy's dress?" asks Ernie.

"Yes, he is everywhere," snaps his father getting a little irritated.

So little Ernie looks in the garage but he can't find God. He looks out in the garden but he can't find God there either.

So he goes into the kitchen and crawls under his mother's dress.

"Ernie," she cries, "what are you doing?"

"Quiet, mum," says Ernie triumphantly, "I have just caught God by his beard."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.