Man is Born as Freedom

The first question

Question 1:

Prem Tara,

THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ALWAYS believed that essence precedes existence, that man is born with what he is going to be already determined. Just like a seed he contains the whole program; now the question is only of unfoldment. There is no freedom.

That has been the attitude of all the philosophers of the past: that man has a certain fate, a destiny.

One is going to become a certain entity; that is fixed, the script is already written. You are not aware of it - that's another matter - but whatsoever you are doing, you are not doing it, it is being done through you by natural, unconscious forces, or by God.

This is the attitude of the determinist, the fatalist. The whole of humanity has suffered from it immensely, because this kind of approach means there is no possibility of any radical change.

Nothing can be done at all about man's transformation; everything is going to happen the way it is going to happen.

It is because of this attitude that the East has suffered most. When nothing can be done, then one starts accepting everything - slavery, poverty, ugliness; one has to accept. It is not understanding, it is not awareness; it is not what Gautam the Buddha calls suchness, TATHATA. It is just despair, hopelessness hiding itself in beautiful words. But the consequence is going to be disastrous.

You can see it in India in its most developed form: the poverty, the beggars, the illness, the crippled people, the blind people. And nobody takes any note of it because this is how life is, this is how life has always been this is how life is always going to be. A kind of lethargy seeps into the very soul.

But the whole approach is basically false. It is a consolation, not a discovery. It is somehow to hide one's wounds - it is a rationalization. And whenever rationalizations start hiding your reality you are bound to fall into darker and darker realms.

I would like to say to you that essence does not precede existence; on the contrary, existence precedes essence. Man is the only being on the earth who has freedom. A dog is born a dog, will live like a dog, will die like a dog; there is no freedom. A rose will remain a rose; there is no possibility of any transformation - it cannot become a lotus. There is no question of choice, there is no freedom at all. This is where man is totally different. This is the dignity of man, his specialness in existence, his uniqueness.

That's why I say Charles Darwin is not right, because he starts categorizing man with other animals; the basic difference he has not even taken note of. The basic difference is: all animals are born with a program, only man is born without a program. Man is born as a TABULA RASA, a clean slate; nothing is written on it. You have to write everything that you want to write on it; it is going to be your creation.

Man is not only free - I would like to say man is freedom. That is his essential core, that's his very soul. The moment you deny freedom to man you have denied him his most precious treasure, his very kingdom. Then he is a beggar and in a far more ugly situation than other animals, because at least they have a certain program. Then man is simply lost.

Once this is understood, that man is born AS freedom, then all the dimensions to grow open up.

Then it is up to you what to become, what not to become. It is going to be your own creation. Then life becomes an adventure - not an unfoldment but an adventure, an exploration, a discovery. The truth is not already given to you, you have to create it. In a way, each moment you are creating yourself.

If you accept the theory of fate, that is also an act of deciding about your life. By accepting fatalism you have chosen the life of a slave - it is your choice! You have chosen to enter into a prison, you have chosen to be chained, but it is still your choice. You can come out of the prison.

That's what sannyas is all about: accepting your freedom. Of course people are afraid to be free, because freedom is risky. One never knows what one is doing, where one is going, what the ultimate result of it all is going to be. If you are not ready-made then the whole responsibility is yours. You cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders. Ultimately you will be standing before existence totally responsible for yourself, whatsoever you are, whosoever you are. You cannot shirk it, you cannot escape from it. This is the fear. Out of this fear people have chosen all kinds of determinist attitudes.

And it is a strange thing: the religious and the irreligious are agreed only on one point, that there is no freedom. On every other point they disagree, but on one point their agreement is strange.

The communists say they are atheists, irreligious, but they say that man is determined by the social, economic, political situations. Man is not free; man's consciousness is determined by outside forces.

It is the same logic! You can call the outside force the economic structure; Hegel calls it History - with a capital H, remember - and the religious people call it God; again the word is with a capital G. God, history, economics, politics, society - all outside forces. But they are all agreed upon one thing: that you are not free.

This is where a really authentically religious person differs.

Prem Tara, I say to you, you are absolutely free, unconditionally free. Don't avoid the responsibility; avoiding is not going to help. The sooner you accept it, the better, because immediately you can start creating yourself. And the moment you create yourself great joy arises, and when you have completed yourself, the way YOU wanted it, there is immense contentment - just as when a painter finishes his painting, the last touch, and a great contentment arises in his heart. A job well done brings great peace. One feels that one has participated with God.

God is the creator and the only prayer is to be creative, because it is only through creativity that you participate in God; there is no other way to participate. God has not to be thought about, you have to participate in some way. You cannot be an observer, you can only be a participant; only then will you taste the mystery of it. Creating a painting is nothing, creating a poem is nothing, creating music is nothing compared to creating yourself, creating your consciousness, creating your very being.

But people have been afraid, and there are reasons to be afraid. The first is: it is risky, because only you are responsible. Secondly: the freedom can be misused, because you can choose the wrong thing to be. Freedom means you can choose the right or the wrong; if you are only free to choose the right, it is not freedom.

Then it will be like when Ford made his first cars - they were all black. And he would take his customers into the showroom and tell them, "You can choose any color, provided it is black!"

But what kind of freedom is this? - PROVIDED it is right, PROVIDED it follows the ten commandments, PROVIDED it is according to the Gita or the Koran, PROVIDED it is according to Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathustra. Then it is not freedom at all Freedom basically means, intrinsically means that you are capable of both: either choosing the right or the wrong.

And the danger is - and hence the fear - that the wrong is always easier to do. The wrong is a downhill task and the right is an uphill task. Going uphill is difficult, arduous; and the higher you go, the more arduous it becomes. But going downhill is very easy; you need not do anything, gravitation does everything for you. You can just roll like a rock from the hilltop and the rock will reach to the very bottom; nothing has to be done. But if you want to rise in consciousness, if you want to rise in the world of beauty, truth, bliss, then you are longing for the highest peaks possible and that certainly is difficult.

Secondly, the higher you reach, the more there is a danger of falling, because the path becomes narrow and you are surrounded on all sides by dark valleys. A single wrong step and you will simply be gone into the abyss, you will disappear. It is more comfortable, convenient to walk on the plain ground, not to bother about the heights.

Freedom gives you the opportunity either to fall below the animals or to rise above the angels.

Freedom is a ladder: one side of the ladder reaches hell, the other side touches heaven. It is the SAME ladder; the choice is yours, the direction has to be chosen by you.

To me, if you are not free you cannot misuse your unfreedom; unfreedom cannot be misused. The prisoner cannot misuse his situation - he is chained, he is not free to do anything. And that is the situation of all other animals except man: they are NOT free. They are born to be certain kinds of animal - and they will fulfill it. In fact, nature fulfills it; they are NOT required to do anything. There is no challenge in their life. It is only man who has to face the challenge, the great challenge. And very few people have chosen to risk, to go to the heights, to discover their ultimate peaks. Only a few - the Buddha, the Christ - only very few; they can be counted on the fingers.

Why hasn't the whole of humanity chosen to reach the same state of bliss as Buddha, the same state of love as Christ, the same state of celebration as Krishna? Why? - for the simple reason that it is dangerous even to aspire to those heights; it is better not to think about it. And the best way not to think about it is to accept that there is no freedom - you are already determined beforehand; there is a certain script handed over to you before your birth and you have just to fulfill it.

Prem Tara, you ask:

HOW CAN FREEDOM BE MISUSED?

Only freedom can be misused, slavery cannot be misused. That's why you see so much chaos in the world today. It has never been there before for the simple reason that man was not so free. You see more chaos in America than in Russia for the simple reason that in Russia people are not free to choose. In America they are enjoying the greatest freedom that has ever been enjoyed anywhere in the world at any time in history. Whenever there is freedom chaos erupts, but that chaos is worth it because only out of that chaos are stars born.

My sannyasins will be hated all over the world, will be condemned all over the world, for the simple reason that they have chosen to live a life of freedom. And I am not giving you any discipline, because every discipline is a subtle kind of slavery. I am not giving you any commandments, because any commandments given by anybody else coming from the outside are going to imprison you, to enslave you.

I am only teaching you how to be free and then leaving you to yourself to do what you want to do with your freedom. If you want to fall below the animals that is your decision and you are perfectly allowed to do it, because it is your life. If you decide it that way then it is your prerogative. But if you understand freedom and its value you will not start falling; you will not go below the animals, you will start rising above the angels.

Man is not an entity, he is a bridge - a bridge between two eternities: the animal and the God, the unconscious and the conscious. Grow in consciousness, grow in freedom, take each step out of your own choice: create yourself. A sannyasin is one who creates himself and takes the whole responsibility for it.

The second question:

Question 2:

G.D. Murthi,

YOU HAVE ASKED many questions in one. The first thing to be understood is: your questions are not authentic, they are not yours; they come from your Indian conditioning.

You ask:

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?

First one should ask, "Who am I?" First one should ask,'What is this consciousness in me?" But we make a philosophical question out of an existential one. And the existential is forgotten, and the philosophical becomes very significant: "What is spirituality?"

Spirituality is not something that can be defined, is not something that can be answered. It is something that you have to explore. And the right beginning will be, don't ask such stupid questions; start with something sensible. Ask,'Who am I?"

And I cannot answer that question; you have to ask within yourself,'Who am I?" Go on using that question as a digging instrument within your being. Just as a person digs a well one has to dig a well in oneself, because there are layers and layers of conditioning, layers and layers of knowledge.

Unless you have thrown all those layers out you will not know your own being, your own center.

And the Indian mind is the most rotten in the world because it is the most ancient in the world. For at least ten thousand years it has existed - it has forgotten how to die. It does not know how to live, it has forgotten to die. It is in a kind of limbo, it is in a kind of coma-breathing, not dead, not alive either. And it asks great questions, but those questions arise out of borrowed knowledge.

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY? WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

All bullshit! There is no spirituality, there is no enlightenment. To know this is to be enlightened! To be just ordinary, to live - to enjoy, to love, to dance, to sing, to create - the very ordinary existence with an extraordinary intensity, with passion, that is enlightenment.

But you must be looking for some esoteric answer. I am against all esoteric things.

One of my sannyasins, Almasta, has asked: OSHO, WILL YOU PLEASE ANSWER A FEW VERY ESOTERIC QUESTIONS FOR ME? But her questions are beautiful, far more beautiful than asking, G.D. Murthi: WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY? AND WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT? And then your knowledge immediately comes in:

MIND IS A MONKEY.

As if you know what mind is! If you know what mind is you will not ask these questions, because the moment one knows one's mind one has discovered one's soul too - immediately, instantly; it happens together. If one knows what one's mind is one knows what enlightenment is, because enlightenment is a state of no-mind. If you know, "This is the mind," you are IMMEDIATELY no more it, you are out of it. You are just awareness and that awareness is enlightenment.

So, G.D. Murthi, your questions are really esoteric. Almasta's questions are far more beautiful - small questions but significant. She asks first:

How many politicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Now this is spirituality! Almasta, only one - they don't like to share the spotlight.

Her second question is:

How many Indians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Almasta, seven hundred millions, not a single person less - the whole of India to pray to God for the old bulb to go back on.

Her third question is:

How many Catholics does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Almasta, two - one to screw in the lightbulb and one to repent.

Her fourth question is:

How many nuclear physicists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Almasta, at least fifty - one to screw in the lightbulb and forty-nine to figure out what to do with the old one.

Her fifth question is:

How many Italians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Almasta, only one - but don't expect results.

Her sixth question is:

How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Almasta, two - just two, and you can always expect results too.

Her seventh question is:

What is the difference between a pregnant woman and a lightbulb?

Almasta, you can unscrew the lightbulb.

Her eighth question is:

How many Rajneesh sannyasins does it take to screw a lightbulb in?

Almasta, five thousand plus one: one to screw the lightbulb in - whose name is Haridas - and the other five thousand to celebrate the great occasion.

And her ninth and the last question is:

How many Oshos does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Almasta, none... sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the lightbulb screws by itself.

G.D. Murthi, this is far more beautiful than your stupid question which appears to be spiritual. You are thinking you are asking something great:

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY?

Never heard of it!

AND WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

How am I supposed to know? You seem to know everything!

MIND IS A MONKEY.

THE MORE SOMEONE WANTS TO ERASE IMPRESSIONS CARRIED BY HIM, THE MORE HE GOES ON GATHERING NEW ONES.

Then stop erasing! Then why do you go on erasing? If you know this much, that THE MORE SOMEONE WANTS TO ERASE THE IMPRESSIONS CARRIED BY HIM, THE MORE HE GOES ON GATHERING NEW ONES, then don't erase the old ones. Just stop erasing and they will stop gathering, and you will be enlightened. It is so simple! Enlightenment is such a simple thing that I sometimes wonder how people manage NOT to be enlightened. It is really arduous to manage, because enlightenment is a natural phenomenon. You are BORN enlightened! You are BORN Buddhas!

But the moment you start asking, "What is enlightenment and how to become enlightened?" you will be in a mess. It is like a man asking, "What is it to be a man? HOW to become a man?" Now he will be in a mess! All that he needs is to stand before a mirror and see that he is a man already.

Meditation is only a mirror. You stand naked before yourself and suddenly you start laughing. You look so ridiculous standing naked before a mirror! That is the greatest joke of all. Once you see yourself naked, totally naked, you are enlightened. Just uncover yourself... and you are wearing many clothes, clothes upon clothes. If you drop one dress another dress is there; drop that, another dress is there.

You are like an onion, and meditation is nothing but the process of peeling the onion. Of course a few tears will come to your eyes! Go on peeling the onion, layer upon layer, and ultimately nothing is left in your hands. And Gautam Buddha has said that is the moment when you know who you are - when nothing is left in your hands, just nothing, when your hands are full of nothing, the whole onion has disappeared and with it all the tears have disappeared - just pure nothingness.

But it will be difficult for you. Your knowledge, your knowlegeability will create problems for you.

You are asking:

OSHO, COULD YOU PLEASE SHOW ME A WAY?

I can show you a way, but where do you want to go? I don't know where you want to go!

You are asking me...

PLEASE SHOW ME A WAY?

To where? Do you want to go to Timbuktu or to Tokyo? Where do you want to go? The way can be shown to you, but the real problem is that enlightenment happens when you stop going anywhere, neither to Timbuktu nor to Tokyo - when you stop going, when you are simply resting in your own being, not going anywhere, not even a ripple, no desire to reach, no desire to achieve.

You are full of desires: you want to achieve spirituality, you want to achieve enlightenment. Your name is G.D. Murthi; you simply want an O to be put between G and D. That's what your whole desire is: how to become God Murthi. Just O is missing; you can write it yourself! There is no problem in it. Who can prevent you? Make it G-O-D.

But that O also represents zero, and if you can manage to be a zero, just a nothingness, you have arrived, you have found. There is no way leading to it; all ways are misleading. A way as such is going to mislead, because a way means you are going farther away from yourself - a way always takes you away. There is no way to come to yourself - you are already there! There is no need to come. Simply stop these fantasies of going somewhere, of becoming spiritual, of becoming religious, of attaining enlightenment, NIRVANA, samadhi - simply stop all this nonsense. Just rest within your being, at home, at ease, relaxed... and THIS very moment, now and here, you are enlightened!

You become enlightened every morning here, and again you forget. And I am not joking - this is so! I make you enlightened every day, but you again get into the mess, you again start raising dust around yourself. You become afraid: "What is happening? Have I become enlightened?" And that is the beginning of raising the dust and the cloud and the smoke: "Have I become enlightened? Now what to do? Where to go? And if my wife comes to know then she will create trouble. It is better before I reach home to forget all about it!" By the time you reach home you are again unenlightened. You enter the same way again, your tail between your legs, afraid, because if you are really enlightened you will reach home and roar like a lion! Today try it, and the whole neighborhood will know that you have become enlightened! Your wife of course will shout, "Shut up! Don't become enlightened so quickly! Wait! Let your children grow, let them get married. And enlightenment is for old age when you become retired; this is not the time. Put a stop to it right now - enough is enough!"

Enlightenment is a simple phenomenon: just breathing, resting, doing nothing, and you are silent and there is no mind. Just right now... is there any mind?... All the minds have disappeared. Where are the monkeys?

But these so-called Indian mahatmas go on telling people, "Mind is a monkey." And you listen and you start repeating like gramophone records, "Mind is a monkey." And you go on worshiping the monkey god Hanuman to prove that of course the mahatmas are right. "If mind is not a monkey, why am I worshiping this monkey? I must be a monkey!" And then comes Charles Darwin who says that you are born of the monkeys, so not only is the mind a monkey, your body is a monkey too. And you don't know what spirituality is, so all that is left... body is a monkey, mind is a monkey, so two monkeys and that's enough to bring results!

Forget all about this spirituality and enlightenment. Relax in your ordinary life. Eat when you are hungry, drink when you are thirsty, go to sleep when you are feeling sleepy, and wake up in the early morning when you are feeling that you have rested enough. Just live the ordinary life joyously, live moment-to-moment. Don't hanker for something great, ultimate, far away. Don't bother about the other world, the beyond - this world is more than one needs. This world is so beautiful, who cares about the other world?

People ask me, "What happens after death?" And I ask them, "First try to find out what is happening BEFORE death!" And they look at me as if I am joking. I am never joking, I am simply telling you the truth! But because you are not finished yet with your desires and longings, you don't listen to the truth.

Two salesmen were standing together at a bar, a little distance away from a drunk who was having trouble propping himself up and balancing his drink. The men were chatting about their job when one of them noticed a very unpleasant smell.

"Hey, Joe," he interrupted, "do you smell shit!"

The other salesman sniffed and nodded, fingers closing his nostrils. "I think it is coming from that old drunk over there," he said.

The first salesman walked over to the drunk. "Excuse me," he said, "there is a foul smell around here. Did you shit in your pants?"

The drunk looked up at him over his glass, blearyeyed. "Yeth," he slobbered, "whath abouth ith?"

Shocked, the young salesman replied, "Well, why don't you go to the men's room and wash yourself?"

The drunk looked up again, thought for a moment, and then said decisively, "Because I haven't finished yet!"

That's the trouble - you are not finished yet! Otherwise go to the men's bathroom and wash yourself and be enlightened! Who is preventing you? Just a little washing is needed and the whole foul smell will disappear. You are born fragrant, you become foul. It is your great work - you can undo it!

The last question

Question 3:

Anand Jean,

THE FIRST THING IS: nobody ever becomes enlightened. People become unenlightened, that is true, but nobody ever becomes enlightened. Just when one gets tired of becoming unenlightened again and again, day in, day out, year in, year out, life in, life out, then one day one says, "It is enough. I should stop becoming unenlightened." And that is the moment one is enlightened.

Enlightenment is natural, unenlightenment is something that you are doing. So nobody really ever becomes enlightened. One only discovers that "I need not do a few things which I have always been doing and which have been preventing me from seeing who I am." And this can happen in any situation. It has happened in strange situations.

Mahavira became enlightened in a very strange posture. Jainas have given it a name... they must have been hiding the truth, because their name says that he was sitting in a GODOHASAN.

GODOHASAN means the posture in which you milk the cow. Now, what was he doing? He was not milking a cow, certainly. He had no cow, so what was he doing in that posture? Strange fellow this Mahavira! You can understand what he was doing - I will not tell you, because if I say it all the Jainas will say I am destroying their culture. But the question is worth asking: What was he doing?

One thing is certain, they cannot agree that he was milking a cow because he had dispossessed everything. Sitting naked in a GODOHASAN, what was he doing? And he became enlightened!

People have become enlightened in all kinds of situations, because it is only a question of understanding. It can happen any moment. Yes, sitting on your toilet seat... Mahavira was a little old-fashioned. And in fact when you are sitting on the toilet seat, GREAT thoughts arise. So what is wrong in becoming enlightened while listening to a joke?

When you are really in laughter your ego disappears; both together are not possible. That's why the egoist becomes incapable of laughing. Even if he tries, that is just an exercise of his lips, nothing more than that. How can he do such a worldly thing? so mundane, so ordinary? Laughing? - impossible.

Christians say Jesus never laughed. They cannot believe Jesus laughing, because to laugh means to be human, too human. They can believe Jesus walking on water - that's perfectly okay; Jesus raising the dead - that is really great; Jesus coming alive after crucifixion - all these stupidities can be believed in... but Jesus never laughed! If it is true, then I will say that is the only miracle he did.

But it is not true. I can say from my own experience: it is not true. It cannot be true! Even if Jesus says he never laughed, I'm not going to listen to him. Jesus and not laughing? Then who else will be able to laugh? this beautifully ridiculous existence, this whole absurd, but so beautiful life, and Jesus not laughing? I cannot believe that.

Jesus must have laughed, loved, shared jokes. They may not have been compiled - that shows the mind of the compilers - but Jesus was a very earthly man, loved eating, drinking, gossiping, because what was he doing? Every night his disciples and friends would gather and eat and drink for hours, till the late hours; only in the morning would they go to sleep. What was he doing all this time? You cannot just go on eating and drinking. You can see that this man has not eaten so much; you can look at pictures of him. If he was just eating and drinking he would look like an elephant!

But he looks so proportionate; he must have been gossiping, sharing jokes, laughing. In fact, only an enlightened person can have a real sense of humor.

So there is no problem, Anand Jean, you can become enlightened listening to a joke. And I am giving you, every day, opportunities to become enlightened.

Listen to these jokes and give it a try. Who knows? Enlightenment is always unpredictable - it may happen today. But don't expect it. These are the problems with enlightenment: if you expect, you miss. Such strange conditions are attached to enlightenment: if you expect you miss, if you desire you miss. So don't expect that it is going to happen; just sit relaxed and listen to the joke. It may happen, it may not.

The marriage between the elderly farmer and his young wife was not working out too well, so the farmer consulted his doctor for advice. "The next time you are down in the field plowing and feel a yearning for your wife," said the doctor, "don't wait until lunchtime or the end of the day, but quit what you are doing and go to the house!"

"I tried that," said the farmer, "but by the time I get to the house, I am so tuckered out it is no use."

The doctor thought for a minute. "Take your shotgun with you when you leave the house in the morning, and if you feel the urge, shoot the gun and she will come down there where you are."

A few weeks later the two men met on the street.

"How did it work?" asked the doctor.

"Fine... the first three days," said the farmer, "then the hunting season opened and I haven't seen her since."

Giuseppe, an immigrant to the United States works very hard his whole life and finally makes it to his sixty-fifth birthday when he can apply for benefits. He goes down to the Social Security office to apply, but when he gets there the girl behind the desk tells him that he must bring his birth certificate to prove his age.

He does not have a birth certificate so, dejected, he goes home. Suddenly, he gets an idea and rushes back to the office. He sees the girl, runs over to her and pulls open his shirt to display his grey hair.

'You must be sixty-five," she says, "with all that grey hair on your chest!"

Giuseppe is very pleased and rushes home to tell his wife that he will receive the benefits.

"How-a did-a you get-ta it?" asks Maria.

"I opened my shirt-a like this-a and showed her all-a my grey hair!"

"You idiot-a! You blew-a it!" screams Maria. "You should-a have opened your trousers and-a applied- a for the disability pension!"

A man was attending a banquet held in his honor at the local Rotary Club. At the end of the supper he had to give a short speech. He was really nervous because he was not good at public speaking, so he asked his wife to pinch him every time he started bungling his speech.

Immediately after he had finished his ice cream, he got up from his chair and began, "Ladies and gentleman, I am overwhelmed, I shudder with emotion from top to bottom.... ouch!" his wife pinched him. He stopped talking and thought for a moment, then began again, "Sincerely, gentlemen, I feel emotional chills invading my soul.... ouch!" another pinch and a moment's consideration, then, "Seriously, gentlemen, this is the most thrilling time of my life...." There was another pinch from his wife, but this time he turned to her and asked, "What's wrong, honey? I'm telling the truth... I'm not saying something stupid, am I?"

"The problem is," said his wife, "that your fly is open!" He turned white and she continued, "and your balls are sitting inside your ice cream dish!"