A handful of dry leaves

Question 1:

Prem Turiya, the path that leads to your innermost being makes you feel more and more a tremendous urgency as you come closer to the center of your being. The farther away you are from yourself, the less is the magnetic pull of your being. It is a simple scientific fact.

As you come closer to the magnetic field, you become more and more aware of a tremendous urgency. Something is going to happen, something that is going to transform you completely, something for which you have been waiting for many, many lives - something that you are not even aware what to call it. This is one part of the feeling of urgency.

The second part is that the closer you are to realization... a deep fear arises, will you be able to make it? When you were far away there was no question of missing; you were certain that you had missed it - there was a certain certainty. But as you come closer to the peak, a human fear arises:

are you going to make it in such a short time, with your little energy?

And as you see the peak, you also can see that your problems are so trivial, your pleasures are also very trivial, that your whole life is childish. Your fights, your friendships, your love affairs seem to be so small and so stupid that you want to get out of them as quickly as possible.

Before, you were never in such an urgency to get out of them, because you had never realized what your potential is, to what heights you are entitled, so you went on playing with toys. But now that a vision has arisen and is becoming more and more clear, you can see all your involvements, commitments, relationships, everything, as so small compared to your inner consciousness.

And those small things are clinging to you since many lives; they are parasites, they are not going to leave you easily, because to leave you means certain death to them. It is your blood they thrive on, and the moment you realize that these small things are preventing you, such small things...

I am reminded of a beautiful story that Gautam Buddha used to tell his disciples. It is a strange story and perhaps no Buddhist has ever commented on it. Only a buddha can comment on it, not a Buddhist; only a man of absolute awareness can see what Buddha was trying to say through this small story.

He said that a man who was blind was lost in a big palace which had one thousand doors, but nine hundred and ninety-nine were closed; only one door was open. The man was blind and he had to grope to find the door. Out of nine hundred and ninety-nine doors... he goes on looking - some door may be open. And finally he comes to the door which is open. But then suddenly he feels a strong desire to scratch his head. He starts scratching his head and passes the door, and again, nine hundred and ninety-nine doors... And who knows what will happen next time when he comes to the one thousandth door? Just a stupid desire to scratch the head...

What Buddha was trying to say is that your problems are not very big; you are far bigger than your problems. Your intrinsic capacities are immense, incalculable. Your problems are utter trivia, but you are so much involved in those small problems that you cannot see beyond them.

But, Turiya, when you come closer to yourself you stand between two things. On one side your whole past, which is nothing but a long, long history of stupidities; and your future, which is so close, so luminous, such a splendor that naturally a great urgency arises: How to get rid of this whole past? How to get rid of this mind? How to get rid of all these problems that have been torturing you, all these nightmares that you have been suffering, and take a quantum leap to reach to your very center, where no problem has ever entered, where no thought has ever arisen, where nothing is small and trivial, where everything is satyam, shivam, sundram - where everything is nothing but pure truth and pure divineness and pure beauty.

And when you see it so close, another urgency arises also. Hearing me say that I am here only for you, a trembling fear that perhaps you may not be able to make it before I have to leave my body, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the feeling of urgency is not only for you, but for the whole of humanity too. Are we going to spread the fragrance of enlightenment? Have we the capacity? Have we the courage to fight against the enormous ignorance all around?

You have as much power and as much capacity as any Jesus, any Socrates, any Gautam Buddha, because essentially we come from the same source, essentially we have the same potential.

But I can understand your feeling of urgency. My only suggestion is to avoid making this urgency a problem; otherwise this will be another trivia. Just be absolutely contented that you have come so close. Be contented that you can see what is trivia and what is significant. Be content that I am still with you and the phenomenon of transformation can happen in a split second.

Be content that if I can stand alone against the world with all kinds of prejudices, you are also capable. You have to stand alone just to represent me. The day you will be able to stand alone against superstitions, prejudices, religions, politicians, that day will be a day of celebration for you because you have represented me with your total being.

It is perfectly good to feel the urgency, but don't try to find any short-cut or any secret, because there is none. If there were some secrets I would have given them to you. I am in a deeper urgency than you are; if there were any short-cuts, do you think that I am miserly, that I would not give them to you? and that I would unnecessarily torture you on long, arduous paths when a short-cut was available?

I have heard about a man who was driving; he stopped his car and asked an old farmer who was smoking, sitting by the side of a tree, very relaxed, "How far is New Delhi?"

The farmer asked, "Are you going the way your car is facing?"

The man said, "You are strange. I am asking how far Delhi is."

The farmer said, "Without knowing, I cannot answer. First answer my question: Are you going in the direction your car is facing? Then Delhi is really too far; I don't think you will be able to make it."

The man said, "I thought you were a simple farmer, but you seem to be a philosopher."

He said, "I am a simple farmer. You have left Delhi almost fifty miles behind. If you turn your car back, Delhi is very close. But if you go in this direction then you will have to go around the whole earth, and then too there is no certainty that you will reach Delhi. There are a thousand and one ways you can go astray."

Gautam Buddha was passing through a forest. It was fall time and the whole forest was full of dry leaves and naked trees were standing against the evening sun, looking so beautiful. Ananda, his close disciple, asked him, "I wanted to ask it many times, but other people were present. Now fortunately a few disciples have gone ahead, a few are coming behind, and this is a moment I am alone with you and I can ask the question." And his question was, "Have you told us everything that you know or are there some secrets that you are holding back?"

Gautam Buddha bent down, filled his hand with dry leaves, showed him those dry leaves in his hand and said, "Whatever I have told you is just like these few dry leaves; what I have not told you is just like the whole forest full of dry leaves. But it is not because I am a miser, it is not because I wanted to hold it back from you; even to say these few leaves has been such a difficult task. I have wasted my whole life in conveying something about these few leaves, but these few leaves are enough as far as understanding all the leaves of the forest are concerned. If you can understand these few leaves, just a handful, you have understood all the leaves of the whole forest."

It is a question of understanding. You do not have to know all the oceans to come to the conclusion that ocean water is salty. From anywhere, just a little taste of the ocean will give you the taste of all the oceans which you may never visit.

Whatever was necessary, whatever was essential I have been telling you. Whatever is left untold is left untold because there is no way to tell it. If you can understand what I have told you, you will come to a situation, a position, a consciousness, a perceptivity, where you can know all that which I have not been able to tell you.

But I am not holding anything back from you.

Turiya, this is a moment that you should be contented that you have come so close. Your urgency should not turn into a discontent; otherwise you will be thrown back far away.

Your urgency should be transformed into a deep contentment and a rejoicing that you have been able to be a fellow traveler of one who is fully awakened, and you have been a fellow traveler of many who are also searching and seeking with tremendous intensity something which the whole world is unaware of. If this contentment settles in you, perhaps the quantum leap will happen on its own accord.

Nathan Nussbaum met his old friend, Benjamin Rosenblatt, in the street one day.

"How are things?" asked Benjamin.

"Good," replied Nathan.

"Good?" says Benjamin. "You seem to have plenty of troubles."

"No, no" said Nathan nonchalantly, "it is always good. In summer I am good and hot. In winter I am good and cold. My roof leaks, so when it rains I get good and wet. Also that nag of a wife always makes me good and mad. And when I am at home, I feel good and worried. Believe me, I am good and tired of it all!"

I am not talking about such contentment. Your contentment should be a song, a dance, a rejoicing, a love, a sharing. Your contentment should not be dead; it should be alive and dancing.

Question 2:

Paritosh Gyano, I am happy to know that your meditation is going deeper, becoming more alive, and you are feeling as if you are drowning inside yourself more and more. It is one of the great blessings that happen to all meditators.

The meditator is the most blessed person in the whole universe. He is the very cream of the universal evolution.

And I can also understand your problem. You say, "... and although I relate with people, they seem far away on my periphery." They don't seem, they are.

The moment you are at your center, everything is on the periphery. You had not realized it before because you were also on the periphery, so people looked very close; you were in the crowd. But as you move inwards, nobody can go with you, you have to go alone.

The moment you are drowning within yourself you are going farther and farther away from your own periphery. Everybody else is out of that periphery; they are not even on that periphery.

This is the beauty that existence has bestowed upon you as individuals. Nobody can enter your individuality, nobody can interfere. You can be killed, you can be crucified, but your freedom, your soul, your consciousness remain untouched even by your death.

Alexander the Great was going back from India, and at the very frontiers of India he remembered that his teacher, Aristotle, the father of Western logic, had asked him, "When you come back from India you will be bringing gifts for everybody; bring just one thing as a gift for me.

Alexander said, "Just say, and it will be brought to you."

He said, "I want to see a sannyasin. I have heard so much from travelers about sannyasins. It seems they are a different species of humanity; it seems they are far above us. If you can bring a sannyasin I will be immensely happy."

Alexander said, "This is a small thing. If you had asked me to bring the Himalayas I could have dragged it back to Greece. A sannyasin? - no problem."

And he remembered, although he had collected so much garbage. At the last he remembered, "My God, I have forgotten to bring a sannyasin." But he was still on the frontiers of India, so he inquired of people, "Can I find a sannyasin nearby?"

They said, "It is a little difficult if you really want an authentic sannyasin; otherwise, this country is full of sannyasins."

Alexander said, "I want an absolutely authentic sannyasin, because I cannot offer to my teacher a phony fellow. Wherever you tell us I will go."

They said, "You don't have to go too far. Just a few miles back you may have passed by the side of a river where an old sage lives. He lives naked, and as far as we know in this part of the country there is no one who has a higher consciousness, more blissfulness, than this old sage."

Alexander sent two of his generals first, because he thought it was below his dignity to go and ask the sannyasin. Those two generals went, and the sannyasin was standing naked by the side of the river. They told him, "Alexander the Great wants you to be the royal guest. Everything you need, all the luxuries possible will be made available to you for your whole life, but you have to come with us to Greece."

The sannyasin looked at them and said, "You seem to be utter idiots. A man who calls himself Alexander the Great must be just an egoist, and a sannyasin cannot accept the invitation of any egoist. I can come running to somebody who is humble, even without invitation. Just go back and tell your Alexander the Great what I have told you."

Although they were great generals of Alexander, they started shaking, became nervous. The old man was so strong; his voice just pierced like arrows in their hearts. They came back and they told Alexander that that man was difficult.

Alexander said, "How difficult? I have never met any difficulty in my life. I am the world conqueror. I will see myself; I am coming, just lead the way."

On the way those two generals trial to persuade him: "It is better to leave this man alone. He seems to be very strange; he says that the person who calls himself 'the great' is simply ignorant, does not know anything, and he says, 'I would have come to anyone uninvited if there was simplicity, innocence, love, humbleness, but power cannot move me a single inch.'"

Alexander said, "You don't be worried. He does not know me and he does not know my sword."

He pulled out his sword as he reached the sannyasin, just to make him afraid. He was thinking the sannyasin would become afraid, but he started laughing.

Alexander looked very embarrassed. What to do...? The sannyasin said, "Yes, that's perfectly okay.

You can cut off my head. Cut it! - I am ordering you."

Alexander said, "Nobody orders me!"

The old man said, "You are strange. What do you want of me?"

Alexander said, "I want you to come with me to Greece. You will be my royal guest."

He said, "I used to be a king myself. I dropped my kingdom, I dropped all my possessions in search of something which is immortal - and I have found it. That's why I ordered you to cut off my head.

Why are you feeling so shaky? You are a world conqueror; I am a poor sannyasin with nothing."

Alexander said, "Don't make me mad by your statements. I am a dangerous man; I can really cut off your head."

He said, "I am more dangerous than you. When the head falls on the ground, you will be seeing it from the outside, I will be seeing it from the inside. You cannot kill me. I have reached the point where there is no birth and no death; that's why I say you cannot move me a single inch. All your power is just impotent."

Against a single sannyasin the power of a world conqueror is absolutely impotent, for the simple reason that the man of meditation knows that he is not the body. And everything else that he used to be identified with - the wife, the children, the money, the power, the prestige are all left far away.

Just a pure consciousness, just a flame of light has remained within him which is indestructible.

Krishna says, in one of his most beautiful statements, "Nainam Chhindanti Shastrani" - you cannot cut me with weapons - "Naham Dahati Pavakah" - and you cannot burn me with fire. You are absolutely powerless as far as I am concerned.

Your experience, Gyano, is perfectly right. Just a little change... which will come automatically as you will be drowning more and more into yourself. A moment is bound to come when you will see it does not just seen that people are appearing far away on the periphery; they really are. From your very innermost center you cannot call them, you cannot communicate with them. Your innermost center is so transcendental to their ordinary, ignorant, unconscious selves that there is no bridge possible.

You are also saying, "At the same time, I am receiving so much: you keep pouring and pouring your love over me. Why am I so miserly in giving to others?" Just wait a little more. Soon you will be overflowing, all miserliness will be gone.

Why are people miserly? You have to understand their psychology, the psychology of miserliness.

It is strange that even the greatest psychoanalysts, psychologists, don't think of fundamental problems. Now, miserliness is one of the fundamental problems. Nobody wants to give; everybody wants to get.

The psychology is simple. The miserliness arises because you are empty and you want to fill it with something - anything. You are always a beggar waiting for somebody to give something to you.

But your inner emptiness is vast; it cannot be filled by money, power, prestige, respectability. You may have all and still you will feel the same emptiness. In fact the more you have the more you will become aware of the emptiness, and then arises a tremendous anguish: "I have done everything to fill the emptiness and all that has disappeared into the dark hole and I am as empty as ever. My whole life has been a sheer wastage."

But if your meditation is going deep and you are feeling my love showering on you... It can shower only on a meditator. It is not in my hands; I go on overflowing to everybody, but the non-meditators are keeping their umbrellas open. From wherever I want to reach them they move their umbrellas.

They are hiding behind their umbrellas. They think this love is something like rain: you have to protect yourself.

But because you are not keeping your umbrella open to protect yourself, soon you will be overfilled.

Only love in a meditative consciousness gives you the feeling of fullness, and after fullness comes overflowing, and that overflowing takes away all your miserliness.

It is the emptiness that creates miserliness; it is overflowing love that takes it away. The miserliness is only a symptom of emptiness. It won't last much longer because you are aware of receiving and you are grateful for receiving; you are opening up and becoming more and more available. You need not be worried about miserliness. Soon you will find you are overflowing, sharing yourself with others.

The only real sharing is the sharing of your being - not your money, not your house, not anything else, but only of your being. Only that belongs to you; everything else is not authentically yours.

You were born only with your being. That is yours - and then you accumulate many things which are never yours; the day you die, you cannot take them with you. You lived in an illusion that they are your possessions. The fact is that they possessed you; they were not your possessions.

Your only possession is your being, and when the being radiates, those radiations are your love, your compassion, your fragrance, your celebration. Out of sheer necessity you are bound to share them, because the more you share them, the more becomes your bliss.

So sharing is not an economic loss; sharing is the way of getting more and more from your innermost core. Deep down at the very bottom you are joined with the universal energy. You cannot exhaust it. You are just like a well: go on taking water out and new water goes on running in.

If you stop - and that's what the miserly person does; the miserly person is afraid that if this water is taken by all the neighbors, "Who knows - rains may come late or may not come at all and I will be suffering from water loss." He covers and locks his well. That is the mind of the miserly person. But he does not know that his well's water will die, it will become poisonous. The longer it is kept locked, the deadlier it will be. This is not wisdom; this is utter ignorance.

The wise man invites the neighbors to take as much water as they can. The more water is taken out... your small well is joined with the vast oceans underneath the ground. It has its currents which go on bringing fresh water.

If you want yourself to remain continuously fresh, share. That is the only way of remaining continuously fresh, continuously alive, continuously young. Even in your old age your eyes will show that you are young or even perhaps that you are just like a child.

But our minds are managed according to all kinds of wrong psychologies. Somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan, somebody is a Christian; it is very difficult to find somebody who is simply a man. Other than my sannyasins, you cannot find simple human beings.

I have not voted in my whole life for the simple reason that on the form that has to be filled at the census time - the officers used to come around - there is a column to be filled asking your religion.

I told them that I had come without religion; as far as I remember I had not brought any certificate saying what religion I belonged to. They would look at each other and say, "You must be born to some family...."

I said, "Yes, the family has its religion, but that is not my religion. If my father is a doctor, do you think I will be a doctor? If my father is a murderer, do think I will be a murderer? And if he is a Catholic, why should I be a Catholic? There seems to be no connection."

They said, "Then it is very difficult, because our officers ask that every piece of information should be filled in."

I said, "I am not much interested in being counted. You can take your form.... And neither am I interested in voting, because it will be such a trouble to choose who is the bigger of the two idiots. I don't want to get into unnecessary trouble. There are enough troubles already."

I am not on the census list of India. And I don't want any of my sannyasins to be Hindu or Mohammedan or Christian, to be German or to be American or to be Japanese or to be Indian.

These are small cages which don't allow you to grow into your fullest capacity. They keep you starved as far as consciousness is concerned, they keep you starved as far as love is concerned.

They keep you empty, and then necessarily miserliness is bound to be there.

I want you to be full. But the only way to be full is to be meditative, there is no other way. If by chance you can meet a master, then don't protect yourself, don't defend yourself; just open yourself completely.

Perhaps the master functions almost like a raincloud: he showers on you and everything becomes green in you and flowers start blossoming in you and then you cannot prevent the fragrance of the flowers going into all directions, sharing the joy and the dance that have happened to your being.

But our minds are made really in such primitive, unintelligent, inhuman ways that it is unbelievable that even in the twentieth century... We are not living in the twentieth century; everybody is living in different centuries. I have never come across contemporaries. Somebody is still hanging onto ten thousand years ago, somebody five thousand years ago, somebody two thousand years ago. It is very rare - at least I have not come across a single human being who is my contemporary, and perhaps in this life I can't hope to meet anyone.

And this is my last life, so you can understand my trouble. I will never meet a single contemporary. I am trying hard to make you my contemporaries, and perhaps it may happen. It all depends on how intelligently you can get rid of the past conditionings.

Moishe Finkelstein, having been shipwrecked on a desert island for three years, is finally reached by rescuers. Proudly he shows them around the island pointing out the irrigation system, the pastures and orchards, the barn, the house and all his other constructions. At the end of the island are two small buildings, and those he announces are the synagogues.

"Two of them?" he is asked. "But you are alone here."

"Well," he says, "this is the one I go to and this is the one I would not even be seen dead in."

Two different sects of Jews - one belongs to him and the other belongs to the enemies. But he has built both because without the enemy there is no joy; without any fighting and quarreling... Although he is alone, even this much is enough consolation, that no one goes in that synagogue. He has made it, but it brings tremendous contentment to him, looking at that synagogue, that nobody goes there. Such is the situation of almost all human beings.

In India there are the Jainas, a small minority religion but of tremendous literature and great heritage.

Philosophically, religiously, they have penetrated very deeply into human psychology. But on the surface that does not matter. Who looks into the scriptures? Who has the time? They have two major sects; there are smaller sects also, but there are two major sects which worship the same masters, which believe in the same scriptures but make their temples separately.

The only difference - you will not be able to believe it - is that one sect, the Digambaras, believe that Mahavira, their great master, meditated with closed eyes. The Shvetambaras, the second great sect, believe that Mahavira meditated with open eyes. This is the only difference - but it is enough that they fight with each other, riots happen, they burn each other's temples without even bothering that the other temple also is the temple of Mahavira.

I was passing once through a small city in Madhya Pradesh and I saw a Jaina temple. I stopped my car because I saw on the temple's door three locks; those three locks made me stop and inquire what was the matter. One lock is perfectly okay - but even one lock is not needed because a stone statue cannot escape. One lock can be allowed, but why three locks?

People gathered around my car and I inquired about it. They said, "It is a very sad story. The Jainas to whom this temple belongs are very few in this village. We are so few that we could not manage to have two temples. Finally we decided that we should make one temple, because after all we are all followers of Mahavira; the only difference is of open and closed eyes.

"So we will use a device: half the day it will belong to one sect... The stone statue is made with closed eyes, so half the day - from the middle of the night until twelve o'clock in the day - it will belong to the Digambaras; they can do whatsoever they want. The other half of the day it will belong to the Shvetambaras - and they have made false eyes, open eyes that they put on the stone statue just like you put on glasses. It looks very idiotic but it fulfills their conditioning, and then they worship."

But it used to happen often, because all religious people are more or less of the fanatic type... I don't see that anybody who is not the fanatic type can be part of any religion. A non-fanatic person is bound to be out of all these stupid ideas because he can see that this is nonsense, and he cannot belong to any nonsense. Fanatical people are always ready to fight; they are looking, searching for any excuse to have a good fight. Although they have made the temple together, they have purchased the statue of Mahavira together, every day there was trouble.

The trouble was created by the most fanatically religious people. For example, the Digambaras would be worshipping and they would go on worshipping after twelve. Now, the Shvetambaras would be waiting outside the door; this they could not tolerate. They would rush in and start putting the eyes on Mahavira, and the Digambaras would take those eyes off again, saying, "Wait, don't disturb our worship!" - and that worship was prolonged only for the fight.

The Shvetambaras could have waited; there was no hurry. If the Digambaras want to worship fifteen minutes more, let them worship; there is no harm. You can worship afterwards. But they could not tolerate it. It was a question of prestige. It would happen so often that they would beat each other and send each other to the hospital with fractures.

Finally, the police were getting reports every day, so one day they came, they drove everybody out and put the second lock on the door. Then they had a case in the court, and because the case was in the court, the court decided to put a lock on the temple. Till the decision, nobody can touch that lock, and that's why there were three locks.

Now almost twenty years have passed. What judgement can the poor magistrate give? on what grounds? Can he say whether Mahavira was meditating with open eyes or closed eyes? or even in the first place whether Mahavira ever existed or not? Even that is not certain. And he himself, not being a Jaina, was not interested at all, and there was no argument in favor or against.

I had to delay my journey. I informed them at the place where I was going that I would come one day late. I had to meet the magistrate. I went to see him and I asked him, "This is strange. Many magistrates have come and gone, and you have not been able to decide a simple thing?"

He said, "You say 'a simple thing'? Now, how to decide? - the one party says open eyes, the other party says closed eyes, and both have their scriptures. Now, who to believe? Who is right?"

I said, "There is no problem. On my own authority I say to you that he meditated with half closed eyes."

He said, "My God! I never thought about it."

I told him, "In fact, that is easier than with closed eyes. If you meditate with closed eyes the possibility is that you may fall asleep. If you meditate with open eyes... you cannot meditate. Some woman passes and everything is disturbed and you cannot prevent it. You can close your eyes but you cannot prevent it. All kinds of things are moving all around, so the real meditator - to avoid the outside world and to avoid sleep - meditates with half open eyes. Half open eyes means he looks only four feet ahead, so he just finds a place where within four feet nobody will move. That's why meditators have been going to the mountains and faraway places."

He said, "That's absolutely right. Tomorrow I am going to give the decision. But how to make the half open eyes?"

I said, "It is easy. If they can make fully open eyes artificially, you can order them to make half open eyes. Only then will those three locks be removed."

That is the only place in the whole of India where Mahavira is sitting with half open eyes. No time to sleep, no time to enjoy women, flowers, rivers, mountains, nothing. Just half open eyes... day in, day out. But both the parties agreed, seeing the point that twenty years have passed; now it is better to settle, and this seems to be a perfect compromise.

So that is a very unique temple in the whole of India. Otherwise Shvetambaras have their temples where they keep the eyes open - there is no need for anything artificial, they just tell the sculptors to make the eyes open - and Digambaras tell the sculptors to keep the eyes closed.

It was a strange case that both together had contributed to the building of the temple - but such is the mind, everywhere. It is not that one person is so illogical; it is the whole of humanity.

This is a lesson in logic...

The professor said, "If the show starts at nine and dinner is at six and my son has the measles and my brother drives a Cadillac, how old am I?"

"You are forty-four," said a student promptly.

"Right," said the professor. "Now tell the rest of the class how you arrived at the correct answer."

"It was easy," the student said. "I have got an uncle who is twenty-two and he is only half nuts."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.