How to avoid the ditches

Question 1:

Prem Satyabodhi, neither the question matters nor the answer; what matters is a silent being, which has no questions and no answers. This is what I call innocence. The moment a question arises the innocence is lost. And one question brings another, there is no end to it. You will go on finding answers to each question and, strangely enough, every question creates new questions; in the same way, every answer also creates new questions. This way ends in insanity.

The sane being has no question and has no answer. Ordinarily there is a misunderstanding that the man of wisdom knows the answer. That is absolutely wrong. The man of knowledge may know the answers, but the man of knowledge is not a man of wisdom. And the difference is great. The man of knowledge is as ignorant as anybody else. All his answers are borrowed. In fact he is in a more difficult situation than a person who has only questions. He has a far deeper slavery to the mind than the ignorant man.

The ignorant man can go out of the mind, transcend it without any fear, because he has nothing to lose. But the knowledgeable man hesitates to step out of the mind, because he has much to lose:

his whole knowledge, his whole prestige, his whole respectability. And that"s all he has, he has no wisdom.

Wisdom is a space without any ripples of questions and answers - neither knowledge nor ignorance but a pure silence, innocence. This is the state of the awakened one, the enlightened one, the buddha.

You are asking me, Satyabodhi, "Do I need to know the question?" No, nobody needs to know the question and nobody needs to know the answer either; everybody needs to know himself. And that revelation of oneself, that realization of oneself comes only when there are no questions, no answers ... just a pure sky without any clouds, an utter peace that passes understanding.

This is the definition of the authentic seer, the true mystic: one who knows without knowledge, who is as ignorant as a small child - whose ignorance is innocence, whose knowing is innocence.

Ramakrishna lived just in the last part of the nineteenth century ... such an innocent being. And one of the very learned men, a great scholar - perhaps the greatest scholar of those days - was Keshav Chandra Sen. They both lived very close; Keshav Chandra lived in Calcutta and Ramakrishna lived outside Calcutta by the side of the river Ganges, as a priest in a small temple in Dakshineshwar.

Keshav Chandra was respected all over the country for his wisdom, for his knowledge, for his tremendous rationality, intellectuality, authority over scriptures and his logical acumen. People from all over the country used to come to sit at his feet.

But slowly, slowly he became very puzzled: the people who had been listening to him for years started going to Dakshineshwar to sit at the feet of Ramakrishna, who was uneducated, who had no knowledge of any scripture, who could not be called in any sense a man of knowledge. He could not argue, could not convince anybody about anything.

But what was happening? Keshav Chandra was puzzled that the people who had been with him for years were slowly disappearing from his gatherings and going to the gatherings of Ramakrishna. And whatever information he had collected about Ramakrishna simply showed him that Ramakrishna seems to be half mad - suddenly he starts dancing, singing; just listening to a beautiful song, he goes into samadhi. For hours, he is lost somewhere; you cannot even wake him up, he has gone so deep into himself. It is not ordinary sleep, it is almost like a coma.

Once he remained in such a state for six days continuously. Every effort was made to wake him, but all efforts failed. And finally when he awoke, the first thing he said, with tears in his eyes, was, "Why have you people forced me to wake up? I was enjoying myself so deeply, and you go on pulling me to the outside world, where there is nothing. I have known everything; I have experienced everything and found that it cannot give me lasting peace or eternal bliss or the realization of my own self. So, whenever I go inside myself, please, don't disturb me." Naturally his followers became very much concerned; six days is too long a period, and he remained in a coma.

All the reports that reached to Keshav Chandra proved that this man was hysterical, whimsical, a crackpot. But the people who used to come to him were intellectuals, professors, well-versed in scriptures. Why have they moved towards Ramakrishna?

Finally, he had to decide to go and see this man. Not only to see, but to challenge him to a debate.

He informed Ramakrishna, "I am coming on such and such a date. Be ready, because I am going to challenge you to discuss with me matters of ultimate significance."

Ramakrishna laughed. He said, "It will be really a great joy to meet Keshav Chandra. He is such an intellectual giant and he does not know whom he is challenging. But let him come, this is a good excuse. I will accept the challenge."

His disciples said, "But this will be very humiliating. He will bring all his followers, and before all these people ... we know you cannot argue - you have never argued in your life."

But what Ramakrishna said is something to be remembered forever. He said, "I don't argue because I am the argument. Just let him come. I don't know the scriptures, I don't need to know them. I know the truth - why should I bother about borrowed knowledge? I don't have any education, I don't know how to prove something or disprove something, but I don't need to know - my presence is the proof.

Just let him come."

The disciples were afraid because they could not understand that Keshav Chandra would accept his presence as an argument. And Keshav Chandra came. Ramakrishna hugged him - he was not expecting that Ramakrishna would come out of the temple and hug him - and took him inside.

He said, "I am so grateful that you came, I have been waiting for so long. Whenever you feel like challenging me, you can come. Whenever you feel the urge to argue, you can come. I am always available, there is no need even to make any appointment; I am twenty-four hours in this temple.

You can come day or night, any moment."

Keshav Chandra kept himself aloof, but found it was very difficult: this man is so loving, his very vibe is so touching. And Ramakrishna said, "First, before you start your argument, for your welcome I will dance." And he had his musicians there who started playing drums, and Ramakrishna started dancing ....

Keshav Chandra could not believe it, his followers could not believe it. He had challenged many people, he had argued all over the country with great scholars and defeated them, but he had never seen such a man, who is welcoming him with a dance. And the dance was so beautiful - it was not the dance of a technician, it was the dance of an overflowing love. It was not formal, the welcome was not just etiquette; even Keshav Chandra could feel that the man was authentic.

After the dance Ramakrishna said, "Now you can start." And Keshav Chandra said, "First I want you to prove the existence of God."

Ramakrishna laughed. He said, "The existence of God? You are the proof. Otherwise from where does such great intelligence come? It must be coming from existence, and if existence can produce Keshav Chandra that means existence is not unconscious, is not unintelligent. That"s all we mean by God: that existence is not only matter. You are the proof. It is strange that you are asking for the proof and you don't know that you are the proof. I can bring anybody before you as a proof that existence is intelligent. That"s all we mean by God: that existence is not without consciousness."

Keshav Chandra"s followers could not believe that they had seen Keshav Chandra in shock for the first time. He was silent, he could not find what to say. And Ramakrishna"s disciples were also in a shock. They said, "My God, we used to think: "How is this poor fellow going to argue?" But he has silenced him without much trouble; no scripture has been quoted - nothing. Keshav Chandra himself has made the argument against himself."

And each time Keshav Chandra said something Ramakrishna would clap - just like a child. And he was saying things against him! The disciples thought, "Keshav Chandra will think Ramakrishna is insane. He will not be able to understand: "I am arguing against him, and he is clapping with joy?""

And just in the middle Ramakrishna would stand up and hug him again and say, "That was really a beautiful point. I loved it, you go on." His joy, his love, his unruffled calm became his victory, without any argument.

Keshav Chandra fell at his feet and said, "Just forgive me, I have had very wrong notions about you."

Ramakrishna said, "What are you doing? You are a man of knowledge, I am an ignorant man - so ignorant, so uneducated, I cannot even sign my own name. I know myself but I cannot sign my own name, I cannot read anything. What are you doing?"

And Keshav Chandra became one of the great lovers of Ramakrishna. And Ramakrishna had no answer for any question, nor did he have any question. But Ramakrishna"s innocence touched many people and transformed many people. Just his love was a great alchemical process.

Satyabodhi, you don't have to ask any question and you don't need to receive any answer. Just drop both. They are not opposites to each other - the question and answer - they are not contradictions, they are complementaries, they are part of one whole. You have to drop the whole thing, you have to come out of this childish game. I answer your questions just to help you to come out. Slowly, slowly, your questions will die out, your answers will die out, and just a cleanness remains behind - that is your true being. All the questions are created by the priest, all the answers are created by the priests; it is a silly game. They create the answers, they create the questions, and in their questions and answers they divide the whole humanity into fragments. Otherwise what is the difference between Christians and Hindus, except their answers? - so trivial that you will find it hilarious.

But people go on creating questions. Mind is a very efficient mechanism to create questions, and it is also very efficient at creating answers. Each answer brings more questions; there is no end to it. There are thousands of philosophies in the world and none of them has come to any conclusion.

None of them is complete or is ever going to be complete, for the simple reason that every answer will create new questions; it is an endless process.

The moment you drop all questions and all answers you have dropped all the priests, all the philosophers; you are freed from the whole past. You are freed from the mind, you are freed from language - you have moved to the beyond, into the inner sky, where there is your eternal life, your infinite light, your deathlessness, your bliss, your ultimate blissfulness; where you will find everything that man has ever dreamt of finding, and a contentment, a fulfillment that is never disturbed again.

A big revival meeting was being held. It was midwinter and all the motels were filled with preachers.

The small son of the owner of one of the motels came in from the cold and found the lounge crowded with preachers. The boy announced to the room full of preachers that he had dreamt of hell. One of them grinned at him and asked, "What was it like?"

"Just like here," said the boy, "I almost froze."

"You froze?" asked another preacher.

"Yes," replied the boy, " the preachers were so thick around the fire, no one else could get near it!"

These preachers who are talking about heaven and hell, who are talking about God and truth, have never entered their own being. I have met with almost all types of monks, priests, preachers, philosophers - none of them is interested in meditation. They are all playing games of the mind, which are childish, absolutely meaningless. You can go on playing those games and wasting your whole life.

I teach you a simple thing: just be silent, utterly silent, and you will have found all the treasures and all the mysteries and all the secrets of existence.

Question 2:

Dhyan Nidhi, the dictionary definition of humble is one thing, but to know humbleness as an experience is totally another. The dictionary is the world of words, and humbleness ....

So, do you want to discuss the word "humble" or the experience of humbleness? They are totally different things. The word "love" will have a dictionary meaning, but the experience of love will be a totally different thing. So always remember, the dictionary meaning is not relevant in this gathering of mad people. Their search is for the living experience, not for dissection of dead words.

The dictionary meaning almost always falls short of the actual experience. For example, the dictionary meaning of humble is, "Having or showing a consciousness of one"s defects or shortcomings. Not proud, not self-assertive, modest." All these three things have to be understood.

First, the man of humbleness is not an exhibitionist; he does not show a consciousness of his defects or shortcomings. A man of humbleness simply is no more; he exists without an ego, without a personality. And without a personality you cannot have shortcomings and you cannot have defects.

These are possessions of the ego. That"s why ego feels a deep inferiority complex whenever it sees some defect, some shortcoming.

The dictionary meaning is that if the ego accepts and shows its shortcomings and defects to people, it is humble. But the existential humbleness simply means egolessness: there is nobody to experience defects, there is nobody to compare oneself with others as being inferior, as having shortcomings.

Second, the dictionary meaning says, "not proud." Anybody who says, "I am not proud" will be proud of this very fact. He will declare loudly, "I am not proud," and if you say, "I am even more humble than you, even less proud than you," he will feel offended. He is proud, but from the back door. The true humbleness knows nothing of pride or no pride. Just a small child ... does he know if he is proud or not proud?

The sage comes back to the same state of innocence; he is neither proud nor not proud - he is not aware. The very ego that could have decorated itself with being non-proud is missing.

The dictionary meaning again says, "not self-assertive." A man who is not self-assertive is bound to be self-repressive: where will the assertion go? The self is there, the ego is there. He may not assert it - then he will have to repress it, but a repressed ego is more dangerous than an ego which is assertive because the repressed ego goes on accumulating, and you are sitting on a volcano which can erupt any moment.

The authentic humbleness knows nothing of assertion or repression. Do you think a roseflower is assertive because it is opening in the morning sun and blossoming, and because it is spreading its fragrance to the winds? It is simply natural; there is no question of assertiveness. Whether anybody sees the flower or not will not make any difference, whether anybody passes by the side of the flower or not will not make any difference. The flower will go on dancing in the wind, in the rain, in the sun, will go on spreading its fragrance; it is simply natural.

The humble man is just like a flower He is not assertive, he is not repressive, he is simply natural.

When he blossoms, fragrance comes out of him. When he becomes enlightened, he radiates light.

Love overflows ... his compassion is so abundant that it has to be shared with others. It is not assertiveness. Do you think that when a rain cloud showers it is assertiveness? What should a rain cloud do with its rain? It becomes heavier and heavier and heavier; it becomes a burden. It has to share its rain with the thirsty earth. A humble man is simply natural. And whatever grows in this naturalness - whatever blossoms, whatever fragrance, radiation comes out of naturalness, without any effort on his part - is a happening, it is not a doing.

It may appear to egoistic people as assertiveness, that the roseflower is asserting its redness, its fragrance; it is doing a kind of PR job, inviting people to see, inviting people to smell, declaring to the world, "Look, is there any other rose better than me?" But this is your own projection. You are not being kind to the poor roseflower. He is not doing any PR job, it is just his nature.

And finally, the dictionary says, "the humble man is modest." But a man without ego - how can he be modest? Modesty means you have an ego but you have controlled it. You have made boundaries, limits; you have cultured it, you have made it civilized. But it is very thin ... skin-deep. All your so-called modest people, just scratch them a little bit and immediately their barbarous ego will be out.

A truly humble man has not practiced humbleness. It is not his discipline, it is his understanding and it is his renouncing of the ego. He is not modest, he is simply what he is. You will interpret him according to your own projections ... somebody will think that he is too proud, somebody may think he is too self-assertive, somebody may think he is very humble. But it will depend on you. He is only a mirror; he will simply show your face. Dictionaries cannot do justice to real experiences of life, particularly experiences which go beyond mind.

Dhyan Nidhi, you are asking, "Is there more to the definition of humble?" These are not the definitions of humble at all! The dictionary cannot understand what humbleness is. To understand humbleness, you don't have to go into a library, you have to go into meditation. You don't have to consult a dictionary, you have to consult your own being. There you will not find any definition, you will find the real thing - humbleness itself. And don't be satisfied until you have found the real thing.

As far as religious experiences are concerned, dictionaries are absolutely useless, because religion is not part of linguistics; it is something beyond language.

Question 3:

Vimal, I don't know who "this one" is but I will tell you two jokes. You can figure it out, who "this" is.

One:

Mr. Isar was attending his friend"s wife"s funeral. "It must be hard to lose a wife," remarked Mr. Isar.

"Almost impossible," remarked his friend.

Perhaps you are in trouble - I can sense it from your question. But don't be worried, every night has an end, and every wife too! Just a little patience ....

Mrs. Kessy has just returned home after her holiday. "How did you get along with your father, whilst I was away?" she asked her son.

"Just fine," says the boy, "every morning he took me out on the lake in a rowboat and let me swim back."

"Goodness!" exclaims Mrs. Kessy, "isn"t that a long distance to swim?"

"Ah, I always made it alright," says the boy. "The only trouble I had was getting out of the bag!"

Vimal, you are in the bag. Just try first to get out of the bag, then swimming out of the lake is not going to be a great trouble. But getting out of the bag I can understand ... and I have deep compassion for you. That"s why I was always seeing Vimal in tears - what is the matter with the poor fellow?

Now he has come out in the open, "Oh my God, how am I ever going to get out of this one?" That means this is not the only one; he has had other troubles before. He has got out of those troubles, he is experienced. So I am not too worried about him, he will get out of this one and he will fall into another ditch.

This is the trouble with experienced people: they think that they know so much - now they can manage not to fall into another ditch. And again they find that not only are they getting experienced, ditches are also getting experienced. It has been going in parallel for millennia.

But there is hope. Just make it a decision, that if you can get out of this one, you will not fall into another ditch. Then I can bless you. But you have to make a commitment; otherwise, what is the point? It is better to remain with the old one. You are familiar, the ditch is familiar, you know each other perfectly well. And slowly, slowly, one becomes immune. The problem arises with the new ditches: you have to start learning from ABC.

In the East, things are simpler, because people remain in one ditch. There is no divorce, they become accustomed, habituated. And because there is no question of any possibility of changing, there is no point in crying over spilled milk. It is spilled, it is better to forget and live life as your destiny has given it to you. It is written on your forehead, it is written in your birthchart - everything is decided beforehand. What can you do? It gives a certain consolation. Hence you will find in the East husbands and wives suffering exactly the same as in the West, but with tremendous contentment.

In the West the suffering is not that great, but discontentment is very great, because the possibility is there that you can change. And the hope is that perhaps you can get someone better, someone specially made for you.

Nobody is specially made for you. Everybody is made for himself; nobody is made for anybody else. But just the idea that you can change ... a small trouble, and immediately you feel frustration, freaking out, and all kinds of things.

In the East these things happen also every day, but nobody freaks out. It is just fate, it is kismet, it is written in the lines of your hand; it is God who decides. You have simply to learn how to live with the person God has decided you should live with.

But in advanced countries, the trouble has reached a climax: all contentment has disappeared from married life. Now the next step is the disappearance of marriage itself. And unless people are allowed to move easily, without any legalities, without any social hindrances, from one partner to another partner at any time of the day or night ... if movement is made absolutely easy, perhaps people will not feel so frustrated, so much in slavery and imprisonment.

But so much change will bring new problems ... you will be utterly tired. Remember that any solution is not going to have only positive effects; it has its own negative shadow. If change is allowed it is going to be tiring, exhausting, making life a kind of despair, because each time you have to prove again your manliness, your womanliness, your beauty, your strength. And all these things go on declining, so each time you have to be more of a hypocrite.

Hypocrisy in life is never a blissful state, and hypocrisy with a partner you are living with twenty-four hours a day cannot be continued. It is good for one hour or two hours, meeting the woman or the man on the beach, or in the movie hall where everything is dark and you cannot see whether her hair is false or dyed, whether her teeth are real or artificial, whether she is alive or dead - in the darkness, anything goes. Neither does she know about you.

But living twenty-four hours together, hypocrisy is bound to be broken; the reality has to surface, and that will hurt you very much. Again you will say,"My God, I have fallen in a bigger ditch." And as you go on and on you will find bigger and bigger ditches ... because smaller ditches are for beginners; bigger ditches are waiting for the experienced ones.

It is better, Vimal, to try to understand the woman you are with. Try to understand what her problem is, because if she is a problem to you, she must be a problem to herself. If you love her, have compassion for her; try to understand her difficulties, her problems. Perhaps that will melt the ice and she will start trying to understand your difficulties, your problems. That"s exactly what love is:

two persons are trying to solve life"s problems together without getting fed up and bored too quickly - patiently seeing it as an opportunity for learning and growth.

Each relationship is a growth opportunity. Don't condemn it, enjoy it in all its phases - in the moments when everything is beautiful and in the moments when everything goes dark.

That"s how life is, ups and downs.

And you have to learn, you cannot expect things to be always going up; for that, first you have to be enlightened and then you have to find an enlightened woman - that is very difficult. First, it is difficult to become enlightened, and then to find an enlightened woman is an almost impossible job.

It has not happened up to now in the whole history of man; not a single enlightened person, man or woman, has been able to find another enlightened person, for a simple reason: Why should any enlightened person get into any ditch, man or woman? If after enlightenment you still have to fall in the same ditches, what is the need of enlightenment?

The whole secret of enlightenment is in how to avoid the ditches. Without enlightenment you cannot avoid; if you avoid, the ditch will follow you. These are not static ditches that you go around and run away from. They run faster than you!

Mulla Nasruddin was saying to one of his friends early in the morning, walking on the lawn, "My wife is almost like a mousetrap." And women are so attuned, their antenna is always up in the air; if you speak loudly they may not listen, but if you whisper they will listen to every word.

The wife came out and she said, "What are you telling him? Yes, I am a mousetrap - and who are you? You are a mouse. And remember, the trap was not running after the mouse, it was the mouse himself who entered the trap. So what are you telling your friend?"

But this story is old. Now traps have wheels, dry batteries - they run. Once they see a mouse anywhere ... even if they smell a mouse, they run. They don't wait for the mouse to come. So it is better, Vimal: become enlightened, be a Gautam Buddha, sit under a bodhi tree with closed eyes.

Only then can you hope ...

But keep your eyes closed, because there are stories in the scriptures that ladies from heaven come to distract the people who are becoming a threat to the king of the gods. His throne starts wavering when somebody becomes enlightened - that means a competitor is coming ... fresh. The man there on the golden throne may be very old and this new man is coming fresh, young; there is every danger .... To avoid the danger, they send ladies from heaven, who dance around the person who is becoming enlightened - naked; they don't care about police commissioners!

I have nothing to do with the PURANAS. In the Hindu PURANAS - which the police commissioner should be respectful of - they dance, they seduce. So perhaps the idea of wheels on mousetraps is not new, it is as ancient as the Hindu PURANAS. They are the most ancient scriptures in the world.

They sent not only ditches from earth, but ditches from heaven also to destroy your enlightenment.

And once they have destroyed your enlightenment, they disappear; then they leave you here for the earthly ditches to take care of you. So be aware!

Gautam Buddha has strict instructions for his followers: "Never look more than four feet ahead, so at the most you can see the feet of the woman, that"s all - don't go more than that. And run away - don't talk to a woman ...." Clear-cut instructions: "Don't touch a woman, don't sit in a place where a woman has been sitting. At least for ten minutes leave that space empty, because for ten minutes it remains vibrating."

And I am not saying anything of my own, I am simply quoting things within quotation marks. And not one scripture - Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist, all three religions ... thousands of scriptures with the same idea. There must be some truth in it, and the truth is that those people were trying to become enlightened with a repressed sexuality.

There is no heaven and no ladies are coming from there and no old guy is sitting there on a golden throne who becomes afraid; these ladies are coming from repressed sexuality. The more silent you become, the more vulnerable to your own unconscious - you can become a victim. Your unconscious can create all kinds of hallucinations, and those hallucinations can destroy your peace, your silence, your feeling that you are coming to the peak of your realization. Suddenly you fall with a thud on the ground, flat. You look all around: there are no ladies, they have gone. There were no ladies before either; it was just your repressed psychology projecting.

So don't repress and try to become enlightened, but still keep your eyes closed as far as possible.

Don't take any chances. It is better to be fully cautious; otherwise you may fall again into trouble.

That is one way to get out of trouble. The other way is to understand the woman. Be human. She is human; some bridge is possible - it is not impossible. And just making the bridge is a great experience, just coming to a state of harmony where there was conflict before is a great realization.

My preference will be for the second, and if you become enlightened with this harmony, then no woman or man can disturb your enlightenment.

I don't consider those seers who were seduced by their fantasies worthy of being called seers. They were perfectly ready to be seduced by their own repressed sexuality, and they have created all these beautiful stories to console themselves: it is not their fault, it is God from heaven who sends beautiful women.

Strange, you are searching for God, and God is trying to keep you away; you are a devotee of God, and God is sending troubles for you as a reward. You have renounced your wife, your children, your family, but God is not satisfied - he is sending more beautiful women. He does not want many more people to become enlightened it seems; he seems to be against enlightenment. This cannot be so.

God should be - if there is any God - immensely happy when somebody becomes enlightened, because he becomes the argument to the world proving the existence of God.

So it is good, Vimal, for you to try to understand the woman; create a bridge between yourself and her. Learn patience and learn humanness, and see that humanity is frail, is defective. Just as it is defective in the other person, it is defective in you. Perhaps you cannot see your defects and your woman cannot see her own defects - she sees your defects, you see her defects. That is the whole problem: not only yours, but of everyone who has a woman to live with; they are both capable of seeing each others" defects.

Just the other day, Anando brought me a piece of news. In the Soviet Union, one woman who was a crane driver struck an electric pole with her crane, and got such a great electric shock the doctors declared her dead. According to their old tradition, she was waiting two days to be buried. But before burying her, one of the doctors who was taking care wanted to do an autopsy. And when he cut some part of her body, blood came out of it. He could not believe it: she was alive!

She came back to consciousness, but with a strange phenomenon which has never happened before: her eyes had become x-ray eyes. Now she can take your x-ray photograph. She is being used in a hospital: the patient simply stands before her and she can see the whole skeleton. She can find where the disease is, where the problem is, where the fracture is, where the cancer is, where the operation is needed. But she is suffering from immense migraine, because there is so much electricity in the head that her eyes ... and she cannot see anything other than skeletons all around.

Of course, Anando has brought the news because of her own ghost - afraid that "I am troubled by only one ghost." What about this woman who will be seeing the doctors, the nurses, then everybody in the street ...? If she is moving, she will see only skeletons moving all around.

But I had a thought, that this is a very good idea: somehow, some way should be found that every woman can have x-ray eyes, so she can see into Vimal, where the defects are. In fact, they don't need x-ray eyes, they see with ordinary eyes every defect. Not only do they see it, they exaggerate it as much as they can. Being with a woman is a discipline, it is a religious austerity.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.