Clean the path, remove the rocks

Question 1:

Prem Ramarshi, the question you have asked is a little bit strange. Strange, because you say that the few times that you have allowed yourself to listen, you have felt such a transformation, an opening.

So listening is not something that you are not capable of. You can allow yourself to listen; you concede the fact, and still you are asking how to listen. It is as if you have eyes, you see everything - and still you ask how to see. It would have been better to phrase the question in another way; perhaps that"s what your intent was.

You have a misunderstanding that you allow it. If it is within your powers to allow yourself to listen to me, then the whole question is useless. The reality is that sometimes it happens that you listen. It is not your allowance, it is not within your hands; it is just a happening, not a doing. And whenever it happens, you suddenly find a great transformation, a great opening to existence and all its beauties.

Your misunderstanding lies in that you can do something, that you can force yourself to allow opening. That is not possible. In fact, that"s how you are preventing your being from opening.

You forget all about it, you simply enjoy ... sometimes listening, sometimes not listening. Listening will deepen by itself. It is not an art that you can learn; it is a knack that you have to wait to grow in you. More and more listening will be happening and more and more opening. All that you can do is something negative, not positive. What I mean by negative is: you can remove a few hindrances that don't let listening happen.

You cannot make yourself open by force.

But you can watch closely and see why sometimes you are ready and open and why sometimes you are closed. So whatever you find keeps you closing, you can remove that.

It is what all the great physicians of the world know: their medicine is not capable of bringing health to you. The power of healing is within you. All that they can do is to remove the hindrances so the power of healing starts flowing. You cannot force that healing power to flow, but you can certainly do something negatively to make the way, to clean the path, to remove the rocks.

And then wait, and wait with trust, because it has happened even without you doing any negative work.

So there is no reason why it will not be happening. The only thing that hinders it - and there are not many things that you have to remove - the only thing is a preoccupied mind. If you are too much preoccupied with something - it does not matter what it is - then you cannot be open. If you are not preoccupied, then there is nothing to prevent the opening. But almost everybody is preoccupied, although the objects of preoccupation are trivia. If you look at them attentively, you will have a good laugh at yourself, at what kind of nonsense goes on within you and creates a tremendous barrier for listening.

Hearing of course happens because you have your ears and they are functioning, but the poor ears cannot manage to listen - they are instruments only for hearing. If your unpreoccupied mind is behind the ears, then hearing becomes listening. And without listening there is no understanding.

So just watch what your preoccupations are and drop them.

Don't go directly to make some positive efforts, because that is not the way great things come to you. They always come when your doer is absent, and the preoccupied mind is also your doer.

Emptying the mind is possible. It is your doing; you can undo it. But listening is something beyond you, something far greater than you - you cannot manage it. You can simply allow yourself to be overwhelmed by it, to be flooded by it. But one thing you can certainly do: you can undo the preoccupation.

What are our preoccupations? What do we go on thinking, and why do we go on giving so much nourishment to thinking? What has it produced in the long life you have lived up to now? Is it not a sheer wastage of time? And it is standing there almost like a China wall.

All the religions, all the philosophies, all the cultures, all the civilizations have helped you to remain preoccupied. They have all changed you into deaf beings as far as listening is concerned; they don't want you to be people of understanding. They are afraid of your understanding, because in the light of your understanding all their fictions will disappear and they are living like parasites on those fictions. They want those fictions to remain in your mind as a reality.

For example, all religions have insisted on repressing sex. The moment you repress any natural instinct, it becomes your preoccupation. The repressed energy goes around your mind. Sex becomes cerebral; you think about it.

An old man had gone to the doctor. He was feeling very weak and it looked almost as if his story was coming to an end. The doctor said, "There is not much that I can do. I can only give you a suggestion: cut your sex life in half."

The old man said, "Okay, which half - thinking or talking?" Real sex had disappeared long before; it was now only thinking and talking.

All the religions have made your sex energy become transformed into thinking and talking - that has become your preoccupation. I am just giving you one instance - one of the most important. And there are many. Anything that has been prohibited, inhibited, anything that has been condemned, takes on a tremendous attraction and that attraction creates a preoccupation. You may be doing something but you are preoccupied.

I have seen people in temples - because in temples you have to leave your shoes outside - with their hands folded towards the statue of God, but they are looking at the door where they have left their shoes. They think they are praying to God, but anyone can see they are praying to the shoes. Their minds are preoccupied that somebody may take away the shoes. Just to avoid this, Mohammedans had to find a way: they take the shoes with them into the mosque. They have found a strategy - they put the shoes sole to sole and sit on them, so no fear of anybody ... otherwise the shoe remains so much in the mind that it is almost insulting to God.

You have to watch what your preoccupations are that create the wall - and you forget to listen.

Removing that wall is not difficult; just watching the futility of it is enough for its disappearance.

Sidney is visiting the psychiatrist. "Okay, Sidney," says the psychiatrist, "what"s this?" and he shows Sidney a triangle.

"That"s a keyhole," says Sidney, "and what"s going on behind there!"

The psychiatrist then shows Sidney a rectangle. "What"s this?" he asks.

"A motel window," says Sidney, "and what"s going on behind there!"

The psychiatrist shows Sidney a circle. "What"s this?" he asks.

"A porthole," replies Sidney. "And boy, oh boy," he continues, "what"s going on there!"

"Well," says the psychiatrist, "you certainly are sexually disturbed."

" I am sexually disturbed?" Sidney exclaims. "What about you? - showing me all those dirty pictures!"

A preoccupied mind goes on projecting its own preoccupation on everything. And because it is so full of its own thoughts, it cannot allow any listening.

You have known perfectly well, Ramarshi, that there have been times that listening has happened and you have seen the great transformation that it brings. But you have not watched closely that it has always been a happening, not a doing. Once you understand that something is a happening, all that is left for you is negative doing. You simply remove the obstacles, the hindrances that prevent the happening, that prevent the spontaneous reaching to you, that prevent the opening of your heart.

And remember, there is no technique to make the happening happen.

The happening simply means it is beyond you - it comes like a breeze. All that you can do is keep your windows and doors open - that is the negative part. Just by opening the windows it is not certain that the breeze will come immediately. The breeze is not just waiting by the side of the window, so that you open it and the breeze comes in ... but an open window is an invitation.

An open window is saying to the breeze, "I am ready; if you come you will be welcomed, you will not be sent back. I am available." Hence, just do the negative part and wait. Slowly, slowly the transformation goes so deep that preoccupation of the mind becomes impossible. When you can manage to have diamonds, naturally you will lose interest in stones. When you can have real roses come to you each moment, you will lose interest in plastic roses.

Nothing has to be done; it simply is the way things happen. Just get in contact with the higher, and the lower disappears. And to get in contact with the higher, you have only to make a passage for it to reach to you.

Existence is trying from everywhere to reach to you, but you are closed. Not a single window is open; no door is open. You have filled even small cracks in the wall out of fear, for the sake of security. This is not security, this is suicide.

Open all the doors, all the windows. Let the sun come in, let the wind come in, let the rain come in. Let existence enter into your being and give you a fresh life each moment. You can have such a joy, such immense ecstasy, without torturing yourself and becoming a saint, without making yourself uncomfortable doing all kinds of yoga gymnastics, which are nothing but contortions of your body.

You can be at ease, comfortable.

There is no need of fasting, there is no need of lying on a bed of thorns, there is no need of renouncing the world - these are all stupid things. If you want to become a saint, they are necessary - stupidity is the foundation of all your saintliness. But if you want to be a man of understanding, then nothing of all this is needed. All that is needed is: remove the obstacles, watch, and see when listening happens and when it does not happen; what is the difference in your mind? That difference has to be destroyed.

Everybody is capable of it, but everybody has fallen into the habit of being preoccupied, because the whole crowd is preoccupied. And you are brought up, unfortunately, by these people. Your upbringing by wrong people is the basic problem, and there seems to be no alternative.

Many times a few children have been found in the forests, raised by wolves. Just six or seven years ago, near Lucknow a child was found in the forest, raised by wolves. The child had been missing from a village for almost fourteen years. His parents had lost all hope, they could not figure out where the child had gone. A wolf had just taken the child. But the child was so beautiful and so innocent that even the wolf, out of love and compassion, rather than eating the child, started raising him. And a group of wolves, female wolves, were giving their milk to the child.

For fourteen years he was amongst the wolves ... and his life with them revealed many secrets.

When he was found he could not stand on two feet, because he had never known anybody to stand on two feet; he was running on all fours. That"s the impact of upbringing. Naturally, he could not speak a single word of any language, but he used the language of the wolves perfectly well. He used to run so fast ... no human being can run that fast; only wolves can do that. That showed many things that upbringing can do to a person.

He was kept in Lucknow hospital. First they tried all kinds of massages to get him up on two legs; it took six months for them to make him stand up. But still his running was so fast that they could not leave him without chains - he was still wanting to go back to the wolves in the forest. And then they started teaching him his name - they had given him the name Ram. It took almost one year for the poor boy to say "Ram", when asked "What is your name?" That was all the language he ever learned: the word Ram.

He remained for two years in the hospital and died. My own understanding is that he died because he was being forced to do things which he had become almost incapable of. His fourteen years"

training ... and fourteen years is the age when sex matures. And with the maturing of sex, biology stops any evolution. So those fourteen years are the most important for learning. Whatever you learn, you learn in those fourteen years. Even the man of eighty years may know much more, but that will be only in terms of quantity - the quality will remain of the fourteen-year-old.

That"s where biology has left off evolving - unless a person takes evolution in his own hands. And to me that is the religious endeavor: where biology ends, religion begins.

After the second world war, millions of soldiers around the world had to go through a psychological test for their mental age, and surprisingly enough they were all below fourteen years, as far as their mental age was concerned. Somebody was thirty, somebody was thirty-five, somebody was forty, somebody was fifty - that made no difference, their mental age was fourteen.

Up to fourteen, nature brings you to a stage; beyond that nature"s work is finished. If you take up the work in your own hands, you can start growing your mental age; otherwise only your body will grow old, the mind will remain retarded.

Unfortunately there is no way right now for children to be raised so that from the very beginning meditation becomes an intrinsic part of them, silence becomes their natural experience, opening to existence becomes just natural. That"s my conception of a New Man - that he will be brought up from the very beginning to be in communion with nature and existence. He will not be inhibited in anything, he will not be suppressed in anything, because all inhibitions and suppressions create preoccupation - and those are the most dangerous things for meditation.

The moment you start sitting and preparing for meditation, suddenly you are amazed: so many thoughts simply attack you from all sides. Your whole mind becomes a whirlwind. Ordinarily it is silent, not that much disturbed. But whenever you want to meditate, your mind immediately takes it as a challenge, because meditation is a death of the mind. Mind creates every disturbance, so that meditation cannot happen. Listening silently is a meditation. But even though our upbringing has been wrong, we are intelligent enough to remove obstructions.

Don't repress any natural instinct.

Don't go against nature.

Whatever you want to do, do it even if the whole world is against it. Whatever you want to be, be, without caring about consequences, and you will not be preoccupied - you will have taken the very roots of preoccupation away.

I have heard about a very great poet. His golden jubilee was being celebrated. Everybody was drinking and dancing and singing and rejoicing. Then suddenly they became aware that the poet was not there in the hall. So his closest friend, an attorney, went out to look for him in the garden and found him sitting under a tree, in the darkness, very sad. The attorney said, "This is not right; your guests are rejoicing, dancing, singing. They are celebrating your golden jubilee and you are sitting here outside. It will be good if you come in and join your friends. They have come from far away."

The poet said, "It is all because of you! Do you remember twenty-five years ago that I came to you to ask, "If I murder my wife what will happen? What will be the consequence?" And you prevented me by saying, "Never do such a thing! Otherwise at the most I can keep you from getting a death sentence, but still you will have to go to jail for at least twenty-five years.""

The attorney said, "Yes, I remember that evening. But what does that have to do with now?"

The poet said, "Remember, today the twenty-five years are finished. If I had not listened to you, I would have been a free man. I would have come out of jail. I am so angry that I feel like killing you!

You are the person who has kept me in prison my whole life!"

People go on following others" advice. Live according to your own light and then whatever happens, you will find a peace, a contentment, a fulfillment. You may not be a great success in the world, you may not be very famous, but you will be yourself.

And the person who is himself is naturally meditative, naturally silent; he has no preoccupations, because he has not left anything that he wanted to do undone; he has never left anything that he wanted to do incomplete; he has never repressed any desire, any instinct, any natural longing. He has nothing to be preoccupied with.

So remove all your preoccupations - this is the negative work - and then the meditation, the silence, the opening will be the rewards coming to you on their own.

Question 2:

Kendra, it is very easy for you to ask a question; it is not that easy for me to answer it - for the simple reason that if I truthfully answer it, it will hurt you very much, and I cannot answer otherwise.

It is not only you - many people ask questions in beautiful language but go on leaving out the real facts: facts that they are perfectly aware of, facts which are creating the trouble. And unless you are able to understand those facts, you cannot get out of the darkness and the emptiness that you are feeling.

I have been watching you: you fall in love with bank balances, not with men. Your love for money is too much. That is creating your whole problem. You love shopping just like any other ordinary woman. You are extravagant and you don't have the money for it. So naturally you have to find someone who can provide that money for you.

You were with John, and John sincerely loved you. But when you found Emerson, who is one of the richest men in America, you immediately dropped John as if he did not exist at all. You started hanging around Emerson. You had brought Emerson here in the hope that he will remain here, but he proved to be very much a coward. And this was not his number, he has no desire or any longing for search. He is of the same type of mind as you are.

Emerson is Hasya"s son. When Hasya and her husband parted, Hasya did not take any money from her husband; it was simply against her dignity. And I respect a woman who is ready to part from the husband, not bothering about his money. Ordinarily the son would have come with the mother, but seeing that the father is going to have all the money and the mother is leaving without any money, he remained with the father. He also looks at the bank balance.

Emerson could not remain here. It was not possible; he has to be close to his father because all the money is there. Once his father is gone from the world, Emerson will emerge as one of the most super-rich persons in America. Already he is richer than you can conceive.

John is a courageous man. He has risked all his money for my work; he has not even bothered about the future, about his own security. Now that Emerson is gone, you are again trying to catch hold of John, but now it cannot be the same - John has eyes too. He has seen what your preferences are.

That"s what is creating all the emptiness and all the darkness. It has nothing to do with spirituality.

But anybody listening to your question will think it is a great spiritual question - that you are full of tears and the tears are not stopping. It will be good for everyone to tell his whole story because I cannot go on digging out your stories.

Now settle with someone, not with somebody"s bank balance. Change your whole idea - love is not a financial affair. You love money; that is not going to help you. Love somebody, a living human being, not bothering about the money - and all your emptiness and tears will disappear. If they don't disappear then ask me again, but don't torture John anymore. Even when you were with John he was not aware. But I was aware because you both were living in the same house with me in Uruguay. I could see that your love was not authentic, was not sincere, was not human. And you were deceiving John ... but I simply waited because these kinds of things don't go on for long. Soon you found a far richer man than John.

If you are waiting for somebody rich, then don't make much fuss, just wait; somebody will be on the way. But then you will always be pretending to love. And shopping is not a thing that is of any importance. What fulfills the heart and takes away the emptiness of the heart is the fullness of love.

You can love a beggar and be absolutely fulfilled, and you may love an emperor and still remain empty.

Money cannot do any transformation in your being.

So whenever you ask questions be very clear and very sincere. Write down the actual facts, because it is not possible for me to know about everybody"s actual facts. I can answer your question without knowing the actual facts and my answer will not be of any use.

You are intelligent, you are capable of love, but you are spoiled. Because you are intelligent and you are capable of love, you can easily catch hold of somebody who has money. If that remains your goal for your whole life you will suffer very badly, because youth is momentary. Soon that will be gone. And as your youth is gone, your capacity to catch rich fish will become less and less, and your emptiness will become more and more deep.

I am happy that John is not being caught again in your net for two reasons: for John"s sake and for your sake - because this is the only way you will come to your senses.

The whole situation of your life is making you a pessimist, only looking at the dark side of things.

Right now you cannot get hold of somebody who has enough money to spend uselessly .... This is against your dignity, it is a kind of prostitution: if you fall in love with the money of a man, and the man is secondary and the money is primary, it is prostitution, it is not love. It will drive you deeper and deeper into pessimism and dark nights. And here with me at least, you have to learn to see facts as facts, because then we can deal with them, dissolve them, change them.

Don't live in fictions.

Just the other day I was reading the definition of a pessimist. Pessimists are not born. Pessimism is a disciplined habit; you go on doing wrong things again and again and the ultimate result is a pessimist. The definition I was reading was:

A pessimist is one who feels bad when he feels good, because he is afraid he will feel worse when he feels better.

He is the kind of guy who won"t pick a four-leaf clover for fear he will be bitten by a rattlesnake.

He wears a belt along with his suspenders and is never happy unless he is miserable.

He even keeps his fingers crossed when he says good morning and complains about the noise when opportunity knocks.

You are still so young that you can avoid becoming a pessimist. Become a realist and see eye to eye within yourself: what you have been doing may look clever to you but it is simply cunning. And cunningness is destructive of intelligence, it is not cleverness.

There is still time, you are so young and you can change your path. And this time fall in love with a man without bothering about his bank balance. Love itself is the greatest treasure in the world.

Question 3:

Eva, what the Sufis say is not what you have understood. They certainly say that every person has a purpose in life. Their meaning is that every person has a unique individuality, unique function, a unique place in existence, irreplaceable. And they say you need to find out what that purpose is.

The emphasis is not exactly to find out what that purpose is; the emphasis is first to find out who you are.

The moment you understand yourself, you will understand the purpose also, without any effort.

Understanding your unique individuality will give you an insight into your purpose in life, but you cannot find the purpose directly without finding yourself. The purpose is secondary; you are basic.

Hence, I never say find out the purpose, I say:

Know thyself.

Be thyself.

These two sentences are enough for your whole life"s philosophy. Everything else will follow on its own accord.

You are asking, "This question keeps coming up for me now that I am not in a commune any longer.

There it did not matter; the important thing was to be with you. Does it matter what work I do?"

You are again getting confused. The purpose of your life is not the work that you do; you can do anything. By purpose I don't mean your work. You can be a shoemaker, you can be a carpenter, you can be a dancer, you can be a musician - that does not matter. Whatever gives you bliss, whatever gives you peace, whatever brings more awareness to you, whatever makes your life a life of gratitude ... any work will do.

The work is not important but what happens within you, doing the work, that is the decisive point. If it brings light in your being, if it brings a deep fulfillment, if it makes you more loving and more joyous, then it is absolutely irrelevant what you are doing; do it and do it totally. The more totally you do it, the more intelligence you bring in doing it, the more your individuality will become authentic, the more your potential will become actual, the more you will find you are coming closer to your destiny, to your home.

Eleven-year-old Lucy was walking down the village street leading a cow by a rope. She met the vicar who said, "Little girl, what are you doing with that cow?"

"Please Sir," said Lucy, "it is my father"s cow and I am taking her to the bull."

"Disgusting," said the parson, "can"t your father do that?"

"No," said Lucy, "it has to be the bull."

Everybody has his own purpose, that"s right, but to find your purpose is impossible without finding yourself. And the moment you find yourself, simultaneously you will find your purpose. So there is no need to be concerned with the purpose. The whole concern should be knowing yourself, and the way to know yourself is meditation.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.