The art of remembering who you are

Question 1:

There is no end to this pilgrimage, there is only the beginning.

It is a very profound question.

Gautam Buddha is reported to have said "The world never begins, but it ends. Enlightenment begins, but it never ends. Ignorance has no beginning, but it has an end. Awareness has only a beginning, but no end."

So it is absolutely correct that you cannot see any end, you can only see the beginning. It is not my fault, it is not your fault; it is how things are.

In ordinary life, in the mundane life, everything is limited; it has a boundary to it. In the spiritual realm, no experience has any boundary; it is oceanic. It simply goes on and on, you never come to a point where you can say, "Now I have arrived." You are always arriving and always arriving, but you never arrive - because that will be nothing but death. If the dimension of spiritual growth comes to an end, that will be a death and nothing else - because there will be no more possibilities opening, no more doors opening, no more flowers blossoming. All has happened. At that point everything is past, and there is no future.

That's what the meaning of "the end" is - when everything is past and there is no future.

The very pilgrimage with me begins by dropping the past.

The more you are unburdened of the past, the bigger your future becomes. When there is no past left, no psychological hang-up, there is an infinity confronting you - growth unbounded, a challenge forever. The more you enter into it, the lovelier it becomes.

The more you have traveled the path - the goal does not come closer, but you are more peaceful, more silent, more rejoicing. Your life goes on every moment changing into a more blissful existence; it becomes a benediction - not only to you, but to the whole existence. But there is no end to it, the pilgrimage is endless. It is only for those who are not goal seekers.

The goal seekers are mediocre people. They have a certain goal and they reach; they become the president of a country, they have arrived; they wanted so much money and they have found it. But have you seen the misery of the goal seekers? When they have found the goal, have they found anything, really?

By finding the goal they have simply found that they have been fools, that they have been running after shadows. Now somebody is president, somebody is an emperor, but so what? It is the same man, perhaps worse - because the journey that he has to make to become an emperor is full of violence, corruption, treachery, cunningness. He can do anything - but he wants to become the emperor. He can sell his own soul - he really sells his own soul - to sit on a throne but a soulless man.

Gautam Buddha was born as a prince, and he was the only son of his father. And just before he was going to be enthroned, he escaped. The father was old and he wanted to retire. And he had a beautiful, young, intelligent, well-educated man in Gautama. He was mature enough - he was twenty-nine - and the father wanted him to take charge of the kingdom.

In fact, that was one of the reasons why he escaped from the kingdom, because he had seen his father's empty life - riches all around and poverty inside. He had everything that was available in those days and he had no peace, he had no love, he had no compassion. He had never understood what is beauty, what is poetry, what is music; there was no time for such things. He was constantly fighting against other kingdoms. His whole life had been the life of a warrior - and what had he gained? He had simply lost his whole life in futile wars.

He had never enjoyed a blissful night with the stars. He had a beautiful garden, but nobody had seen him in the garden. The roses blossomed but not for him; he had no eye for it.

Gautama had seen the emptiness of a great emperor, and he was intelligent enough not to repeat the same stupid circle again. He escaped out of the kingdom.

His father searched all over the kingdom; Gautama knew that he would search ferociously. His father's whole army was all over the kingdom; that's why he left the kingdom to go to another kingdom. But the people had seen his chariot moving on the road in that direction, crossing the boundary line, the checkpost. So the father informed the emperor of the neighboring kingdom, who was his friend, that "My son has escaped into your kingdom. Try to find him." And the neighboring king was overjoyed, because he was hoping that Gautama could be persuaded to marry his daughter. He had only one daughter, no son, and he wanted a capable man who could manage two kingdoms together. Both kingdoms were big kingdoms.

He found Gautama in the forest in a cave. He knew Gautama, Gautama knew him. And he said, "What kind of madness is this? My palace is there; if you don't want to live with your father you could have come to me. This kingdom is as much yours as your own kingdom - and this is bigger than your kingdom. And you are just as much a son to me as to your father. We are great friends, you know it. Don't be foolish; just come with me and sit in the chariot. If you don't want to go back home, you will not be forced."

Gautama said, "I have not left one kingdom to get another kingdom. I have not left the palace to get a bigger palace - because I know, if in that small kingdom and small palace there was so much emptiness, in your bigger kingdom and bigger palace there must be a much bigger emptiness, futileness.

"I can see it in your eyes. Watching my own father's eyes, I have become almost an expert; I can see a person's eyes and can say whether he has anything inside, or is just a poor man. He may be an emperor... to me, you are just a beggar, just like my father. You certainly are friends. And don't disturb me. I am in search of something which cannot be taken away from me, which even death cannot destroy. I am in search of something which can bring a kingdom into my heart.

"I am not a seeker for anything that is outside me. Peace has to be within me, silence has to be within me, love has to be within me, compassion has to be within me, a sense of beauty has to be within me. Everything that is valuable is inner. I am in search of myself. Just be kind enough and don't disturb me; otherwise, I will have to move to another kingdom."

In the world there are goals.

In the spiritual realm there are no goals.

It is a pure journey, leading nowhere.

Note down the word nowhere. It is a very beautiful word.

There was an atheist - and atheists are talking about God more than theists. This is strange...

twenty-four hours a day they are arguing against God. He was such a fanatic atheist that even in his office, in big, capital letters on the wall, he had written "God is nowhere" - so anybody entering into his office had first to read "God is nowhere". Naturally that became the subject to discuss first; the man would forget for what he had come.

One day the atheist was sitting with his small child who was learning to read. He could read small words. 'God' was possible for him to read - it was not that big a word - but 'nowhere' is so big....

The small boy read, "God is now here" - he broke the word nowhere into now here. 'Nowhere' was too big, but he could manage it in two parts.

But his father - who had written it, who had seen it for years - had never been aware that 'nowhere' can also be 'now here'. A sudden, shocking awakening - and he started thinking about it: "Perhaps the child is right. All my arguments are only arguments, I have no solid proof of God's non-existence.

I have not explored the whole existence so that I can say he is nowhere. That statement is stupid.

That statement can be made only by a person who has been everywhere, and has found that God is not anywhere." Thinking about it, he thought, "What to say about this whole universe? I have not even been into myself, and I am talking about 'everywhere'. Perhaps I should start my journey again, from now and from here."

The pilgrimage you are starting begins now, begins here; it ends never, ends nowhere - because it is always now and it is always here. In existence, only now exists and only here exists.

In language there is there... then - but not in existence. In existence everything is here, and everything is now. And now and here are not separate; they are two aspects of one reality.

This is one of the most important discoveries of modern physics: that space and time are not two things. Space means here, time means now.

Albert Einstein, who worked for his whole life on the problem of time and space, finally dropped the two words 'time' and 'space'. He created a new word, spaciotime, because all his research led him to one conclusion - that time and space are not two things, they are one. You cannot divide now from here.

And the journey will move from one now to another now, from one here to another here, but it is not going to come to an end. It is an eternal pilgrimage.

And one should rejoice that life is eternal, that we are part of eternity, that there is no death, that there is no end, that there is no full-point....

Question 2:

Latifa, you have asked two questions in one question.

Life can be a fulfillment without me - because I can be within you, why should I be without?

But life cannot be fulfilled without enlightenment: that consolation I cannot give to you. Fulfillment and enlightenment mean the same thing.

There is no problem in being enlightened. It is the easiest thing in existence, for the simple reason that it is your nature.

You are born enlightened; you just have to be helped to remember it. It is not an achievement, it is only a remembrance.

An old king was puzzled: how to choose his successor? He had a son, but just like any father he could not believe that his son was capable of doing anything. He asked his master what to do.

The master said, "The question is not about your son, the question is about you - how can you be convinced that he is capable? You do one thing: renounce him, throw him out of the kingdom and tell him, 'I have nothing to do with you.'"

The father said, "This seems to be too hard on the poor boy."

The master said, "If you want to follow my idea, just do it."

The son was thrown out of the kingdom and told that he was no longer the prince, he had to live his life on his own. He became a beggar - because this is a problem: if somebody is born a king and somehow he loses his kingdom, the only profession that is available for him is to be a beggar.

He cannot do anything. He knows no craft, he knows no art. This can give you something of a very deep insight - that inside kings are beggars. Once their outside kingdom is taken away, only the beggar is left. When the kingdom was there, the beggar was hidden, hidden from the sight of other people. But now that the kingdom was removed... the young man had no other way than to beg.

Years passed. He even forgot that once he used to be a prince. Years of begging - how can you remember? Remembrance needs a certain climate. Now, being a beggar and remembering that once you were a prince does not suit. The climate of the world of the beggar is not supportive to the remembrance; he completely forgot about it.

And there was no point in remembering; it was an unnecessary torture. You have to sleep on the street, you have to eat things that you never imagined that you would have to eat, you have to wear rags. You don't have even a shelter.

Just to survive was so difficult that even if he had remembered that once he was a prince, he himself would have thought, "I must be hallucinating. I cannot be a prince, it must be a dream. I must have dreamed, imagined; otherwise, what happened?" Because he had not committed any crime, he had not done anything to lose the kingdom, and the kingdom had disappeared. It was better to forget, because it was hurting, it was a wound. It was better that it heal.

And after many years, when he was standing before a poor hotel asking for a cup of tea, a golden chariot stopped on the road and the prime minister.... Seeing the golden chariot, the prince felt as if he had seen it before - "Must be an imagination. And this old man looks like a man I used to know, but he was not so old." But still he could not remember that he was a prince.

But the prime minister touched his feet, and at that very moment when the prime minister touched his feet, a cloud disappeared. All those years of begging became non-existent. He simply said, "Why have you come after so many years?" Even his voice was different - it was the voice of the prince, not of a beggar.

And the prime minister said, "The king is dying. He has called you back. The days of your test are over. The king wanted you to know the lowest possibility in human existence - to be a beggar; so that when you become a king you don't forget that the beggar is also human, that the beggar perhaps is a prince in disguise. And he wanted you to understand that just by being a king you do not become superior. You may have everything, but deep down you remain the beggar. Your test is over and the king is on his deathbed, and we have to reach quickly to the capital."

And the people in the hotel and in the neighborhood who had seen this young man as a beggar could not believe their eyes, because the beggar was completely transformed. His face was no longer that of a beggar - although he was still in rags, the expression of his face and eyes, the very style had suddenly changed. He was a king.

It is an ancient story. Ancient stories were not just for entertainment; they had a message. This story contains so much....

This story means that your enlightenment, your awakening, is not something that is going to happen from the outside. It is not something that you have to achieve, it is something that you are born with.

But you are born amongst beggars, and seeing beggars all around you have been imitating beggars.

Your being a beggar is an imitation. Your being enlightened is not an achievement, but only a remembrance.

The whole art of meditation is the art of remembering who you are.

Fulfillment cannot happen without knowing who you are. How can you be fulfilled if deep within you at the center is darkness, ignorance? If you don't know yourself, how can you be fulfilled? Before fulfillment, contentment, a basic requirement is to remember. And the miracle of remembering is that the moment you remember yourself, contentment and fulfillment come simultaneously - without any effort on your part. They are flowers of your enlightenment, of your remembrance.

You can live without me, that is very simple - because I can be within you. In fact, even when you see me as without, you are seeing me within yourself. Right now you are seeing me, Latifa, but what you are exactly seeing is an image which is within you. I may be here, I may not be here; it may be just a dream. You may wake up and you may see that I am gone.

And your love can allow me to be part of you. It is absolutely in your hands to open your doors for me to be your guest. Then the outer person is irrelevant.

But you cannot divide fulfillment and enlightenment into two things. They are one, and inseparable.

Fulfillment is simply a byproduct of enlightenment. And enlightenment is so easy.... But millions of people are trying to be fulfilled. They can never be fulfilled, because fulfillment is a byproduct. You cannot directly be fulfilled; it comes as a shadow of enlightenment.

So those who have been searching for enlightenment may not have thought about fulfillment; the moment they become enlightened suddenly they find utter fulfillment. And the people who are looking for fulfillment cannot find it. In money, in power, in politics, in relationships - they go on searching everywhere for fulfillment, and everywhere they come across frustration. Their whole life is nothing but a futile exercise. Although they are asking for fulfillment, they always get frustration because they have forgotten to understand a simple thing - that fulfillment is not directly approachable, it is a byproduct... a byproduct - you should not bother about it. You should work for the real, authentic experience; then the byproduct is always present.

But your question is significant, and it has a long history, as old as man himself. We have seen people like Gautam Buddha, so utterly fulfilled that you cannot think that anything more is needed.

Naturally a desire arises in you to be fulfilled like this man. You cannot see his enlightenment - that is the problem. You can see his fulfillment, you can see his silence, you can see his compassion; you can see his kindness, his lovingness. You can see his grace, his beauty, his integrity, his individuality.

Everything attracts you.

You would like to have such a beautiful personality. You would like to have the same light in your eyes, the same flame in your life, the same joy, but you don't know that all these are byproducts.

And if you start searching for them, you have gone on a wrong path: you will never find and you will be utterly frustrated. These things have happened to him because of his awareness, because of his becoming absolutely conscious. These are the flowers of his consciousness.

You see the flowers. And the flowers are attractive, the flowers have a fragrance, and you would like those flowers. But you don't see that those flowers get the juice from some hidden roots - and those hidden roots are in enlightenment.

The easiest way is to be enlightened first, and then everything else that you always wanted comes to you on its own accord.

Question 3:

Jayantibhai, you are getting greedy. You will get more sticks, but not according to your desire.

I cannot fulfill your greed. Sticks you will get - whenever the time is right and whenever I see that you need it. Greed is not a need.

You enjoyed, you saw things in a different light. Let that understanding go deeper in you; let it become your blood, your bones, your marrow. And wait, wait for more sticks.

Question 4:

You are with me; the longer you are with me, the more and more you start taking me for granted.

In other words, the longer you are with me the more and more you forget me.

I am available. There is no need to remember me.

It happened in the second world war that Adolf Hitler declared that on a certain day he was going to bomb the tower of London. And it was a surprising experience: Thousands of people who were born in London, who had lived their whole lives in London had passed by the tower millions of times but had always postponed - "The tower is there, we are here. Any day we can see it." And people from all over the world are going to London every day to see the tower. Those Londoners themselves rushed suddenly when they heard the tower was going to be bombed. There was such a big crowd that it was impossible for anybody to enter the tower, and everybody wanted to get in first.

English people are very much queue-lovers, but that day they forgot all about queues. It was such an urgency; it was not a bus stop where you could go on holding your umbrella and talking about the weather, standing in the queue and being a nice English gentleman. This was not a time to be nice, to be a gentleman. Everybody was being rowdy. Even professors, doctors, very cultured people, were behaving like rustics; they wanted to enter, to see, because tomorrow the tower would be gone.

Human mind is such that whatever is available, you become sleepy about it.

When the commune in America was destroyed by the fascist government there, America tried with all the countries other than the communist... so that no country should allow me to enter even as a tourist. This was unprecedented. I have never been to those countries; I have not committed any crime in their countries, against their law. Still, their parliaments passed orders that I could not be allowed in their countries.

Sannyasins were in a great chaos.

That's what I mean... the gap. I was available and they missed me, and now they wanted me and I was not available. They were in a state that just by being lazy, by being sleepy, they missed something that was within their reach. And now they don't know whether I will ever be available to them. A great desire to be with me.... Just the mind's pendulum moves this way - from one extreme to the other extreme.

They were with me for five years, and they had accepted it as fact that we were going to be together forever. They wanted to ask something; they postponed. They wanted to meet me; they postponed.

They wanted to see me; they postponed, postponed for small things - because the girlfriend was insisting to go to the lake, the boyfriend was interested to go to the disco. They postponed for small things. And now they were not even aware of where I was, because I was being harassed without any reason thrown out from one country to another.

I had not committed any crime, and in the middle of the night the police would come and they would say that I had to leave immediately. They also felt embarrassed, because they had no arrest warrant, they had no reason why to show to me. And those who were a little more human were not only surprised, but said, "This is the first time that orders have been given to us, without any reasons, that 'this man has to be put out of the country immediately; his presence in the country is dangerous to the country'."

And what was the danger? The danger was that the American government was threatening the country: If you don't throw this man out immediately, all the loans that we have given to you, you have to return immediately. And all the loans, which are billions of dollars for the coming two years, are cancelled right now. If you cannot repay the back loans, then your interest rate will be doubled from today.

Now, those countries could not manage: they could not pay the loans back, they could not pay double interest. They could not manage to give up the loans that they had agreed upon for the future two years, because all their two-year projects depended on those loans; their whole economy would collapse.

To one of the presidents, the American president said, "You can choose between this man and America." And the president of that country told me with tears in his eyes, "Osho, your coming has at least made us aware that we are not independent. Our independence is bogus; economically we are slaves, and against our will we have to deport you." And the American president was insisting that I should not be allowed to leave; I should be deported so that I cannot enter the country again - because I had one year's residency in that country. So my card for residency should be taken, and I should be deported.

And the president said, "We cannot understand how we can deport you. You have not committed any crime. And how can we take the permanent residency card, which has never been taken before.

Unless somebody commits heinous crimes - murders or rapes - that card cannot be taken. And we have told the American president that this is against our constitution, but they insist that it is not a question of constitution or law: 'You simply deport that man. And because he will not be able to enter into the country he cannot go to the court, so you need not be worried.'"

So sannyasins all over the world were in a strange gap. They wanted to meet me, and they had no idea where I was. They were looking all around; they were going to one country, to another country.

Hearing that I am in Spain, they will reach Spain, but by that time I have been deported from Spain; by the time they reach Greece I am deported from Greece.

It was important in the sense that it gave you many insights.

One: don't postpone; tomorrow does not exist.

And don't take me for granted, because tomorrow I may be shot dead. Because from very reliable sources in Washington - and not from one source, but from three different sources the same message has reached me - the American government is ready to give half a million dollars to any professional killer, to kill me.

This gap was important - that if I am not there, then whatever I have told you, the meditations that I have given to you, will be with you. If you want still to be with me, then meditation will be the only way. You will not be able to listen to me, but you will be able, in your silence, to feel me.

It created a chaos because the commune was so settled; nobody was thinking that the American government would prove so fanatically Christian that it would like simply to destroy it.

This is exactly how life is.

Remember, we are always in the hands of death, so don't postpone the essential.

Postpone the non-essential; the essential has to be done now.

It was good that you passed through the chaos. The commune was destroyed, but the movement has become stronger. Only the future will show it, that it was good. According to me, anything that happens ultimately turns out in favor of the good. Because the commune was no more there, sannyasins from all over the world dispersed to different countries, taking the fragrance, taking the message. Now small communes are springing up all around the world. It is good; instead of having one commune, having thousands of communes around the world is far better. It makes the whole world our commune - and a possibility of changing more people, transforming more people.

That commune was just an experiment which succeeded completely, so we now know it can succeed anywhere. It was simply putting a certain theoretical conception into practice, and we were absolutely successful in putting it into practice. And those five thousand people who participated in it are now capable of creating five thousand communes around the world without any difficulty.

Not a single sannyasin has been destroyed. On the contrary, thousands of new sannyasins have come into the movement. And for the first time thousands more heard, started thinking about it, reading about it. It became a world movement.

The American government is repenting, they have committed a mistake: they have made a small commune a worldwide phenomenon, a household name all over the world in all the languages, in each nook and corner. People started asking what it is. And people started asking why all the governments of the world and all the religions of the world should be against a single individual - "That man must have something; otherwise, there is no need for so many governments and so many religions to be against him."

Just the other day I received a message. One of America's very significant thinkers, a story writer and a novelist, has given an interview, and in the interview he said, "Osho has not been crucified because crucifixion is no longer in fashion, but the American government has done everything to crucify the man." He is a Christian himself, but he has said in his interview that "After Jesus Christ, this man is the most dangerous man."

America has not done any harm. They have tried in every way, but somehow truth cannot be harmed.

And this gap has strengthened sannyasins. Even without me, the movement will go on.

Question 5:

It is simple. Because you want to be in the management around me, in a powerful position, that's why you react.

You are not a humble person.

You are not here for meditation.

Here too, you are a power seeker.

It is so clear that if you cannot see it, then you must be utterly blind.

Some kind of management is necessary; it is functional. It is a small place. If one thousand people enter into this house then some kind of management will be needed, and anybody who will be managing will look as if he has power. But what power? It is simply functional, it is utilitarian. And you are reacting to it.

You can be put into management - others will be reacting to you then. Then everybody can be put into management; then whom are you going to manage? So just don't be stupid. The people who are managing are managing perfectly well, and they are managing humbly - nobody is arrogant, nobody is trying to dominate. But there are moments when they have to show you that a few things cannot be done.

What do you want?

I was in Athens. In my press conference there were forty police officers. Now I said, "Is it a police conference? With whom am I going to talk?" These were the people against whom I had to talk, and they had not allowed anybody else. Only police officers were there in the conference. And the press people....

If there is no management here, you will see all the CID's and all the police officers sitting here just wasting my time - because what I have to say is of no use to them. And they are wasting their time.

So somebody has to watch every face and see how many police officers are to be allowed. A few have to be allowed; they are here. Even without knowing, I can say who is a police officer, because he is not listening - he is looking here, he is looking there. What is he doing? He is not here at all.

So it is nothing, it is simply your ego.

Drop it.

It is nothing worth discussing; simply drop it.

Question 6:

This is from the same person.

Now, he is saying that he wants to come close to me without having any compromise. And he is also saying, "You never had a master."

Now, it is so clear: I never had a master because I never wanted to compromise. And I never went to ask any master, "How to come closer to you without compromising?" If you don't want to compromise, there is no necessity to come closer to me. Coming closer, you will have to compromise.

I never compromised, but I never had a master. So I have paid for it; I have struggled alone. If you don't want to make a compromise it is perfectly good, but then be ready to pay for it - you will have to struggle alone. You cannot have both things together.

Just to think of a master means you are ready to be a disciple, and the compromise has started. You will have to listen to the master. You will have to drop your stupid arguments, because no master has time. The master says, "Be silent." And if he wants you to be silent for two years, then be silent for two years. That's symbolic that you have accepted a master.

Al-Hillaj, one of the Sufi mystics, remembers that when he reached his master Junnaid, Junnaid simply made a gesture with his hand for him to sit down. He did not even use language; he did not say, "Sit down." Just a gesture: sit down. And for two years this was an everyday thing - Al-Hillaj would enter. The disciples would be there, and Junnaid would make his gesture, and Al-Hillaj would sit down.

After two years, Junnaid looked at him and smiled, and made the gesture to come closer, so Al-Hillaj could sit close to his feet.

Two years again passed, and Junnaid put his hand on his head, looked into his eyes and said, "The work is done. Al-Hillaj, you can go now. The teaching is over." He was talking to many other people all these six years, but to Al-Hillaj he never spoke a single word. These were the only words after six years. Al-Hillaj touched his feet... tears in his eyes, of gratitude.

He himself became a master in his own right, and his disciples used to ask him, "What transpired in those six years?"

He said, "It is a miracle. He killed my ego slowly slowly. When on the first day he simply gestured with his hand, I was angry. He was talking to others and he would not talk to me" - for two years!

But you cannot be angry for two years. He became sad - "How long is it going to be?" Anger, when it leaves you, leaves you in sadness; but how long can you be sad?

Day in, day out, one month, another month... sadness started turning into silence. And when it started turning into silence, that was the moment when the master smiled at him; that was a gesture that "you have moved rightly." In anger he could have stopped, not come again - why go to such a man; why compromise to such a man? In sadness he could have stopped - why unnecessarily suffer the whole day? And this man seems to be hard, made of stone. You are suffering in sadness and he will not even look at you.

But each master has his own way.

And when he smiled, then Al-Hillaj understood that his silence has been taken note of. He has been accepted. He was called closer.

You say you want to be close to me? I will behave exactly like Junnaid. If you have guts.... Al-Hillaj must have had guts. After four years Junnaid puts his hand on his head; six years... he looks into his eyes. That is the meeting of the master and the disciple. And looking into his eyes he can see - the transformation has happened. There is no need to say anything to this man. He is allowed to go and be a master in his own right. And Al-Hillaj Mansoor became a more famous master than Junnaid. He had the courage, the guts.

But if you choose not to compromise, that's perfectly good. I am absolutely happy about it.

But your question is stupid. When I think about your question, you are bound to compromise somewhere or other. You cannot be a master on your own.

Question 7:

My God!

And you know the police officers are here. Killing you is perfectly okay, but even without killing anybody I am thought to be the most dangerous man since Jesus Christ. And if I start killing people this way, publicly.... Come in private.