The flower of discipleship

Question 1:

The sense of distance with our own body can happen both ways: either by becoming aware, alert, or by falling deep in unconsciousness. While you are unconscious the distance will not be recognized, but when you are becoming conscious, for a slight moment you will be able to see the distance - that you are one thing and the body is something else. In alertness it is more clear, but the phenomenon is the same.

In many aboriginal tribes the mythology is that in the dream the soul leaves the body and travels.

All that you see in the dream is not dream but a reality. In aboriginal tribes where that mythology is prevalent, nobody is awakened from sleep because if you wake up the person and he is not at home - he may be far away, traveling in a dream - you can kill him. And it has happened many times that by some accident the man was awakened suddenly and he died, but that is simply out of a deep auto-conditioning.

In the dream you don't go anywhere; otherwise it would be happening all over the world, not only in a certain tribe where the belief is ingrained. You can wake up anybody; that does not mean he will die. But in those particular tribes - in India there are a few tribes and in other countries in the Far East - they are very respectful when a person is asleep because he may be visiting faraway places.

No noise is made, no disturbance, so the person can wake up on his own when he returns. If he is not back yet and you wake him up, you have broken the thread that joins him with his soul. In those tribes, it happens.

This is something very essential to be understood: it is a vicious circle. If you believe in something, it happens. Then you believe it more, then it happens more, and so on and so forth. The wheel goes on deepening into your being.

These tribes which have that kind of myth also think that whatever you do in a dream is real. For example, if you have slapped somebody in the dream then the first thing to do in the morning is to ask the elders of the tribe, "What should I do? In the dream I have slapped somebody." And they prescribe the apology: "Take sweets, fruits to the person and ask his forgiveness." And because of such simplicity, they rarely dream. It is very rare for people in those tribes to dream. Their sleep is a solid block of silence.

This is significant in reference to Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalysis. Those tribes have been doing psychoanalysis for centuries. You have slapped somebody in the dream, and in the day you go to apologize, to be forgiven. This is a deep psychoanalysis. You are not just relating a dream to that psychoanalyst, you are actually living it again - and not only living it, you are trying to clean yourself of it.

Those tribes don't collect rubbish. They fall asleep without any trouble, they sleep very deeply, and rarely it happens that somebody says he had a dream.

But the idea of the soul moving out of the body is not only in these aboriginal beliefs. Many people of different cultures have suddenly felt it happening to them for no reason at all. They fall asleep and they suddenly see themselves rising out of the body, moving, doing things. And in the morning they find that they have actually done them, but they had not left the bed as far as the body is concerned.

So there are many memoirs about out-of-body experiences, and it is becoming more and more a fact that man can move out of the body. It is dangerous, but if it happens in awareness, on its own, it is harmless; in fact it is infinitely fulfilling, a tremendous release from a prison. The feeling that you are beyond the body will help you in disease, in sickness, in death. Nothing will cause misery to you.

But sometimes it can happen to a few people waking up in the morning; it all depends on the speed of waking up. A few people wake up very slowly - between the sleeping and the waking state they take time - so they will never feel this thing. Their pace is such that they will wake very slowly, so by the time they are waking up the sleep is almost gone. But a few people wake up abruptly, and that must be the case with you; your waking up is abrupt. Nothing is wrong in it, but then you will feel a sudden change because of the two different states. In sleep you are in one state, in wakefulness you are in a different state.

Abrupt awakening will give you the sense for a moment that the body is separate and you are entering into it. Enjoy that moment, prolong that moment, enjoy it in every detail. Watch everything that is happening, and that will become a kind of meditation to you. It will help if you are also trying to witness when you go to sleep. It will be easier to witness.

This abrupt awakening is rare. Otherwise everything is very slow. So the two states are so mixed - one grows and one lessens - that you cannot see the distinction. The abrupt awakening happens only if in your past life you died abruptly - that means you were murdered - and that experience has left a deep stigma. It can be used. There is no need to be worried about it: what happened in your past life does not matter. We have to use everything for the best. But abrupt awakening, in my experience, is rare because very few people are murdered.

For other people dying is a slow process; slowly, slowly, slowly they lose consciousness, go into unconsciousness, and then death happens. But if somebody is murdered, then there is no time for a slow process. He is awake - fully awake - and he leaves the body.

And there are related phenomena. If a person is murdered, he leaves the body abruptly - like when your house is on fire you jump out of the window. Within seconds he will be entering into another womb, but the experience of being murdered has been such an intense experience that you cannot erase it within a few seconds. The person will enter into the mother's womb just the way you are describing slipping into some new embodiment. And the same thing is being repeated every morning.

If you just try silent awareness while going to sleep, the same experience will be felt again. But most probably sleep comes slowly, so you don't have the time to see the distance. But the distance is a reality whether you see it or not. It is good to see it. It is good to make it bigger.

So first you can make the distance from the body a very solid reality. Then you can make the distance from the mind... which is possible only through meditation. In this experience you are not feeling distinct from the mind, the distance is only from the body. It is a good step, a good beginning; one third of the process is achieved. It is something good to begin with; in the same way look at the mind as distinct, and finally look at your feelings and heart as distinct.

Ultimately we have to find one point in ourselves from which we cannot in any way feel distinct because we are it. There are layers just like an onion; you peel one layer and there is another layer.

You peel that layer and there is another. Go on peeling the onion. In Zen they have a saying: "Go on peeling the onion till only nothingness is left in your hands." And that nothingness is you.

This experience makes it certain that in the past life you must have been murdered or had some sudden accident - falling from a train, coming under a car - something that abruptly separated you from the body. And that's why that experience is happening. But use it now; it is tremendously valuable.

Question 2:

It is a complicated question. Three things. First, just my giving sannyas does not make one a disciple; it simply shows his intention to become a disciple.

Secondly, you have to do everything that you can do to earn disciplehood - although you cannot earn it, it happens. But it can happen only if you have exhausted all your resources in earning it. So you cannot drop the earning part. If you drop the earning part, the happening will never be possible.

For the happening to happen, your ego should be so exhausted, so tired, so flat on the ground, that you are almost egoless - even for few seconds - and that will give enough time for the happening.

The flower of discipleship is something so unique, so beautiful, that those who have not found it have missed a treasure in their life. It is the most precious treasure, because with discipleship so much happens multi-dimensionally.

You are relaxed. For the first time you know what relaxation is, because it is now a part of the happening. It is not the American way of relaxation. There is a book in America titled YOU MUST RELAX. Now that must destroys everything. Nobody can manage it.

But in discipleship - because it is a happening - simultaneously many things will be triggered in you which are of a similar nature. Relaxation will happen. For the first time you will feel so light and without any tensions. Trust will happen for the first time without any reason. A deep "yes" to existence, whatever it brings... It may bring life, more life; it may bring death, but it doesn't matter.

As far as your yes is concerned, nothing matters; your yes is unconditional. It arises in you and fills your heart. Then you live an unworried, non-tense life without any goal, without any desire to achieve anything.

Love happens for the first time, a love which is not against hate. This love cannot be turned into hate. It is outside of the duality of the ordinary experiences of life. A compassion comes to you, a compassion even for things which you have always thought were dead. It is not a question of the object of compassion, it is a question of the subject full of compassion. For example, this light bulb is not bothered whether its light is falling on dead things or on living beings. It is unconcerned, it is just its nature. And love, when it is natural, never turns into hate. A great feeling comes when you have found it.

Discipleship is no ordinary experience. So remember neither can I make you a sannyasin nor can you make yourself a sannyasin. I can give you the direction, the incentive, and you have to work hard to exhaust yourself completely, not holding anything back, knowing perfectly well that this is not going to give you disciplehood. But in a way it is going to give... because when you have done everything that you can do, a silence descends on you, the effort drops. You are in a state of non- action, and in that state, in that moment, the blossoming of discipleship - suddenly so many flowers surround you, so much fragrance, so much light.

You will feel grateful to the master. He has not given it to you, but without him there would have been no direction. And you will feel thankful for all the efforts that you made because without them you would not have come to this sudden stop where time and space both stand still.

And once it has happened, once you have tasted it, then you know the way just like you know where your room is. Even in darkness you can reach it, even with closed eyes you can find it. The experience is so beautiful, so wholesome, that you would like to have it again and again.

Slowly slowly it will become so natural that outsiders cannot understand it. Just seeing the master it will be triggered, just seeing the picture of the master on your locket it may be triggered, or just remembering the master it may be triggered. Anything connected with the master, any word... You will not go through the whole process; the whole process will happen so fast that you will not even be able to take note of it. You will suddenly reach to disciplehood.

It is very difficult to explain to people why you have my picture on your beads. It is so esoteric they will not be able to understand it, but it is a key. It is very simple. Just holding it in your hand you can be transported immediately into that beautiful space.

Question 3:

The question is from Kirtan. There can be many reasons. One can be that your past lives have been in the Eastern hemisphere where it is thought to be graceful for a woman to keep her eyes down, not to have eye-to-eye contact. It is thought to be rude, a little violent. So in the East no woman has experienced eye-to-eye contact.

It is possible you have carried it from your past life. And it seems to me that it must be the case because you also carry the feeling that you are unworthy. That too is a teaching in the East for all women: to be a woman is to be unworthy, because from the body of the woman enlightenment is not possible. First she has to be born as a man and only then can she work towards it. And you have not been just in the East...

You may have been a nun, a Buddhist nun, a Jaina nun. They are not allowed to look more than four feet ahead of them. It looks strange even talking with them because they are not looking at you, they are looking four feet ahead on the ground. They are trying to listen to you, they may answer you, but they will not look at you. And the reason seems to be that a nun cannot have an intimate relationship with anybody.

Psychologists have discovered that if you look at somebody's eyes for just two to three seconds, it can be accepted; it is just casual. But if you look longer than that, then it is not casual; then you are trying to interfere in the very individuality of the other person. And if the other person happens to be a woman it is absolutely immoral. That is the Eastern way: that you should not look into the eyes too long.

You will be surprised to know that the Hindustani word for scoundrel is luchcha, and that will give you insight into the problem we are talking about. The word luchcha comes from lochan, and lochan means eyes. A luchcha is one who has been staring at you and has passed the casual limit. He is not a civilized man. He is behaving in an ugly way.

The Hindi, Hindustani, word for a critic is aalochak. That also comes from lochan. The critic has to look into things, not casually but as deeply as he can; only then can he find what is wrong or what is right. Criticism is possible only if you look deep enough. Aalochak and luchcha linguistically mean the same, but their use is different. Both come from staring.

Now the trouble with you is you were born in the West with an Eastern mind, and the new fashion in the West is to stare eye to eye. It is thought to be honest, sincere, and there is some truth in it. If the man with whom you are talking goes on looking sideways, never looks at you directly, he shows... it indicates with certainty that he's hiding something. He is afraid to be caught and he does not want to look into your eyes because eyes are very revealing. They reveal your whole being. If somebody knows how to read your eyes, just looking into your eyes he can know much; he need not ask anything.

In India, the Indian medicine called ayurveda takes it to the extreme. One of the great ayurvedic physicians, a man who has been the president of the All-India Ayurvedic Physicians, told me that if a physician cannot, just by looking into your eyes, at your tongue, feeling your pulse... if he cannot find what disease you are suffering from he is not worth calling a physician. He should move to the veterinary college.

To the allopathic physicians the ayurvedic doctors are similar to the veterinarian doctors. Animals cannot speak, so you have to figure out what sickness they have. Man can speak and you can ask him, but ayurvedic medicine says that even though man can speak, he cannot really say the real source of his disease. He may talk about symptoms - that he has a headache or something - but the causes have to be found by the physician. And they don't have any sophisticated means - just the pulse beat, looking into the eyes, looking at the tongue.

To them, the tongue gives all the information about the stomach. The eyes give them all the information about the psychology of the man. And the pulse gives them all the information about the body and its state. And that's enough.

You will be surprised: if you go to a real ayurvedic physician who has not got mixed up with allopathy he will not ask you what the problem is. He will simply take your pulse, look into your eyes, look at your tongue - that's all. And then he starts prescribing the medicines that you have to take.

I asked this man, "Just by looking into the eyes what can you find out about the mind?" and he said, "Almost everything that is needed for our purpose."

An innocent man, a truthful man, a sincere man, will have a different quality - a softness, a depth to his eyes. The superficial man will not have the depth; cunningness will show from his eyes.

So, Kirtan, if you cannot look directly into people's eyes, there is no need. You are not a physician and you don't need it. What is needed is to look within yourself, not into somebody else's eyes.

And you have a history of past lives in the East, where the woman has been brought up for centuries to be graceful. This is part of her grace - not to look into your eyes. In the East that is done only by prostitutes. The Eastern woman has a certain way of being humble, not aggressive. Looking into the eyes of other persons is aggression, it is not grace. My own experience is that the grace that the East has developed in women has made them more beautiful.

Sometimes I have wondered... When I have seen pictures of national beauties, Miss Universes, I wondered that something seems to be basically wrong. In the East they cannot be accepted as a Miss Universe. Their whole behavior is ugly: their faces don't show grace, their eyes don't show grace, and they are almost naked walking on the stage before thousands of people. That means they have degraded themselves to be just objects of sexual perversion. All these competitions are nothing but man's inventions for pornography.

In the East it is not possible. And the farther back you go, you will find more and more grace. Today in the modern cities of the East you will not even find that grace because they are almost westernized, trying to copy the West. The real Eastern beauty is still in the interior parts of those countries, where the West has not been very influential. Their gestures, their movements, their looking - everything has a certain superhuman quality to it.

So don't be worried about it. Don't make it a problem; use it. Rather than looking into somebody else's eyes, look within yourself. That is where real insight is needed, deep insight is needed.

Question 4:

It is. That's why I don't care about the misrepresentation. I don't care about all the lies they go on spreading. And the masses believe any written word; they live on newspapers. Their minds are full of newspaper clippings, just files of old newspapers.

I am neither worried about them nor offended by them. In fact, what they are doing is absolutely expected. The real miracle is that my people - in spite of all this worldwide conspiracy of governments, politicians, journalists - can still recognize me. That's enough reward for me.

This conspiracy is also giving me recognition in a negative way. They cannot ignore me; that much is absolutely certain. Even countries I have never been to - and I may never be in - cannot ignore me. That is their way of recognition. I am grateful for it.

But my joy is those few people who love me and trust me. Even if the whole world is against me, it doesn't matter. Even one single sannyasin will be enough; in fact even that is not needed. I am alone enough unto myself, because what I am saying I am absolutely certain is the truth: this is the way for the new man to come, this is the way for humanity to be saved. There is not a single doubt in me.

It does not matter that it will take three hundred or five hundred years for people to recognize that they missed, that they could have learned much more from this man's insight. Rather than learning from those insights, they have been wasting my time in harassing me from country to country in every possible way, trying to create a false image so that the youth of the world cannot come under my influence.

But existence functions very mysteriously. The day they arrested me in Crete all the copies of the only book which is translated into Greek, THE HIDDEN HARMONY, were sold - just in one day. Not a single copy was available.

So they may be thinking they are doing harm, but truth is something you cannot harm. Whatever you do somehow turns out to be a nourishment for it.

Question 5:

It is true, and because you are with me, and so deeply with me that you are one with me, I can say that I am fighting alone against the whole world. You are not separate from me, you are part of me.

So although you are here it does not change my aloneness. You become part of it, you dissolve into it.

My effort was to emphasize the fact that the so-called intelligentsia is not a real intelligentsia. None of them have the courage to stand up against their governments, to say that they are doing absolutely criminal acts against a single individual who has done no harm to them.

On the contrary I feel that the thicker the world conspiracy becomes against me, the more the so-called intelligentsia seems to be happy - because I am a danger to them too. They are only knowledgeable. And I have been hammering knowledgeable people and telling them, "Be honest and accept that you are as ignorant as anybody else." Rather than protesting they seem to be happy.

And the so-called religious people seem to be happy rather than protesting, because I have been bringing to their notice that just to be a member of a religious organization does not mean that you are religious. Religiousness is something totally different - it is an individual growth, an individual realization. So they are also feeling happy.

All kinds of fanatics who think they have the truth and that only they have the truth - and except for shouting loudly they have no argument, no influence - are feeling happy.

When I was teaching, a young lady, very beautiful, graceful, came to my house and gave me some Christian propaganda literature. I looked through the titles and I said, "Can you stand up and take any one of these pamphlets in your hand and honestly say that what is written in it is your own experience?"

She became very angry, all grace was lost. She said, "I have been distributing this literature free of charge to people. Nobody has asked such a thing."

I said, "They all should have asked you, because if it is rubbish you have no right to throw rubbish in my house. And if it is not your experience, on what authority are you distributing this literature? Do you have the authority?"

She said, "I am spreading this literature on the authority of God, on the authority of Jesus Christ."

I said, "Now you are entering into nonsense. You cannot prove God. Can you give me any instance just here now of the proof of God? And you don't look like a follower of Jesus. You are in beautiful clothes, driving a beautiful car. You should be carrying a long wooden cross on your shoulders, and you should be doing at least a few miracles like Jesus did. Should I get some water so you can change it into wine?"

She was so angry she turned and, without saying a word, rushed to her car. And because of her anger, she tried too hard to start the car and it would not start. I went to her and I said, "You can ask God to help you to start the car. At least this much of a miracle he can do - any mechanic can do it.

Or come out and kneel down and pray to Jesus Christ while I start your car." I had to start her car.

She was fuming with anger.

I said, "I would love it if once in a while you would come back. I like the whole scene. You looked so graceful and so loving. As Jesus says, ?Be loving and be friendly; be loving even to your enemies.'

But within a minute you became an enemy and you forgot all love, you forgot all grace - so much so that you must have turned the key too much and the petrol overflowed and the car would not start.

Is this the Christian way? Reading your pamphlets should I also become like you? Please take your pamphlets back and give them to some other person who will throw them into a wastepaper basket.

I cannot do that."

Intellectuals, religious people, politicians, governments are recognizing... and they are so much afraid that nothing can be a greater reward to me. No single individual has ever made the whole world so afraid without doing any harm.

I am not a terrorist. I am not throwing bombs, not hijacking their planes. What can their fear be?

Perhaps I have touched their very root which is rotten; I have pressed their hurting nerve. They know they don't have any answers to me, and whenever they don't have any answers, then the gun is the answer. But they cannot even kill me. They are really in a dilemma - what to do with me?

They cannot kill me for the simple reason that if they kill me they will create a worldwide upheaval which will bring my people together, forgetting all their small problems. They will be one of the strongest communities of people. And those intellectuals, religious people, politicians will not be able to answer for it - the whole world will be asking. The same people who are against me will start feeling sympathetic, and they will ask why this has been done.

It is not a small thing that the American government should inform all its embassies that wherever I reach immediately approach the government, threaten the government that American help, American money, will be stopped if this man is allowed to stay.

But that is not a problem to me. I know I have my people, and all this antagonism and poison that is being spread by the governments will make my people closer to me, in a deep solidarity. All that they want is to isolate me somehow. That, too, they cannot do.

They were pressurizing the Indian government to allow me to make my commune there, but stop any foreign disciples and any foreign news media from reaching me. And that was the point at which I left India...

Now the Indian government is feeling embarrassed because in the parliament they have to give answers supported by reasonable arguments, evidence and proof. First, why should my disciples be stopped? And the minister concerned said, "No, we are not going to stop Osho's disciples. They can come just as anybody else can come to this country."

Then they asked, "Do you feel that among Osho's disciples there are agents of the FBI and other spies of governments, of foreign governments?" They had to deny it; otherwise they would have to give proof. They denied that there is anyone... there are no spies, no FBI, nothing. And then it was asked if they have any case against me and if I have not paid my income tax. The finance minister had to accept that I don't have any income so the question of income tax does not arise, and they don't have any case against me.

You will be surprised: I am being discussed in parliaments of countries where I have never been, even in countries where not a single sannyasin exists, as if I am the biggest world problem to them.

They are facing the nuclear third world war, but their worry is about me!

It is significant that they have recognized that if I am allowed to go on teaching, their rotten societies will start collapsing. And I am going to continue no matter what; they cannot prevent me. I will find my ways. And now more than ever I am going to sharpen every argument against them and expose every government that has been preventing me from reaching my own people.

And of course my people are with me. Once I make a declaration that now we are on the warpath and that in every country the sannyasins should go to the courts and start fighting the governments, we are going to create worldwide chaos. I am just waiting for the right moment. Once we have a settlement of our own, we are going to fight each and every single government that has been nasty.

And we are sure to win.

And you will be surprised that even attorneys... One topmost attorney from Germany has asked if I can give him my authority to fight the case, because it is absolutely against the constitution and he knows that that case will make his name international.

Another attorney, again a topmost attorney, from Spain, is just waiting for the signal. He wants to fight the government. He says, "There is nothing. I have looked in all the files of the government and there is nothing against you. All they are saying is nonsense without any proof, saying that you have avoided taxation." Now the Indian parliament itself will be a proof that I have not avoided any taxation in India or in America or anywhere else.

We are going to fight. It is going to be joyful. Just for a few days I am preventing them. Let us settle somewhere; otherwise it will become difficult - any country will become afraid that these people can go against their politicians, their government. So once we have settled we are going to fight all around the world. It is going to be a merry-go-round.