Treasures or dragons

Question 1:

Any experience that is spiritual cannot be unconscious; by its very nature it has to be part of the superconscious. Just as the unconscious collects all that is ugly, nightmarish, all that we don't want ourselves to know or others to know about, in the same way the superconscious also collects all that is beautiful, magnificent, spiritual.

As one passes from one life to another, neither does one remember the unconscious nor does one remember the superconscious. One comes only with the conscious part of the mind, and the journey starts again - although what has been experienced before is retained and will be helpful.

If your unconscious is too loaded, it will affect your conscious so that it repeats the same kind of ugly experiences that you wanted to avoid, but if your superconscious has a treasure of beautiful experiences it will attract the conscious so that it moves very easily towards the superconscious.

So in hypnosis it can happen: if your unconscious is less powerful than your superconscious, then in hypnosis you will go towards the superconscious and you will enter into those treasures. But they don't belong to the unconscious. When for the first time you see them you will think that you were unconscious of them. That is true: you were unconscious of them, but they were not part of the unconscious mind; they were part of the superconscious, but you were not aware of it.

All these six different sections of the mind - leaving aside the conscious mind, which is your day-to- day working mind - have a memory system of their own. In each life whatever you attain, or lose, becomes part of some memory system. If it is on the dark side, it goes towards the unconscious. If it is so dark that even the unconscious feels that it is too heavy for it, then it slips deeper towards the collective unconscious. But if the collective unconscious also feels that it is really the worst that can happen, then it slips into the cosmic unconscious, which is ready to take anything because it is just rocklike; it does not bother what it is.

The same happens on the light side, but most people don't get to the superconscious. Once in a while, if somebody has been working to develop his being and not just growing old but growing up, then a few things are treasured by the superconscious. But if the man goes on there will come a time when there will be things which can be treasured only on a higher level than the superconscious.

And that will be the memory system of the collective superconscious.

But there are few experiences which can be collected only by the cosmic superconscious, and in every life the way upward becomes narrower. Out of thousands perhaps one person may collect something in the superconscious; out of millions perhaps one person may collect something in the collective superconscious; out of billions maybe one person collects something in the cosmic superconscious.

As you are born, you are born into the conscious mind, which knows nothing about the treasures or dragons that you are carrying in the unconscious. But a little work and you will become aware.

If something is on the higher levels, then immediately your consciousness will become part of the superconscious, even for moments, in hypnosis.

I have worked on many people. Very few people have memories in the superconscious, and they are surprised when they do come to remember any, because they always thought, according to Western psychology, that everything that is repressed, unlived, is ugly and that it is in the unconscious. They are very puzzled because this cannot be repressed: one is so ecstatic about it that one would like the whole world to know about it, that it is true, that it happens. The question of repression does not arise.

But in the change from one life to another life, just so that you don't remember your past life, the mechanism is such that you remember nothing - not the unconscious or the superconscious, or beyond. You come with a clean conscious mind, so a new upbringing, a new teaching, a new conditioning starts.

If all these seven layers were remembered, the child would be in much difficulty - as if you are teaching the child seven languages simultaneously. He would be confused, utterly confused. So it is a natural protection against being confused and mad, to keep only a small part moving each time into new life, fresh, so the new life can bring you its own ideology, religion.

I remember one girl who lived just a hundred miles away from Jabalpur in Katni. Her parents were puzzled because she remembered that in her past life she had been a small daughter in a family in Jabalpur, and she remembered dying; she must have been nine or ten when she died, and now she was not more than five. I knew the family in Jabalpur about which she was talking. I had come to know them accidentally because they had a garage just close to my house, so whenever something was wrong with my car I used to go there.

And a hundred miles away, in Katni, I used to go often to speak to a small group of seekers. There they brought the girl to me. They said to me, "She remembers this. What should we do? - because she is very confused. She is continually telling us to take her to her parents, her brothers - and they live in Jabalpur. She remembers the name." When they told me the name I said, "Then don't be worried. I will call them, and if she can recognize them in a crowd then there will be some proof of her memory."

In the evening I was going to address a big meeting, nearabout twenty thousand people, so I phoned the family and told them the whole story, and I told them to come as disguised as possible. "Don't use the same clothes as you used to when your sister died." And they said that their sister had died when she was about ten.

The whole family came, and I told them, "You stand or sit in different places in the meeting, and let the girl find you." The girl found everyone - everyone except the people who were born after her, little children.

Those whom she had left in her past life she immediately recognized. "He is my brother." She gave his name, his qualities, and she knew the mother, the father, the sister, even the servant. The servant had left them and he was serving somewhere else. They had brought him just to see whether she recognized the servant or not. She immediately recognized him and she said, "He was so loving to me."

Her case became very famous. Many psychologists came to study her, but her parents were torn apart and she was torn apart. And now the new family - that means the past life's family - were also torn apart. They wanted the girl back. To whom should the girl belong? Where should she go? She wanted both families to live together. That was not possible because this time she had been born in a brahmin family and the last time she had been born in a lower class. They could not live together - just the Hindu caste system.

And anyway, it was not feasible: they had their businesses, services, in Jabalpur and the other family had their businesses and things in Katni. It was not feasible for them to live together, but she was not ready to let go of anyone. So I said, "You do one thing: sometimes she can go and live with the family there in Jabalpur; sometimes she can come and live with you, so both families... And it is not far away - just two hours by road - so it is not a difficult problem."

But it was difficult, because when she left one family she would cry and weep because she did not want to leave that family - yet she wanted to go to the other family. Seeing the misery of that girl I suggested, "Let me hypnotize her. It is some kind of freak thing. Something has gone wrong in nature; otherwise everybody would be in this state."

And this is only a question of two lives: if you remember four, five, six, seven lives, you will be in a mess. You won't know what to do and what not to do. Time makes no difference. If you have loved a woman in the past life, you will again find yourself loving her; but what will you do with the woman you are loving now? You love her too!

Seeing her agony the parents agreed. She needed seven sessions of deep hypnosis to forget her past life, and then she was okay and healthy.

So it is a natural system that you forget the past, but nothing is lost; somewhere it is treasured. That's why it can be remembered. You only forget, it is not dropped out of your existence. It is stored either in the unconscious... mostly in the unconscious, because most people don't experience something which has to be treasured in the superconscious. And any person who has a treasure in the cosmic superconscious is already ready for enlightenment. To go that high, to collect certain memories, means the person is ready to explode into the ultimate celebration.

So both are possible; you just have to look at the quality of the memory. If it is ecstatic, meditative, then rejoice in it: it is connecting you with past lives of meditation, where you stopped because of death. From there you can grow. Suddenly you have found a treasure to support you. But if it is only from the unconscious, then just become conscious and it will disappear.

Question 2:

There are a few things to be understood.

One is, lies are very comfortable - especially when you don't know the truth. Somebody says to you, "I love you." He may be lying, he may be lying not knowing that he is lying, because he has been saying the same thing to many people. He does not mean much, but to you, it touches your heart.

Now to know the truth may be disturbing. He may be lying; he may be unconscious, a compulsive liar. The truth may be that he has never loved. That seems to be the situation in the world, that people have never loved, they have only believed that they love; otherwise there could not be so much misery. Love would have removed all this misery.

Secondly, lies are easy. You don't have to seek and search and go on a long pilgrimage. You can invent them. You cannot invent truth, you can only discover it. And people are ordinarily choosing the shortcut. Why go the hard way? And the lie seems to be a shortcut - you cannot find a better shortcut. You can invent any lie at any moment.

But to discover the truth you have to risk your life. You have to go against the whole structure of lies around you. You have to become a lonely traveler, not even certain whether anything like truth exists or not. It needs tremendous courage. Lies don't need any courage; any coward can do it. All the cowards are doing it: fabricating, manufacturing beautiful lies, decorating them, presenting them to each other. For a moment it looks like it is giving happiness, but a lie after all is a lie. Soon you find it is a dead toy. You have been deceived, hence the misery.

But still people don't see the basic cause. They think, "This man has deceived, this woman has deceived." It is not a question of this man or this woman; this whole society is living in such a way that the lie has become the way of life. The better you can lie, the more logical you can make your lie appear, the more respected you will be.

Lies bring respect, rewards, Nobel prizes.

Truth brings death, crucifixion.

So why should people bother about truth?

Jesus would have been perfectly accepted as a rabbi, a respectable person with a great following.

There would have been no need to crucify him. But because he started saying things which were against the lies perpetuated for centuries, he himself is asking for crucifixion.

So lies have something. That's why people go on knowingly with the lies.

I have told the story many times: A man said to an emperor, "You have conquered the whole world.

This is unique. You are the first, and God is so happy that I can persuade him to bring his clothes for you. They will be simply without any comparison to what has ever existed or will ever exist again."

God's clothes? The emperor could not believe it. But he thought, "What is the harm in it?" He said, "Remember, if you deceive me death will be the reward for it."

The man said, "That I know; about that you need not be worried. But much money will be needed to go to heaven, to bribe the whole bureaucracy in heaven, because it is not easy to approach God."

The king said, "How much it costs does not matter but you will have to stay next to this palace in another palace surrounded by the army. You cannot go out. You do whatsoever you want to do from inside. Everything will be supplied to you, and whatever you ask for will be immediately given to you.

You bring the clothes."

And after seven days, as promised, the man came out with a beautiful box. The whole capital had gathered and people from faraway places had come. The capital had never seen such crowds.

God's clothes? Who would not like to see them?

The court of the king was full. For the first time everybody was present; the queen was present, the princesses were present. The man said to the court and to the king, "I have brought the clothes.

And for these clothes, the two, three million rupees that you have given are nothing. When you see the clothes you will see they are a thousandfold more costly. In fact you cannot appraise their cost on the earth; they are something that belongs to heaven. They are not found on the earth."

The king was in a hurry. He said, "Open your box!"

The man said, "The way it must be done has been explained to me. You give me your cap. First I will put your cap into the box, then I will take out the cap of God and put it on your head. Just one condition has to be remembered by all: the cap will be seen only by those who are really born of their own fathers. Those who are not born of their own fathers will not be able to see it."

The king said, "There is no problem. In this court everybody is born of his own father. You don't be worried, just open the box." He gave him his cap. The man threw it into the box and took out his hand, empty. Nobody could see anything; neither could the king see anything. But now they were all caught in a difficulty: if they say the truth, then they lose respectability. The king thought it is wiser to accept the cap and say, "How beautiful it is!" So he accepted the nonexistent cap and said, "How beautiful it is!"

Everybody in the court was praising the cap, saying that they had never seen such a thing. And because everybody was saying, "It is unique," everybody was also thinking, "Perhaps I am the only one.... Now there is no point in saying the truth - that I don't see it at all! That will disgrace me; it will disgrace my father, it will disgrace my mother. It will not be possible to live, it will be such a disgrace.

So it is better to keep silent. When so many people see it, it must be real."

And one by one the clothes disappeared, and the king finally came to the underwear. The man said, "Give me your underwear," and the king thought, "This is really too much! From the cap till now it was okay, but now to give my underwear... And I know perfectly well that this is a con man. But he is really cunning: I cannot even say, ?I don't see the underwear.' " Now it was too late; up to now - the coat, the shirt - he has praised. He was caught in his own lies. Everybody saw that the king was going to be naked. And he had to be naked - reluctantly, but there was no other way - otherwise he would disgrace this whole royal family, that he is not born... because the whole court sees the clothes! So he had to accept the nonexistent underwear.

And that man was something! He said, "Millions of people have gathered in the capital. I have been told by God himself, ?When my clothes go there and the king wears them, he should go through the capital in his chariot so everybody sees the clothes.' " And the people of the court were all enthusiastic: it is a great thing to show to the public what our emperor has got - a gift from God!

And everybody can see that the emperor is naked! This man is a perfect con. He has befooled the whole court, he has befooled the king, and now he will befool the whole capital, millions of people.

In front of the chariot of the king a man was shouting loudly, "The clothes can be seen only by those who are born of their own fathers; otherwise you cannot see them. They are not something human, they are divine." The naked king on a golden chariot and millions clapping and shouting with joy, "What beautiful clothes!" And everybody was thinking, "My God, the king is completely naked - but millions of people see the clothes, so to go against these millions and say that the king is naked is absolutely absurd, it is just to be condemned. Maybe people will kill you, stone you to death: ?You are such a disgrace!' "

Just a small child who had come with his father, and was sitting on his shoulders, whispered in his father's ear, "Dad, the king is completely naked!"

The father said, "Shut up! When you grow up you will also see that he is not naked. You can't see - nobody else sees - that he is naked."

He said, "But my growing up - what has it to do with his being naked? He is naked!"

The man said, "You keep quiet or I will take you home and never bring you to anything."

The boy said, "I can keep quiet, but I cannot see the clothes."

The man had to escape because others may hear that the boy does not see the clothes and that will mean that he is not his boy, his son, that his wife is deceiving him, having some affair with somebody else.

The boy asked again and again, "Why are you taking me away?"

The father said, "For these things one needs to grow up first. You are too small; you don't understand."

"But," the boy asked, "what is the question of understanding? With my eyes I can see everything, and you have never suspected that I am seeing wrong. The king is naked!"

And the father said, "He is not naked, the clothes are divine. It needs some maturity to see it."

Truth has its own world. It consists of a very few courageous people who can stand against the masses. It is difficult. It is risking your comfort, it is risking your life, it is risking your respectability, it is risking everything. You can see me... how I have risked everything, how I have lost everything. I don't have a home, I don't have a land of my own. The whole world is against me - because I simply went on insisting that the king is naked - and you may be millions, but you are all liars.

And they cannot forgive me because I am exposing them. They also know the king is naked, and they are afraid that they may come under my influence and may agree with me. And that will become a dangerous life - immediately the whole world is against you.

In Spain they decided in the parliament, they decided in the cabinet, that they would like to have me in their country. But the question was: who was going to sign for my permanent residence? And in the cabinet, nobody was ready. They said, "We are perfectly willing that he should be allowed - there is nothing against him as far as we are concerned - but I don't want to put my neck out, because if something goes wrong tomorrow then the person who signs will be caught."

In Greece the son of the Greek prime minister had given me the visa. He is a minister in the cabinet.

Hasya met him directly, talked with him, and he was very much interested in me. And just the other day he has given the statement in parliament that: "I never met Osho's secretary. Yes, a mediator came to see me, but I was deceived: they never told me that Osho is coming; they simply said, ?A few of our friends are coming and we want visas for them.' So under this deception I gave the visas.

I did not give the visa to Osho, and I have not seen his secretary at all."

I told Hasya to give a refutation. "Tell the press that he talked with you for one hour, that he was immensely interested in me, that he talked about me, that he wanted more and more to know about me, that he said there is no problem, and that he had given the visa to me, not to some unknown friend."

This is the world, where nobody wants to stand for the truth. Lies are comfortable. You are fed with lies, those lies are flowing in your blood; you have been prepared for them. For truth you have not been prepared.

I was... I must have been seven years old and my father wanted to avoid a certain person who was really a boring person. Once he sat down it was difficult to get rid of him. My father saw him coming.

He told me, "I am going inside the house. You sit here and tell that man, ?My father is not in the house; he has gone out.' "

I told the man exactly what my father had told me "My father has told me to tell you that he is not here. He has gone out."

He said, "Your father told you? When has he gone out?"

I said, "He has never gone out; he is inside. He has seen you coming, but you are such a bore that everybody wants not to get entangled with you." My father was listening from the inside. The man was very angry; he went away, and my father was very angry.

I said, "This is strange. You both are angry, and I have simply told the truth. You told me."

He said, "Yes, I told you, but you don't understand a simple thing. You told that man that I told you!

That destroys the whole point of my going out. And then you had to accept that I am inside, that I have seen him coming."

I said, "Certainly you had seen him coming, and you were inside."

He said, "Everything is true, but this world is not for people who try to live according to truth. And I am always worried about you, that you will get into trouble. Why can't you be just like everybody else?"

To be just like everybody else means be part of all kinds of lies the society calls etiquette, manners.

The reason is clear why people talk about truth and still remain in the world of lies. There is a longing in their heart for the truth. They are ashamed of themselves for their being not true, so they talk about truth but it is mere talk. To live according to it is too dangerous; they cannot risk it.

And the same is the case with freedom. Everybody wants freedom as far as talking is concerned, but nobody really is free and nobody really wants to be free, because freedom brings responsibility.

It does not come alone. And to be dependent is simple: the responsibility is not on you, the responsibility is on the person you are dependent on.

So people have made a schizophrenic way of life. They talk about truth, they talk about freedom, and they live in lies, they live in slavery - slavery of many kinds, because each slavery frees you from some responsibility. A man who really wants to be free has to accept immense responsibilities.

He cannot dump his responsibilities on anybody else. Whatever he does, whatever he is, he is responsible.

And from the very beginning, you are not made ready for responsibility. That is the strategy of the society. They only talk about freedom; they want you to have freedom, but you are not prepared for responsibilities. That is a real trick, because freedom comes only with responsibility. And they have trained you that it is better to live a life where somebody else is responsible, so you are not caught; you are never in a problem. You simply follow the order.

You never go against obedience, which is a good name for slavery. You follow the order of the elders, which is another name for slavery. But it helps you that all the responsibility is on them. And they go on talking about freedom.

This whole society is hypocritical - about each and every thing. If you want to be a real, authentic human being, you will have to be an outsider; you cannot be an insider. You have to be a foreigner everywhere. You have to be a stranger. Nobody will trust you, nobody will be friendly to you; you will be left alone in this big world.

If you think about the prospect it looks dismal, but the reality is totally different. If you live it, it is the only way of light, it is the only way to live. Whatever freedom brings with it is good. Whatever truth brings with it is good. But that experience of tremendous beauty and goodness cannot be just a concept; you have to live it and taste it.

One of my father's friends - he was a very good ayurvedic physician - wanted to give me a certain ancient medicine made of a very rare kind of root. It is only found in the Himalayas and even there only in very rare places. It is called brahmabodhi. The very name means that if you go through the whole ritual of taking that medicine... It is not just a pill you can swallow, it is a whole ritual. With that root juice they write OM on your tongue. It is so bitter that one almost feels like vomiting, and you have to stand naked in the river or in the lake, water up to your neck. Then the word OM will be written, while mantras are being chanted around you by three Sanskrit scholars.

He loved me and he was sincere. It is said that if brahmabodhi is used for any child before the age of twelve then he will certainly realize God in his life. Brahma means the ultimate, God. So he wanted to do the ritual on me.

I said, "I am surprised that you have three sons and you have not tried the ritual on them. Don't you want them to realize God? I know those three scholars who will be chanting around me have their own children. Nobody has tried it on them, so why do you want me?"

He said, "Because I love you, and I feel you may realize God."

I said, "If you feel that, then I will realize without your brahmabodhi. If brahmabodhi helps people to realize God, you would have given it to your children. Just out of curiosity I am willing to go through the ritual, but I absolutely doubt that it has any value. If God could be realized by such a simple method that others do to you... I don't have to do anything - just stand in the water, maybe a little shivering, for as long as your mantras are being chanted... and just a little bitter taste, perhaps some vomiting, but these are not big things to achieve God. So I want it to be clearly understood: I am skeptical of it, but out of curiosity I am ready. Just I want to know, how much time will it take me to realize God?"

He said, "The scriptures don't say anything about it."

I said, "In this life at least?"

He said, "Yes, in the same life."

So the ritual was arranged and I went through the whole torture. For almost one hour I was standing shivering in the water. And I used to think that neem, one of the trees in India, has the bitterest leaves, but this brahmabodhi surpassed everything. I don't think anything can make you feel so bad.

They wrote OM on my tongue; it was almost impossible to keep down because my whole stomach was upturned, and I felt like throwing up, but I did not want to disturb their ritual. And that was one of the parts of it, that you should not throw up; otherwise the whole ritual has gone wrong, nothing will happen.

After one hour I was released from that ritual. I asked the old physician, "Do you really believe this kind of nonsense can help anything, that it has any relevance to the experience of God? Then why do people go on doing ascetic practices their whole life, self-torture, all kinds of disciplines? - this one hour torture is enough!"

He said, "That creates a question in my mind too. I have been worshipping God my whole life, and when I was writing OM on your tongue I thought, ?My God! Perhaps he will realize, and I have been worshipping God my whole life - morning and evening. I am tired of it but I go on, because unless I realize I am not going to stop.' "

I said to him, "It is absolutely absurd. I don't see any logic in it except torturing small children for no reason at all." And I was not the only one, because when they arranged this whole ritual a few other rich people became aware and they had brought their sons.

There were at least nine boys standing in a row in the river because whatever is done for one, is done for nine; it takes the same time. And I said, "I know these boys; most of them are idiots. If they can realize God, then I don't want to realize, because I don't want to be in heaven with these boys. They are so idiotic that even in school if they are in my class I change the class, I go to another subject. I have never been with those people. This is for the first time - in a great effort for God-realization - that I have been standing with them."

Later a few of them dropped out before the middle school because they could not pass, and I asked the physician, "What is the matter? The people who are going to realize God could not pass a small examination! They have proved perfectly well that your ritual was an exercise in futility."

He used to be angry but he was also considerate. He said, "You have a point there, but what can I do?" One of the boys is in jail; he murdered somebody. The three who failed just have small businesses. The remaining have disappeared in the big world.

I went on asking him again and again, "What about those nine who were prepared for God- realization? Are you still thinking that they will realize God?"

Finally he said, "You are so persistent that I have to tell you, I don't believe in this ritual; it is just that it is written in the scriptures. And seeing the failure of all these people... but don't tell it to anybody."

I asked, "Why?"

He said, "Be wise."

I said, "You call it being wise?"

"Don't tell it to anybody, because everybody believes in the scriptures. Why create enemies? Keep it to yourself."

I said, "That is a way of lying."

He said, "That's true, it is a way of lying."

And I said, "All those scriptures continuously say ?Be truthful.' So should I follow the scriptures or should I follow the masses?"

He said, "You create dilemmas for me. I am old and tired, and I don't want to get into any trouble.

Now this is a real dilemma for me. I cannot tell you to be untrue and I cannot tell you to be truthful.

I cannot tell you to be untrue because it will go against the scriptures. I cannot tell you to be true because it will endanger your life. I can simply say, ?Be wise.' "

I said, "I used to think wisdom consists of being truthful, but here it seems that to be wise means to be political; to be wise means deceitful, uncaring about the truth, just thinking about your own comfort and respectability."

If you are just thinking intellectually you will find that it is really wise to remain with the masses, with the right policy. You are protected by the masses, respected by the masses. Say whatever they want to hear - but then you are dead. You can be alive only when you are alone on your own - whatever the risk, whatever the danger.

And it is man's privilege - and only man's privilege - to be alone, to stand against the whole world if he feels that he is with truth. If he feels that this is the way that leads to freedom, then accept any kind of responsibility. Then all those responsibilities are not going to be a burden on you; they are all going to make you more mature, more centered, more rooted, more of a beautiful individual.

Question 3:

That's great!

Try it here, before everybody.

Good, Maneesha... very good!