Existence loves imperfection

Question 1:

Devageet, it is time you realized that whenever I do something, I do it totally. I don't hold anything back. And that's my message to you too. Do things with your whole heart, with as much intensity as you are capable of.

Anything done half-heartedly never brings joy to life. It only brings misery, anxiety, torture, and tension, because whenever you do anything half-heartedly you are dividing yourself into two parts, and that is one of the greatest calamities that has happened to human beings - they are all split.

The whole past has given you only one heritage, and that is schizophrenia. The misery in the world is not surprising; it is a natural outcome of our living always half-heartedly, doing everything only with one part of our being, while the other part is resisting, opposing, fighting.

And whatever you do with half of your being is going to bring you repentance, misery, and a feeling that perhaps the other part that was not participating was right - because following this part, you have attained nothing but a miserable state. But I say unto you: If you had followed the other part, the result would have been the same.

It is not a question of what you follow, which part; it is a question of whether you go totally into it or not. To be total in your action brings joy. Even an ordinary, trivial action done with total intensity brings a glow to your being, a fulfillment, a fullness, a deep contentment. And anything done half- heartedly, howsoever good the thing may be, is going to bring misery.

Misery does not come from your actions, neither does joy come from your actions. Joy comes when you are total. It does not matter what action you are involved in, misery is the outcome when you are partial. And living a life continuously half-heartedly is creating for yourself a hell every moment - and the hell goes on becoming bigger and bigger.

People ask, is there a hell somewhere, or is there a heaven somewhere? - because all the religions have been talking about hell and heaven as if they are part of the geography of your universe. They are not geographical phenomena, they are in your psychology.

When your mind, when your heart, when your being, is pulled in two directions simultaneously, you are creating hell. And when you are total, one, an organic unity... in that very organic unity, the flowers of heaven start blossoming in you.

People have remained concerned about their acts: Which act is right and which act is wrong? What is good and what is evil? My own understanding is that it is not a question of any particular act. The question is about your psychology.

When you are total, it is good; and when you are divided, it is evil. Divided you suffer; united, you dance, you sing, you celebrate.

Devageet, you are saying, "Since then there has been a giggling fellow walking around in his old clothes, looking for his house, using my name. Shall I let him share our secret?" Everything has to be shared. There should be no secret.

To have a secret is to have a wound.

One should live without any secrets. One should live without hiding anything. One should open one's heart to the wind, to the sun, to the rain. One should not ask whether the person deserves it or not. It is none of your business. If existence accepts that person, gives him life, what more can you give? If existence allows him, then who are you to prevent him from knowing something?

I am reminded of an ancient Tibetan parable: Deep in the Himalayas there used to live a very old sage. Only one thing was known about him: he never shared any secret, any experience with anybody. He never allowed anybody to become a disciple to him, for the simple reason that if you accept somebody as a disciple, then you have to tell him your inner secrets. He never allowed anybody to be close enough to know his hidden treasures.

People came from faraway places - because it is part of the strangeness of the human mind that the more a thing is unapproachable, the more people become obsessed with it. It was rumored all over the place that that old sage must have a great secret - that's why he does not even allow initiation to anybody as a disciple.

People asked him, touched his feet, cried before him, "Accept us as disciples and we are ready to do anything - whatever you say." But he always rejected. He seemed to be absolutely without any compassion.

There was just one young boy who used to cook food for him, bring things from the village nearby.

When the day of his death came, he called the boy and said, "Go into the village and tell everybody that whoever wants to become my disciple should come immediately."

The boy said, "Whoever? But you always said, 'Unless somebody is worthy to receive, deserves to receive my secret, I am not going to give it to anybody.' What happened? You have changed your mind completely."

The old man said, "Don't waste time! Just rush to the village, and whoever is available, tell them 'The master is ready to accept you as disciples.'"

The boy could not believe it. Shaking his head because this seems to be so absurd... his whole life he denied, and now he is saying, "Any XYZ will do. You just bring them." He went, but he was thinking in his mind: Has he gone senile, has he gone mad? Something is certainly wrong, but if he says it, then there is no other way.

So he went into the village and he declared to the villagers in the marketplace, "Anybody who wants to be a disciple... the sage is ready. You come with me."

Nobody could believe it. But somebody was going to commit suicide... his wife was torturing him too much, and there is a limit to everything, and the limit had come. When he heard the boy, he said, "Okay, I am coming. What more can happen than suicide?"

Somebody was just having a holiday and thought, "There is no harm. We have heard so much about the great secret...." Just out of curiosity he also followed.

In all, eleven people came. And the old sage initiated all of them. The boy was standing there not believing his eyes. He said, "Master, what are you doing? You are not even asking what their qualifications are, what their qualities are."

The old man laughed and said, "To tell you the truth, up till now I had no secret. That's why I was avoiding people, that's why I was not initiating people - because once you initiate them.... I had nothing to give to them. Now I have it, and it does not matter whether the person deserves it or not.

If existence accepts the person, who am I to be judgmental?

"Everybody is worthy. In this moment of joy, in this moment of ecstasy, when I have the secret, I want to share with anybody who is ready to receive it."

Always remember this parable. Whenever you have something, share it - and without thinking even for a single moment whether the person you are sharing it with deserves or not. Only think about one thing: whether you have got the secret or not.

If you have got it, share it. Spread the seeds to as many people as possible. Certainly a few seeds will fall on the rocks and will never grow. And some will fall on the footpaths where people walk continually: they will grow, but they will die. But some seeds will certainly find the right soil. And they will come to blossom, and they will bring thousands of seeds with them.

Don't waste your time, because nobody knows who is worthy and who is not worthy - murderers have become saints, criminals have become sages; sages have fallen and become criminals, saints have lost their way and become murderers.

Life is so mysterious that one cannot say what you are going to be the next moment. And you can decide the worth of anybody only by his past - but the seed is going to grow in the future. You are sharing your secret for the future, and the worthiness or unworthiness belongs to the past. And the future is always open. The saint can turn away, go astray; the murderer can become awake.

The future is so open and so flexible. The past does not decide it; hence, never bother about the past, always look to the open future. And everybody is worthy to receive the secret, because everybody is worthy to live, to breathe, to have a place in this beautiful existence.

Even the smallest blade of grass is as significant and important as the biggest star. The universe would miss it, even though it is a small blade of grass. Without it, the universe would have a little less beauty. Nobody else can replace it.

And as far as human beings are concerned, they are all unique, irreplaceable. Respect their uniqueness, and when you want to share your experience, open your whole heart.

Don't be a miser, because the more you give, the more existence will shower on you.

Question 2:

Prem Turiya, you have taken training in photography, but perhaps the art of photography has never encountered crazy people like me. I know, I saw it. Sometimes my eyes start becoming bigger when I am looking into you - and perhaps you became afraid when the eyes started becoming bigger.

Because you were taking my photograph, I was looking into you. I was also taking your photograph.

Of course, my ways are different - without a camera.

And you heard it rightly - seeing you trembling and your camera also trembling, I said silently within myself, "Don't control." You were trying hard to control: "I am the captain of the ship, and however drunk I may be, my ship is always going towards the ocean." I have never felt for a single moment that there is a possibility of being lost.

The whole universe is ours.

Where can we get lost?

Wherever we reach will be our home. Once you have understood that the whole universe is our home, then the possibility of getting lost simply disappears. And if you try to control, there are problems with control....

In one of the universities where I used to teach, the vice-chancellor had a disease. He was ban old man, and his hands used to tremble, so he always kept them in his pockets.

Even while speaking before the students in the convocations, he would never bring his hands out of his pockets. But he was not aware that, because of his hands, his whole pants were shaking, which was even more ridiculous. Hands shaking... one can understand that you have a certain sickness.

What can you do? But the pants shaking? Pants are never known to be sick.

So I told him one day, "Tomorrow is the convocation day and you will do the same again. Perhaps you are not aware that everybody is laughing; people are controlling their laughter because it doesn't look good. It is a serious affair, the convocation. But your pants shake so much that it is very difficult, particularly for the people who are sitting in the front, who can see your whole pants shaking."

He said, "My pants shaking? You never told me...."

I said, "I thought you must know. They are your pants, and you are putting shaking hands into the pockets. It is a natural, logical corollary that the pants will shake.

"So tomorrow, remember - because it makes the whole thing very ridiculous - you keep your hands out. And if you don't keep your hands out, I will come and take your hands out."

He said, "What?"

I said, "Tomorrow will be decisive... because people can feel compassion if your hands are shaking in old age; it is not something to be laughed at."

He said, "But I am very much afraid to keep them out."

I said, "Then I will have to come on the stage."

The convocation day came, and he was not courageous enough to keep his hands out. Now knowing perfectly well, he was trying to hold his pants from the inside, controlling, and this was making things even worse, because now everybody knew that he was holding the pants from inside, and the whole pants were shaking. They were shaking more than they used to shake. Before, it was only the hands and their vibration, but now he was holding the pants, so the pants were shaking really badly.

So I stood up. He said, "Sit! Sit down! You need not come." And he took his hands out. There was great laughter and there was great silence afterwards - what was the matter?

Just as I stood, he took his hands out and everybody saw that his hands were shaking. I said, "Now it is okay, you keep them out of the pants, and it is not a problem at all. Your hands are sick and you are old, but your pants are new and fresh and young. Because of your trying to control and hide, the young and fresh and new full pants are shaking like an old man."

He said, "I will keep them out, but you sit down. I had never thought that you would do that to me."

I said, "Just remember that I am here."

When Turiya was trying to control, I remembered my old vice-chancellor. The more she was trying to control, the more things were going out of control. It was good that she put the camera down and closed her eyes.

You need not be afraid if you see through your camera that my eyes are becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. I keep them almost half closed, just not to make people afraid. I open them fully only when I want to make Avirbhava afraid. And the moment I open them fully she shrieks, screams, tries to tell me, "Don't do this to me!" The moment I start moving towards her she starts controlling herself.

There is no need to control. If you had relaxed, there would have been no need to put the camera away. But you must have been trying to be physically perfect. Perfectionists are always afraid of committing mistakes, of doing something which is not technically right; and my understanding is that anybody who tries to be perfect in anything is bound to go insane. Perfection is not allowed by existence. Existence loves imperfection, because imperfection has the possibility of evolution.

Perfection means death. The moment you are perfect, there is no possibility of any evolution. This is something to be remembered: On the spiritual path, nobody ever becomes perfect. One is always coming closer to perfection, closer to perfection, closer to perfection, but never becoming perfect.

The distance between you and the perfection remains the same, just like the horizon. You can go towards the horizon, and you can feel, "Now I am coming closer, now I am coming closer," but the horizon goes on receding. The distance between you and the horizon remains always the same.

Perfection is the horizon of your consciousness; it allures you, it challenges you, it calls you. But remember, the distance will remain the same. On the spiritual path there is no goal, only pilgrimage.

But the pilgrimage goes on becoming more and more juicy, more and more beautiful, more and more ecstatic.

Turiya is trying to make a book of my photographs. Forget the idea of being perfect. Just enjoy. Put your total energy into it, but don't expect that your photographs are going to be perfect. Imperfection has a beauty; imperfection is alive, and perfection is dead.

You are saying, "Everything stopped, became sharp, clear and silent, like a razor's edge." The path is just like the razor's edge, very sharp, and one has to be very relaxed to move on it. A little tension, a little anxiety, a little fear, and there is danger.

Have you ever observed one thing? In my childhood, I used to play a game. In my high school, there were two buildings, and between the two buildings there was at least a twenty foot distance. I had found a piece of wood, twenty feet long. First, I would put it on the ground and ask my friends, "Can you walk on it?" And everybody was able to walk on it without falling. And then I would put the same piece of wood on the two buildings, and except me, nobody was ready even to try.

I said, "This is strange, because you have walked on the same wood and you did not fall."

They said, "That was a different situation. Now it is so dangerous that if a little fear comes, if just one step goes wrong, you will fall nearabout thirty feet down."

I persuaded them by saying, "You can watch me; you should just not look this side or that side. You have walked on the wood... and this is my strategy: not to look here and there, just to keep totally concentrated on the wood, and go on. And I can go on for miles."

When one day I was persuading a few students, one new teacher, a chemistry teacher, who used to brag that he was a very brave man, just came by. I said, "You are a very brave man, perhaps you can try."

He said, "I can try." But then he looked down, there were thirty feet. He went two feet at the most, fell down, and had multiple fractures.

I went to see him in the hospital. He told me, "I have never seen such a dangerous fellow. What was the idea?"

I said, "You have been bragging so much.... Once you get well we will try a few more ideas."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "You have just to say that you have been bragging because basically you are a man who is very much afraid. To cover it up, you are bragging, 'In the middle of the night, in the darkest forest, I can go alone. I am not afraid of any ghosts or any thieves, or any murderers.'

"It was you who provoked me to find something. And I had walked ahead of you, so it was not that I was not taking the risk. You thought that because I had walked, you would also be able to walk.

That's where you were wrong.

"You started trembling from the first foot, but you could not go back. There was time, you could have jumped back, you had just taken two steps, but it was against your ego, so you went on and fell. It is not a multiple fracture to your body, it is a multiple fracture to your ego. Your body will be better within two or three weeks, but about your ego... never mention about your bravery again; otherwise... I have found a few other things."

He said, "I am going to resign from this school. This is enough. I don't want it!"

I said, "That is up to you. You can resign, but still we will try something."

And we managed to try. He resigned, and he took his luggage - he had no wife, no children, nothing.

He had just come out of the university... a young man. I and few of my friends got hold of him. The station was two miles away from the city, so just in the middle, we got hold of him, and we made so much fuss, a great crowd gathered.

We said, "He's leaving his wife."

And he was trying to persuade the crowd, "I don't have any wife. These people are all lying, I am simply resigning and going."

I said to the crowd, "Just take him back to his home. He has a wife and three children."

The man said, "Leave me, because my train will be missed. I can't go back."

But then the crowd took over, and said, "You cannot go. First you come back home. Why should these children be telling lies?" And we were not just one, I had at least ten boys lined up who were saying, "Your wife is crying, your children are crying, and you are leaving them. This is not good."

The crowd caught hold of him - we all disappeared. He was shouting and screaming and saying, "I am not married, I don't have a child, I don't have any wife."

The crowd said, "First you come back home." He said, "But my train will be gone."

They said, "We are not concerned about the train. The train you can pick up tomorrow" - because there was only one train every day. "So it is only a question of twenty-four hours. First you come home."

And we had managed to find a very poor woman who had three children, and we had told her, "We are going to give you five rupees for just a little act."

She said, "But this is not a good act."

I said, "What is the harm? You just cover your face so nobody knows...." And in India, with the ghunghat you cover your head, and you cry. And I told the children, "You say, 'Papa, why are you leaving us?'"

He could not believe his eyes: there was a woman who was crying and holding his feet, saying, "Don't leave me, you have married me!" And the three children were crying, "Papa!" And the crowd said, "Now, what do you say?" He said, "Now, what can I say? I have never seen these children, I have never seen this woman, and they are sitting in my house."

We were all present there behind the crowd. Finally I told him, "The train is late, don't be worried."

I took him aside and I told him, "This is just one of the devices. You will have to give five rupees to the woman, then you can go. Then I will take care."

He had to give five rupees to the woman. The crowd asked, "What is happening?"

I said, "They have compromised. He is going just for two days, and he has given money for two days expenses; then he will be coming back."

So they allowed him to go. And the woman told me later on, "If you have more of this kind of act...

for just a five minute act, five rupees." And in those days five rupees was great money. One could live for one month on five rupees.

We went with the teacher, and he was so angry, he would not talk with us. And I said, "Don't be angry, because we can still try some other devices."

He said, "No more devices; I am fractured all over my body, my five rupees are gone, and I don't think that I am going to catch the train."

I said, "You don't be worried, the train has gone. You will have to wait in the waiting room, but we have made every arrangement... you will be comfortable there. In the night just be a little alert, be watchful.

I said, "We don't have much time, only one night. We tried many ghosts... only one ghost is ready."

He said, "My God!"

So in the night, in the waiting room... because in the night there is no train, and the station master goes away, and the waiting room is empty, and the whole platform is empty. He said, "Then I am not going to the station. I will lie down anywhere on the street, in the market, but I am not going to the station, to that empty place in the night."

I said, "You used to say that you don't believe in ghosts."

He said, "I used to say that, but seeing your devices... whether ghosts exist or not, some ghost will appear, and I don't want to get into any more trouble."

That man met me after twenty or twenty-five years. I asked him, "How are you?"

He said, "How am I? You made me so afraid that I decided never to get married, and never to have children, and never to be employed in any school; it is dangerous. My whole body has been destroyed, and that day you could have done even more harm, because the whole crowd was believing you."

I said, "That woman was ready to go with you, those children were ready to go with you. You yourself bribed them."

He said, "I bribed them? You suggested five rupees, and you managed to find those people. And I know that woman and those three children; they were just living in the neighborhood."

But I said, "Why were you trembling?"

He said, "Why was I trembling? I was trembling because that crowd might have forced that woman and those children on my head. My service was gone, and I would have had a family which was not concerned with me at all. That woman was so ugly, and you were so tricky that you told her to keep her face hidden behind the sari. But I have become so much afraid since then, I have not served in any school, and I have never said to anybody, 'I am a brave man.' I have accepted that I am a coward."

I said, "If you had accepted it before, this tragedy would have been avoided."

Everybody is afraid. It is not that you are afraid of something, you are simply afraid. Perhaps it is a deep-down fear of death in the very depths of your unconsciousness that surfaces as fear. And you try to control your life. In this controlling you go on repressing your fear deeper, but the fear is not going to be destroyed this way.

Relax and let your fear surface.

Turiya, what was making you afraid? Just something deep in you was touched. It has to be allowed to come to the conscious, because there is only one way to get rid of fear - to bring it to the surface, to the conscious, and to watch it.

You also became alert about it. You say, "I felt that really what was happening.... All I could say was, 'Help, where is the witness?' I had to put the camera down, close my eyes, and relax. When I looked again, I suddenly recognized the witness sitting in the chair, looking at me, zooming into the deepest core of my being."

That is not your witness. I was looking deep into you, but I am not your witness. Your witness is asleep inside you; you have to wake it up. So while you are dancing, singing, allow your own witness to watch your body clapping, moving, dancing, singing; allow your own witness to stand aside and see it all. Slowly, slowly, you will be able to witness all the contents of your unconsciousness, and this is the miracle of witnessing: If you witness, anything that has been repressed in the unconscious will disappear, will evaporate.

Once your unconscious is clean, unrepressed, you will have a dignity that you have never known, you will have a pride of being human, of being an individual, that you have never known.

You will have a joy, because now there is no fear, not even the fear of death; you are aware of something eternal running like an undercurrent in your consciousness.

That eternal, that immortal is your real self, is your reality. To know it, is to know all. Not to know it, you can be burdened with all the knowledge of the world, but still you are ignorant, because deep inside you, there is nothing but darkness - and in darkness, only death is hidden. Your witness will bring light, and when you have looked into every nook and corner of your being, you will be surprised: there is nothing to be afraid of - not even death, because death is a lie; it has never happened.

Life never dies, it only changes forms and goes on and on until it recognizes itself as totally awakened.

It goes on taking new forms; once it is fully awakened, enlightened, it merges with the universe, with the whole. That merger is the greatest ecstasy man has known. There is nothing higher than that, there is nothing deeper than that.

Question 3:

Veet Kamal, I have been insistently emphasizing the fact that each individual is unique. It means each individual is going to experience his inner growth in his own way. Never compare. To some it comes like love, to some it comes like music, to some it comes like dance, to some it comes like fragrance.

It is natural to compare when something is happening to somebody else and it is not happening to you. Is there something wrong? No. Whatever is happening to you is so beautiful that you need not worry that love is not happening, ecstasy is not happening.

Always emphasize what is happening to you, so that it becomes more and more deep, more and more overwhelming. Perhaps its overwhelming depth will bring love too, will bring ecstasy too. If you focus on what is not happening, there is danger. The danger is that what is happening may be disturbed.

You say, "Whenever I watch your gestures, your hands, something in me relaxes so deeply." Enjoy this relaxation. There are millions of people who cannot relax. "Whenever I look into your eyes, there is a shower of deep relaxation moving down my body. It is like falling and dissolving into nothingness." That is something so valuable: Falling and dissolving into nothingness is what Buddha has called Nirvana.

Buddha has never talked about love, and has never talked about ecstasy, either. Perhaps they never came on his path. He has talked about nothingness as the ultimate: You become a nobody, just empty space. But the empty space is so full, it is not a negative phenomenon. It is tremendously positive. It is full of peace, of silence, of absolute relaxation.

You are moving absolutely rightly, but the human mind is always comparative. Somebody says he is so full of love, and you think, I am full only of nothingness, so perhaps my heart is left somewhere, or perhaps I don't have my heart. No, every flower has to have its own color, and every flower has to have its own fragrance, and neither roses should be compared with lotuses, nor lotuses should be compared with roses. They are all beautiful.

The variety itself makes this existence so rich. This is one of the fundamentals I would like never to be forgotten. All the religions, all the mystics of the world, have been quarreling because of their different experiences. But they have forgotten one thing, that every individual is so unique, the experiences cannot be the same.

Only one thing can be the same and that is a deep contentment. Whether it is love, or it is nothingness, or it is silence, or it is ecstasy, one thing is running through all of them like a hidden thread running through a garland of flowers - and that is a deep contentment.

If you are feeling a deep contentment, then everything is absolutely right. If love comes it is okay, if it does not come it is even better, because it may bring some trouble. If ecstasy comes, good; if it does not come, feel blessed, because the people who have been ecstatic have been almost mad.

Ecstasy drives people mad.

I am neither for anything, nor against anything. My whole approach is that you should find a deep, relaxed contentment with yourself and existence. Then whatever else happens is just differences in your individualities.

Question 4:

Sadhan, what is important is happening to you - that is, that being with me is an overwhelming experience for you. Words are not important. If you cannot follow my words, there is no need to worry about it. If you can experience me, my presence; if you can open your heart with a silent welcome, it is more than one can expect - because it is not a school where you are taught philosophy, religion, psychology; it is an alchemist's workshop where you are transformed into new beings.

So don't be worried about words, except when I tell jokes. If you miss the jokes, that is unforgivable.

So listen well.

Father Mulligan was listening to confessions in his church one day, when he got very ill and needed to go to the doctor. He did not want to walk out on all the people waiting in line to confess their sins, so he asked a very old friend, a rabbi, to help.

He said, "Just sit in the booth and listen to their sins. It is very easy. They cannot see you, so they will not know it is not me." And he then told the rabbi the average usual sins and how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers to give as penance.

The priest left, and the old rabbi was doing great until a young man came in and confessed to having blow jobs. The old rabbi was puzzled as he did not know what penance to give, so he went quietly out the back door and saw a young altar boy lighting candles. He went up to him and asked, "What does Father Mulligan usually give for blow jobs?", to which the altar boy replied, "About five to ten dollars."

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.