Of the despisers of the body and the joys and the passions

ZARATHUSTRA IS ALONE amongst the great teachers of the world who is not against the body, but for the body. All the other teachers are against the body, and their reasoning is that the body is a hindrance in the growth of the soul, the body is a barrier between you and the divine. This is sheer nonsense.

Zarathustra, perhaps, is the sanest teacher we have known. He will not have anything to do with any kind of nonsense; his approach is pragmatic and scientific. And he is the first to teach the body, to teach humanity that unless you love the body, and unless you understand the body, you cannot grow spiritually. The body is the temple of your soul.

It serves you your whole life without asking anything in return. And it is ugly to condemn it, because all these condemners of the body are born out of the body. They are condemning the body through the body. They are living their life through the body, and yet humanity has accepted a very dangerous ideology: the split between the body and the soul - not only the split, but their polar oppositeness, that you have to choose either the body or the soul. It is part of a bigger philosophy: matter and spirit. Body is matter and soul is spirit. And all these body condemners, body despisers, have become focused on one ideal: that the world consists of two things, matter and spirit.

But now we know not only logically, not only through experience, but through scientific evidence also, that there is only one entity; whether you call it matter or you call it spirit, does not matter. Body and soul, matter and energy, are one and the same. Existence is not a duality; it is an organic whole.

But there was a fundamental reason to condemn the body: that was their way of praising the soul, that was their way of praising immaterial energy. It would have been a little difficult without condemning the body and matter. Condemn the body - it gives you a good background for praising the soul. Condemn the world and you can praise God. But they never saw a very obvious fact, that they themselves are preaching continuously that God created the world. If God created the world, then the world is nothing but an extension of God, His creativity; it cannot be His enemy.

Zarathustra has a very clear insight and nobody that far back, twenty-five centuries ago, was able to see that the body has a wisdom of its own. You come across it every moment, but still the old conditioning is so heavy that it does not allow you to recognize the wisdom of the body.

For example, your eyes are continuously blinking. They could have been left just as your ears are, always open. But the body has a wisdom, a deep intelligence - eyes are so delicate, they need continuous cleaning. And when the eyelid comes down, goes up, it is helping the body to remain, through the eyes, absolutely clean. And there are glands which have water in them. When you cry and weep it comes in tears, but when your eyelids are blinking, the same liquid cleanses any dust that may have accumulated on the most delicate part of your body.

Eyes are almost the windows of your soul. Immense care is taken, by the body, of the eyes. And this is just an example. All the basic necessities of the body are not left to you; you are not that reliable.

By "you" I mean your mind. Breathing is not at all dependent on the mind. It would have been dangerous, because the mind is not so alert. It can forget, and if it forgets to breathe, you will be dead. When you are asleep, who is going to breathe? The mind is in deep sleep, but the body continues to breathe.

Even if the mind is removed completely, it will not affect your life process. I have seen a woman who was in a coma for nine months, but she was breathing perfectly. The heartbeats, the digestion of food, the distribution of the digested food to different parts of the body - it is being done almost like a computer. And it is a very intricate and complex process. There are so many vitamins... which vitamin has to go to which part of the body? - the body knows it and fulfills the need. It is not left to you. There are vitamins which are needed for the brain. Only those vitamins will be carried by the blood to the brain.

Your blood has two kinds of cells: white and red. Whenever you get wounded, your mind cannot do anything, but your body immediately takes over the situation. The white cells run immediately to the place where you are wounded. It is so mysterious and so amazing, because those white cells will gather on the wound and will not allow the red cells to go out of the body. They will be protective.

The body heals itself. Now even medical science accepts it, that the doctor, the medicine and everything that we can do is just to help the healing process of the body, but the basic healing is done by the body itself. We can support - but if the body is not ready to heal itself, all our support fails.

If the whole process that goes on inside the body has to be performed by machines, you will need for a single body a factory so big that you cannot imagine it. It will take one square mile of factory to do all the functions that your body is doing so silently, in such a small space.

The body goes on renewing itself. After every seven years you are a new person, without knowing it. Not a single old cell in your body is there; they have been replaced by new cells. Before they become too old, and can become destructive, they are removed. Your blood is continuously taking out your dead cells and bringing new cells, taking out carbon dioxide, which can become a cause of death if it accumulates in you, and goes on replacing it with oxygen, which is your life. And this all goes on so silently, no noise is made. Still almost all the religions condemn the body, saying that the body is the source of sin.

The body is the source of your whole life. Now what you make of it, that depends on you. You can be a sinner, you can be a saint. The body neither seduces you to be a sinner, nor encourages you to be a saint. Whoever you are, a sinner or a saint, the body continues its own work. Its own work is so vast, it has no time for any other thing. Zarathustra has tremendous respect for the body, because it is the beginning of your being. From the body you can move to the being.

But if the body is condemned, renounced, tortured, which has been done for centuries, then you cannot go to your being. You become unnecessarily involved, entangled, in a fight with the body.

Your whole energy is destroyed in this antagonism. The body should be accepted lovingly, thankfully, gratefully, and it can become a stepping stone to your being. In fact that is the intention of nature.

Zarathustra says, YOU SAY 'I' AND YOU ARE PROUD OF THIS WORD. BUT GREATER THAN THIS - ALTHOUGH YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE IN IT - IS YOUR BODY AND ITS GREAT INTELLIGENCE, WHICH DOES NOT SAY 'I' BUT PERFORMS 'I.'

YOU SAY 'I'... Have you ever observed that your I goes on changing twenty-four hours a day? In the evening your I decides that, "I am going to get up early in the morning, five o'clock, to meditate."

It is your decision, the decision of your I. But when the alarm clock goes, someone inside you which is now pretending to be your I says, "It is such a beautiful morning, just a little more sleep, it is so cozy...." You turn over, pull your blanket over, and wake up as usual at nine o'clock. And you never have thought about it: that the same I that has determined to wake up at five, cannot cancel it.

Your I is not a single thing; it is a crowd of many Is - almost like a wheel and its spokes. Every spoke has its time when it comes on the top, and then it speaks as if it is your authentic I" You promise and you never fulfill it. You cannot be one I - integrated. You are many Is as far as your mind is concerned.

George Gurdjieff used to say that a very rich man had a palace and many servants. He was going on a holy pilgrimage; it may take two years, three years - his return was not certain.

He told his servants, "Remember, I can come any day. I may not complete the pilgrimage, so you are not to become lazy. The house has to remain ready for me every day - clean, tidy...." And they all said they would do their best.

But three years passed, and slowly, slowly the servants became lazy. For a few days there was enthusiasm to clean, perhaps he may be coming. But then three years passed, which was the longest time - and he was not back. Perhaps he is dead, perhaps he has become a renunciate. He is not going to come back.....

And the cleaning of the house and everything slowly, slowly stopped. But the servants decided that by turn one servant should remain on the main gate, because you can see from the main gate faraway on the road: "If his chariot is coming then inform us inside, immediately we will do everything that is needed. Otherwise, what is the point of cleaning the house?" So by turn they were standing at the main gate.

The house was so beautiful and so unique, and in a lonely part amongst hills and forests, that whenever some traveler came across it, he would ask the servant who was on the gate, "Who is the owner of this house?"

And they all believed, deep down they wanted to believe - this is one of the human weaknesses, whatever you want to believe you start believing it - they had come to believe that the master is never going to be back. So the servant on the gate would say, "It belongs to me. I am the owner of the house."

But the travelers were confused, because when they came back on the same route, somebody else was at the gate, and they would ask, "Who is the owner of this house?" And he would say, "Who is the owner of this house? I am the owner of this house." Gurdjieff used to tell that story, that each servant in turn became the owner of the house. And exactly the same is the situation of your I. There are many Is in you. If you watch carefully, you can see there are many Is in you, but only one I is predominant at a certain time. That I says, "I love you and I will love you forever. Others have also loved, but they love only in life. I will love you, beloved, even when I am dead."

And the next moment, the great lovers are fighting and throwing things at each other. What happened? What happened to the great love? It is a well-known fact that lovers can die for each other, and lovers can also kill each other. It cannot be the work of the same I.

If you are alert you will become aware that there is a queue of Is behind you. One I wants to say this, another I wants to say that, another I wants to do this - and they are never in agreement. There is a continuous inner fight going on: "Who is the owner of the house?"

Because we live in unconsciousness we never become aware of it. Zarathustra is right when he says that you say very proudly, I - but your I is nothing compared to the great intelligence of your body, which never says I, but really performs all the functions which are supposed to be done by the I.

WHAT THE SENSE FEELS, WHAT THE SPIRIT PERCEIVES, IS NEVER AN END IN ITSELF. BUT SENSE AND SPIRIT WOULD LIKE TO PERSUADE YOU THAT THEY ARE THE END OF ALL THINGS: THEY ARE AS VAIN AS THAT.

You know your senses have been deceiving you many times. It is not only that in a desert, in the hot sun, you are deceived by a mirage.

You are thirsty. That plays a fifty percent role in creating the mirage. And because the sands are hot, and the sunrays are returning back, they create the other fifty percent. Their returning back creates the illusion of something like water, because of the ripples. The ripples are so mirror-like that even if there are trees they will be reflected in them. Then it becomes absolutely certain to the thirsty person that the water is nearby. Trees are there, and they are reflected in the water, but as you reach near the mirage there is no water at all. It was just sunrays reflecting back, creating a mirror in which the trees were reflected.

But it is not only in a desert. In your everyday life your senses are deceiving you, and every sense says, "Whatever is my experience is the reality."

It happened once... I was standing in the garden of the library in a city where I used to study. One man came, tapped on my shoulder, and said, "It has been years I have not seen you."

I looked at the man; I had never seen the man. I said, "You must be mistaken. Perhaps somebody else looking like me may have been your friend, but I don't know you at all."

He said, "I am very sorry, but you look so exactly like my friend."

I said, "I am sorry that I look like him, but what can I do about it? I am helpless."

The same day, I was in the market and the same man came and again tapped on my shoulder and said, "You are a strange fellow. In the morning I tapped on some innocent person thinking that you were standing there by the side of the library."

I said, "I am the same man who was standing by the library, and this is the second time you have tapped me. But I said, "There is no problem: the third time be alert, because I don't think your friend is here in the town. You have not seen him for years."

He said, "I have not seen him for years."

Then I said, "Remember, the third time if you see him, first ask him, and then..."

He said, "But you look so similar."

I said, "Again, I can say the same thing: that I am helpless, and I don't know your friend."

But he said, "My eyes cannot deceive me so much - and twice in a day."

And I told him, "Remember, the third time I will slap you if you... because this tapping on my shoulder is too much."

He said, "No, I will never... even if the real one is there, first I will ask."

And after four, five days, I was coming out of the university and the man looked at me and said, "Great, because of you I have been tapping on another person."

I said, "Do you want me to live in the city or leave? I am the same person!"

He said, "But you look so similar."

I said, "Again the same thing."

You watch, and you will find your senses are not so certain, and their claims are vain. You hear things which have not been said. You see things which don't exist. You believe in concepts which are absolutely irrational. But the body is absolutely innocent, never deceives you. It is always authentic.

SENSE AND SPIRIT ARE INSTRUMENTS AND TOYS: BEHIND THEM STILL LIES THE SELF, - the being. Zarathustra accepts only two realities in you: the body and the being. Between the two - the senses, the mind, the ego - they are all false entities. If you want to reach your being, begin with the body, because those are the only two realities; or perhaps one reality. Your body is the outer side of the being, and your being is the inner side of your body.

THE SELF SEEKS WITH THE EYES OF THE SENSE, IT LISTENS TOO WITH THE EARS OF THE SPIRIT.

THE SELF IS ALWAYS LISTENING AND SEEKING: IT COMPARES, SUBDUES, CONQUERS, DESTROYS. IT RULES AND IS ALSO THE EGO'S RULER.

The self, or the being, is your real master. And if your self uses your senses, your mind, as instruments, it is perfectly right. But things are very upside down in man. We have completely forgotten the master, and the servants are pretending to be the masters; and each servant says that whatever is his experience is true.

As an instrument it is perfectly good - but the master must be using it. If the master is not using it, and the situation is that the instruments are using the master.... Your mind pretends to be the master. It is only a servant; its function is to serve your being. But being is completely forgotten.

That is the misery of humanity.

BEHIND YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS, MY BROTHER, STANDS A MIGHTY COMMANDER, AN UNKNOWN SAGE - HE IS CALLED SELF. HE LIVES IN YOUR BODY, HE IS YOUR BODY. This is such a beautiful statement, and so true. He lives in your body, he is your body. Your being and your body are not separate, they are two sides of the same coin. But because the body was condemned, the self was also condemned. Mind became the master.

In the condemnation of the body, the being was automatically condemned, and a false entity - that which is only instrumental - has been ruling humanity. You are being ruled by your mind. Mind should serve you. It should not rule you.

THERE IS MORE REASON IN YOU BODY THAN IN YOUR BEST WISDOM. AND WHO KNOWS FOR WHAT PURPOSE YOUR BODY REQUIRES PRECISELY YOUR BEST WISDOM?...

MY BROTHER, IF YOU HAVE A VIRTUE AND IT IS YOUR OWN VIRTUE, YOU HAVE IT IN COMMON WITH NO ONE.

I have been telling you again and again that the more you become an individual the more you become unique, and in your uniqueness is hidden your celebration.

Zarathustra says, "If you have a virtue, and it is your own virtue, not taught by others but discovered by yourself, you have it in common with no one, it will be unique. It will be simply your signature. It will be as unique as your fingerprints. Nobody else can have it in the world."

Nature never repeats. Even when you see things similar, they are only similar, but they are not the same.

Just look at a tree and watch each leaf, and you will be surprised - each leaf has its own individuality; no other leaf is exactly like it.

Go to the beach. Find seashells, and no two seashells will be exactly the same. Or find colored stones - no two colored stones will be the same.

The creativity of existence is enormous. It never repeats. You have heard the saying, "History never repeats," but I say to you that that is not true. History repeats, only existence never repeats.

History repeats, because it is in the hands of unconscious people. Unconscious people cannot be unique.

It happened once, a man purchased a painting by Picasso. It was one million dollars, and he wanted to be sure that it was an authentic Picasso, not a fake - because there are on the market fake paintings which look exactly alike. Unless you are an experienced critic, it is impossible for you to see any difference. So he consulted a man who was an expert, particularly about Picasso's paintings. He told him, "Don't be worried. About this painting I can be absolutely sure, because I was staying at Picasso's house when he made this painting; so I am an eyewitness too. You need not worry. Your one million dollars have not gone to waste."

But the man said, "I would like you to come with me to Picasso himself. I want Picasso's opinion also." He said, "There is no problem." They went to Picasso's house. Picasso was sitting with his girlfriend. He looked at the painting and said, "It is fake." The critic said, "What are you saying? I was present when you made it." And the girlfriend also said, "This is too much. I was also in the house when you were painting it."

Picasso said, that "I have not said that I have not painted it, but it is fake." They all looked at Picasso - has he gone mad? He said, "You will not understand. The reality is, one man wanted to have a painting and I had no idea coming into my mind, so I simply painted an old painting of mine. You can go into a museum in Paris and you will find it there. I simply painted the same painting again.

So although I have painted it, it is not authentic, it is a copy. And whether the copy is made by me or by somebody else does not matter. A copy is a copy. It is fake."

Existence never copies itself. It is always new and always fresh.

TO BE SURE, YOU WANT TO CALL IT BY A NAME AND CARESS IT; YOU WANT TO PULL ITS EARS AND AMUSE YOURSELF WITH IT.

AND BEHOLD! NOW YOU HAVE ITS NAME IN COMMON WITH THE PEOPLE AND HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE PEOPLE AND THE HERD WITH YOUR VIRTUE!

YOU WOULD DO BETTER TO SAY: 'UNUTTERABLE AND NAMELESS IS THAT WHICH TORMENTS AND DELIGHTS MY SOUL AND IS ALSO THE HUNGER OF MY BELLY.'

A very strange statement. He says the moment you try to make your virtue acceptable by society, you moderate it here and there, it loses its truth. You become part of the herd; you are no more a unique individual. And you can see it down the ages.

Never again another Zarathustra.

Never again another Gautam Buddha.

Never again another Jesus Christ.

And still millions of people are trying to be carbon copies of these people. They are destroying themselves. If you are not unique, you have missed the opportunity of your life. You have missed your growth.

Gautam Buddha is beautiful. Zarathustra is beautiful. But you pretending to be Zarathustra, you posing as a Gautam Buddha, will be only acting. Perhaps you can do it even better, because Gautam Buddha was not acting; he has not rehearsed. His life was spontaneous. You can rehearse as many times as you want; you may even improve on the image of Gautam Buddha, but still you will be fake. You will be a hypocrite.

Zarathustra says, YOU WOULD DO BETTER TO SAY: 'UNUTTERABLE AND NAMELESS IS THAT WHICH TORMENTS AND DELIGHTS MY SOUL....' It delights my soul because it is my own growth, and it torments because I cannot express it. '... AND IS ALSO THE HUNGER OF MY BELLY.'

It is not only the hunger of my soul, it is also the hunger of my belly.

He wants you to remember that your body and your being are so one, that the longing of your being will become the longing of your body, and the hunger of your body will become the hunger of your being. They are only two names, but not two separate entities.

LET YOUR VIRTUE BE TOO EXALTED FOR THE FAMILIARITY OF NAMES: AND IF YOU HAVE TO SPEAK OF IT, DO NOT BE ASHAMED TO STAMMER. Whenever one finds a unique virtue in his being, he is bound to stammer, because all that is great in man is inexpressible. At the most you can stammer, but you can never be satisfied that what you have said is exactly what you have experienced.

THUS SAY AND STAMMER: 'THIS IS MY GOOD, THIS I LOVE, JUST THUS DO I LIKE IT, ONLY THUS DO I WISH THE GOOD.' Whether it is truth, or beauty, or good, it has to be your own, it has to have roots in your very being. Otherwise you will remain part of the crowd. And that is the most ugly thing in the eyes of Zarathustra: to be part of the crowd, to be just a cog in the wheel, to be just a number. To be a number in the crowd takes away your dignity, your honor, your pride.

Have you ever thought, that in the armies people are given numbers? And when a soldier dies, on the board of the office appears the writing, "Number 13 died." It makes such a difference, because number 13 has no children, number 13 has no wife waiting for him, number 13 has no old mother to see at least once more his face. Number 13 has no father, no friends. When you read on the board, "Number 13 has died" it does not strike you, it does not hurt you. But if the name of the man was there, it would have had a totally different impact on you, because you knew the man. You know his wife is waiting, his children will become orphans, his old mother and father will become beggars.

It is a very cunning strategy to give soldiers numbers. A number is replaceable; another recruit will become number 13. But nobody else can replace the man who was number 13. Numbers can be replaced, but human beings cannot be replaced. In a crowd you become a number, you lose your originality, you start imitating others, you start doing things like everybody else.

Zarathustra says, "Remember, unless it is my good, it is not good enough. If it is not my experience of truth, it is just a hypothesis in which you can believe, but it cannot dispel your darkness. Just by believing in light, your darkness will not disappear. You need real light, your light. Only then darkness can disappear.

I DO NOT WANT IT AS A LAW OF GOD. I DO NOT WANT IT AS A HUMAN STATUTE: LET IT BE NO SIGN-POST TO SUPEREARTHS AND PARADISES. Zarathustra is a rebel, and only a rebel can be a truly religious person. He is saying, "I don't want it as a law of God - because to follow laws is to lose your freedom. It has to be my law, it has to arise in my consciousness. It has to be a flower of my own being. Then only it has beauty, and freedom."

He does not want his virtue because it will lead him to paradise - virtue in itself is paradise. Those who are virtuous because they are desirous of the pleasures of paradise are simply greedy. They are not virtuous - they don't know what virtue is.

Virtue is a reward unto itself.

When you love, do you want reward also? Love is a reward unto itself. When you are truthful, do you want a reward? Being truthful - what reward can be more than that? But all the religions have been giving people false ideas: be truthful, be good, be moral, and you will be immensely rewarded in the other world. These greedy people try to be virtuous, try to be good, try to be truthful - not that they love truth, not that they enjoy virtue. They are using these as stepping stones for the pleasures of paradise.

My own understanding is exactly the same: that anything authentic that arises in you is a reward in itself. You don't want anything more. It is more than enough. It is such a joy, such blissfulness to be good, to be helpful, to be compassionate, to be kind. It is such a joy to share, not to give alms.

Zarathustra is right when he says, "I will not give alms; I am not that poor. I will share, because I am rich enough." Only beggars give alms to other beggars. Bigger beggars give alms to smaller beggars; these bigger beggars are keeping an eye on the pleasures of paradise. It is simply business, it is not giving unconditionally; and to give unconditionally, and to rejoice in it, is a paradise itself.

IT IS AN EARTHLY VIRTUE THAT I LOVE: THERE IS LITTLE PRUDENCE IN IT, AND LEAST OF ALL COMMON WISDOM. You have been told again and again by pedagogues, by preachers, that love is something not of the earth, but Zarathustra loves the earth too much. He has no desire and no greed for any other world, and he has no fear of any hell. He wants this earth to be as beautiful, as loving, as divine as possible, because for him matter and spirit are not two. Matter is only condensed energy. It is a form of energy, but not something different.

IT IS AN EARTHLY VIRTUE THAT I LOVE.... Don't think about love, or about beauty, or about truth as if these flowers cannot blossom on the earth. They can blossom on the earth. They have blossomed on the earth. Their very life is rooted in the earth. It is the earth that supplies all their juice, all their color, all their fragrance.

Zarathustra is a pagan.

BUT THIS BIRD HAS BUILT ITS NEST BENEATH MY ROOF: THEREFORE I LOVE AND CHERISH IT - NOW IT SITS THERE UPON ITS GOLDEN EGGS.

THUS SHOULD YOU STAMMER AND PRAISE YOUR VIRTUE. It is very difficult to say exactly, in words, the vast and enormous experience of love, or good, or beauty. But don't be worried that you will be simply stammering. Stammer!

BUT THIS BIRD HAS BUILT ITS NEST BENEATH MY ROOF It may be love, it may be good, it may be the experience of the divine... but the divine is not against the earth; the divine is also a growth in the earth. Because the BIRD HAS BUILT ITS NEST BENEATH MY ROOF: THEREFORE I LOVE AND CHERISH IT. I am not concerned with faraway worlds - they are only vain dreams of cunning people to exploit humanity. NOW IT SITS THERE UPON ITS GOLDEN EGGS. When love arises in you, it is just like a bird sitting on its golden eggs. Everything is within you, and everything belongs to the earth.

The earth is the temple.

Not only beautiful flowers grow on it, not only tall trees grow on it, but a man like Zarathustra, or Gautam Buddha, or Jesus, is also growing on the same earth. They are the pride of the earth.

THUS SHOULD YOU STAMMER AND PRAISE YOUR VIRTUE.

He is immensely unique in not condemning the earth - on the contrary, praising it. It is the mother of all. If we had understood the earth as the mother of all, even of great values, we would have treated the earth in a different way. We have destroyed it. We have almost poisoned it. We have broken its ecological unity. We have disturbed its environment. And now with nuclear weapons we are ready to destroy it. And it is the source of all that is beautiful, and all that is great.

The earth is sacred.

Nobody else has been so courageous to say the truth. Zarathustra's courage is great, and he speaks as if he is our contemporary. Twenty-five centuries have not made any difference - because those earth-condemners are still there. The religions which are against the body are still there. If Zarathustra is understood, there should not be any condemnation of the earth, but a deep reverence for the earth, and all that grows on the earth.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.