Of the bestowing virtue, part 1

MAN HAS ALWAYS thought about the meaning of virtue, but no man has ever brought the dimension that Zarathustra brings to the world of virtues. Virtue has always been preached by the religions as a means to reward, as a means to heaven, as a means to become a favorite of God, of existence.

But all these religions have given virtue an extrinsic meaning, a meaning that comes from outside, not a meaning that grows from within. Zarathustra brings a meaning to the word virtue intrinsically, just the way flowers blossom, and are connected deep down with roots, deep into the earth. They are not separate; the earth may not show the colors and the perfume, the beauty; but it is all hidden in it and becomes expressed in the flowers. The seed of virtue is within you, it has nothing to do with any reward. It is a reward unto itself. It is not a means to anything , it is an end in itself.

Zarathustra has to be understood very deeply, because this understanding will change your whole concept of a religious life, of a spiritual revolution, of a new man who will be religious but without religions; who will be religious but without any objectives; whose religiousness will be just a fragrance of his innermost being. And his virtue will be to share it, to bestow it over the whole existence.

Zarathustra asks his disciples, TELL ME: HOW DID GOLD COME TO HAVE THE HIGHEST VALUE? BECAUSE IT IS UNCOMMON AND USELESS AND SHINING AND MELLOW IN LUSTRE.

IT ALWAYS BESTOWS ITSELF. The things that he is saying about gold are true about the highest virtues of truth, of beauty, of good, of love.

Contemplate on each single point that he is making: it is uncommon, it is unique, it is rare. The moment a virtue becomes common, it ceases to be a virtue. Its being uncommon, its being a rarity, its being something unique is its very nature. If everybody in the world is truthful, truth will not be a virtue anymore. Who will call it a virtue?

If being compassionate was a common quality of human beings, compassion would disappear from the list of great virtues. In other words, virtues are of the individual, not of the common crowd.

And secondly, it is useless. Zarathustra's insight into things is so clear, so transparent, so uncompromising, that he has the courage even to say that virtues are useless. Because anything that is useful, is only a means to something else. The useful is always the means, never the end.

Love cannot be a means to anything. The moment you make your love a means to something, it is no longer love. Love has to remain useless to keep its beauty, its joy, its fragrance. The moment it becomes a means, a staircase to reach somewhere, to attain some end, then the end becomes significant; love becomes insignificant in comparison to the end.

Hence, love cannot have any end to it - neither can truth, nor good. To say that they are useless shocks many people, because you think love should be the greatest, most useful thing. Truth must be the most useful thing. But you don't understand the mechanics of life's workings - anything useful falls down into the lower category of means. The end is always useless.

Religions have been discussing for centuries, but it is strange that not a single man in the whole history has asked, "What is the use of God?" If love has to be useful, if truth has to be useful, if good has to be useful, if beauty has to be useful, then what is the use of God? God must be the most useless thing in the world.

It will hurt the so-called religious people; but fortunately, there is no God, and nobody needs to be hurt. But if there was a God, he was bound to be useless, utterly useless, just good for nothing - because he will be the end of all, but means for none. For a man like Zarathustra, virtue is in the place of God: to be virtuous is to be religious. But for ordinary religions, to be virtuous means that you are using it to reach God, to attain self-realization, to enter into paradise.

But for Zarathustra, useless is not a word of condemnation. What is the use of a rose flower? You say, "It is beautiful", but what is the use of beauty? What is the use of a beautiful sunset, when the clouds in the sky become so psychedelic, so colorful - as if the whole horizon has become poetic?

The birds are returning home... what could be the use of such a beautiful sunset? There is no use at all. And the artist has known it down the ages. Hence, he has said, "Art for arts sake". It is an end unto itself.

And thirdly, it is SHINING AND MELLOW IN LUSTRE, IT ALWAYS BESTOWS ITSELF. It is luminous, it does not need anything to decorate it, it is utterly self-sufficient, overflowingly joyful, aglow with blissfulness, for no other reason than just being itself.

Zarathustra starts his statement by asking the disciples, why gold has come to have the highest value? And he gives three reasons: It is uncommon, it is useless, it is self-luminous.

ONLY AS AN IMAGE OF THE HIGHEST VIRTUE DID EGOLD COME TO HAVE THE HIGHEST VALUE. It is just symbolic. The people who have known the highest virtue in life were finding a symbol to express it. Gold satisfied a little bit as an expression, as an indication of the highest value.

GOLD-LIKE GLEAMS THE GLANCE OF THE GIVER. And the man who bestows his virtues over others, who gives his inner riches, shares himself with others, his eyes gleam, gold-like. They have a shine, a luminosity which has no comparison.

THE HIGHEST VIRTUE IS UNCOMMON AND USELESS, IT IS SHINING AND MELLOW IN LUSTRE: THE HIGHEST VIRTUE IS A BESTOWING VIRTUE.

TRULY, I DIVINE YOU WELL, MY DISCIPLES, YOU ASPIRE TO THE BESTOWING VIRTUE, AS I DO....

YOU THIRST TO BECOME SACRIFICES AND GIFTS YOURSELVES: AND THAT IS WHY YOU THIRST TO HEAP UP ALL RICHES IN YOUR SOUL.

Perhaps, no one has pointed it out the way Zarathustra is pointing it out - why people go on the search for truth or search for self. All the great teachers of mankind have been calling people to search: Who are you? Know thyself. But for what?

Zarathustra has the answer. Know your riches, know your treasures, so that you can share, so that you can bestow them over others. Find oneself just for sharing, because the moment you share yourself you transcend ordinary humanity, you become a superman.

The ordinary man is greedy, he is a beggar. He goes on accumulating, he never gives; he does not know the language of giving, or the joy of giving. He's very poor - he knows only the very trivial pleasure of getting. In getting, even if you get the whole world, your pleasure will be trivial; and in giving, you may give only a rose flower, your joy will be that of an emperor.

Giving, perhaps is the most blissful experience in the world; and when you give yourself, when you give something from your innermost being, you truly give.

YOU THIRST TO BECOME SACRIFICES AND GIFTS YOURSELVES: AND THAT IS WHY YOU THIRST TO HEAP UP ALL RICHES IN YOUR SOUL.

YOUR SOUL ASPIRES INSATIABLY AFTER TREASURES AND JEWELS, BECAUSE YOUR VIRTUE IS INSATIABLE IN WANTING TO GIVE.

The whole religious endeavor, the whole spiritual pilgrimage, the whole discovery of oneself, is for a simple reason: that unless you know yourself, you cannot give. How can you give that which is unknown to you? And the miracle is, the moment you know yourself you cannot resist the temptation of giving. It comes with the finding; immediately you want to shout to the whole world, "I have found the source of life, come and share with me".

Whenever you experience something of the beyond, you cannot contain it within yourself. It is just impossible, it is not in the nature of life.

The greater is your inner achievement, the greater will be the desire to give. You will be puzzled in the beginning - your thirst was great to find the source of life; but now you know, your desire to share is even greater.

And the mystery that you will encounter is: the more you give, the more you have it; the less you give, the less you have it. If you don't give, you will lose track of it. You can keep it in your possession only by sharing, by sharing without holding anything back, emptying yourself. And existence takes care; as you are emptying yourself, from unknown sources of your life existence is pouring fresher juices, fresher riches - you are never empty. Your fullness becomes infinite, but it becomes infinite only by giving infinitely.

YOU COMPEL ALL THINGS TO COME TO YOU AND INTO YOU, THAT THEY MAY FLOW BACK FROM YOUR FOUNTAIN AS GIFTS OF YOUR LOVE.

There is no other religion in the world. All other religions are fake, all other religions are simply substitutes to deceive people. The only religion is the religion of love. And when you have found infinite sources within you, your love demands to share with those who are worthy, with those who are unworthy, without any discrimination, because love knows no discrimination.

It is only the poor who discriminate. The richer your soul is... discrimination becomes impossible.

Then it is not a question of whether somebody is worthy or unworthy: to you all that matters is that there is somebody to receive. And you are grateful to the person who receives, not vice versa. You are not hoping the person will be grateful to you because you have given something to him.

In the East, there has been a tradition, very strange.... The Buddhist monks or Jaina monks or Hindu monks... these are the three religions born in India, which have the flavor of the East. When you give food or clothes to a monk - because monks are beggars, they don't possess anything - whatever they need, they beg.... When the sun sets they should not possess anything: tomorrow will take care of itself. Such is their trust, that if up to now life has taken care there is no reason why tomorrow it will not take care. By the evening, they are absolutely possessionless; in the morning whatever they need, they beg.

The strange tradition that I was going to tell you about is that when you give something to a monk, then you have to give him something more. That something more is called your gratefulness, because the monk received your gifts. He could have refused. Because he has received your food, you have to offer him something else to show your gratitude, that you came to my house, you begged food of me - you accepted my food. I was not deserving enough to give, and particularly, to you. Still you were generous enough to receive, so please, as a symbol of my thankful-ness, receive something more.

When I first became aware of this, it looked very strange. Ordinary logic will say that the monk has to be thankful; you have given him food, you have given him clothes, you have given him medicine, or anything that he needed - he should be thankful. But on the contrary, the tradition is that you should be thankful, and not just verbally, you have to give something symbolically, to show your gratitude.

That very ancient idea has a relevance to what Zarathustra is saying. You share yourself, you share your love - do not discriminate, who are you to discriminate? Existence does not discriminate. You should not pretend to be wiser than existence itself. All that you can do is show your gratitude, too, because he allowed you to share your being with him, he allowed your raincloud to shower on him.

It is up to you to be grateful to the thirsty earth, to the rose bushes; they have made you richer by receiving. And as you are giving from your innermost sources, you will find new waters are coming and filling your cup; your cup is never empty. TRULY, SUCH A BESTOWING LOVE MUST BECOME A THIEF OF ALL VALUES. Love is enough, all other values can become shadows to it.

SUCH A BESTOWING LOVE MUST BECOME A THIEF OF ALL VALUES; BUT I CALL THIS SELFISHNESS HEALTHY AND HOLY. Perhaps, after twenty-five centuries since Zarathustra, I am the only man who has used the word selfishness as the foundation of all spirituality. Otherwise, all the religions have been talking about selflessness. And nobody bothers how you can be selfless; you don't even know what your self is. You have never entered into yourself.

One of the great Christian missionaries, Stanley Jones, used to come to India; six months in India, and six months in the West - that was his every-year routine. And I had many chances... because he used to stay very close by where I was teaching in a university, and we often met on our morning walks, or on our evening walks. The one thing that was continuously a question mark between us two was that he continually said that compared to Christianity, all Eastern religions are selfish, because their emphasis is on meditation; and meditation means going inwards, in your aloneness, to the very center of your being, while Christianity teaches you to go to the poor.

In your meditation, you will not find the poor, and start opening hospitals; you will not find orphans, and start opening orphanages; you will not find the sick - so what will you do inside? The real work is outside. There are poor people, there are hungry people, there are sick people, there are starving people, there are orphans, there are prostitutes... and there are so many problems. And surrounded with all these problems, you teach people to meditate, to go within yourself? This is selfishness.

The first time when he said this to me I listened, and I remained silent. He asked, "What is the matter? Why you are not answering me? Do you agree with me, or disagree with me?"

I said, "The question of agreement does not arise. I was just being silent. I was feeling sad for you."

He said, "What? You are feeling sad for me?"

I said, "Yes, because what you call altruistic work, selfless service, is sheer nonsense. Because the man who does not know himself, he himself is an orphan - an orphan in the spiritual sense. He has not yet found his roots in existence, he's still a mortal body. He does not know anything about the eternal spirit. And unless he knows himself, and knows the immense treasures contained therein, he cannot be of any help to anybody."

So I told Stanley Jones, "Remember, never again say that meditation is selfishness. Meditation is the only way. Through being selfish, a moment comes... your whole life becomes selfless. But it happens only by being totally centered within yourself, and then you have compassion, and you have love, and then you can do whatever you want to do.

The poor will be there, the sick will be there, the orphans will be there; and now you can help them in some way. But first, save yourself. You are drowning, and you are trying to save others - and you call it authentic religion. I call it simply nonsense."

"Selfishness", says Zarathustra, "is healthy and holy", because only out of selfishness everything that is beautiful, creative, loving, grows. And then, whatever you do, you don't want any reward for it, you don't want any heaven, any paradise, any God; you don't want anything in reward. It is a reward unto itself. It is not a means to anything else. And unless your life becomes a reward unto itself, you are not religious. This can be the definition of a religious man: a man whose life has become a reward unto itself - selfish, healthy and holy.

OUR MIND FLIES UPWARD: THUS IT IS AN IMAGE OF OUR BODIES, AN IMAGE OF AN ADVANCE AND ELEVATION.

THE NAMES OF THE VIRTUES ARE SUCH IMAGES OF ADVANCES AND ELEVATIONS.

THUS THE BODY GOES THROUGH HISTORY, EVOLVING AND BATTLING. AND THE SPIRIT - WHAT IS IT TO THE BODY? THE HERALD, COMPANION, AND ECHO OF ITS BATTLES AND VICTORIES.

Our values are our flights, far away flights into the unknown: our flights into our own consciousness.

And our inner world is not smaller than the outer space. We are exactly at the midpoint: on the outside is infinite space, on the inside there is also infinite space. Don't be worried about how in such a small body there can be infinite space. It is not contained in the body, it only touches the body - the center of the body. And then, it is beyond the body, it goes on spreading to no limit. Our center is the center of outer and inner existence. And the higher is our flight, the purer becomes our body, because the greater becomes our spirit - the body goes almost as if gold is passing through fire. It becomes purer and purer.

Even the body becomes a great value: innocence, peace, serenity, beauty, grace - so many treasures open up in the body, too.

ALL NAMES OF GOOD AND EVIL ARE IMAGES: THEY DO NOT SPEAK OUT, THEY ONLY HINT.

All words about spiritual values are just hints. Don't hold onto the words as if they are realities. They are hints, almost the way I can point to the moon with my finger - but don't catch hold of my finger.

My finger is not the moon. Although my finger was pointing to the moon, it was only a hint.

In one of the temples of Japan, there is no statue of Gautam Buddha in the temple. Instead of a statue there is a finger pointing to a far away moon. It is a temple of its own kind, because Buddha is nothing but a finger pointing to the moon. Don't go on worshiping the finger - that will not help. Look at the moon where the finger is pointing. Forget the finger, forget the scriptures, forget the masters, forget all your religions; just try to find out what they are hinting at, and you will be surprised to find that thousands of fingers are pointing at the same moon.

And the followers of these fingers are fighting and killing each other. Mohammedans killing Christians, Christians killing Jews, Hindus killing Mohammedans; and nobody bothers that you are fighting for fingers. The fingers may be different, but the moon is the same. The angles of the fingers may be different, because people were standing in different places at different times, in different ages. How can Krishna point exactly the way Jesus is pointing? How can Buddha point in the same way Zarathustra is pointing?

And it is possible, somebody may be a left-handed person. You will kill all those leftists, these idiots; the whole world is believing in right-hand fingers, and these are believing left-hand fingers! Right is somehow right, and left is wrong.

You will be surprised, ten percent of people are left handed. It is not a small percentage, but they have been forced, from the very beginning, to use the right hand. Because use the left hand, and you will be a laughing-stock everywhere, you will feel embarrassed everywhere, in school, in your whole life. So, they have been forced, and they have learned to write with their right hand; but if they were left to nature, ten percent of the people in the world would have been writing with their left hand. And certainly, out of ten masters, at least one master would have been pointing to the moon with the left hand.

THESE IMAGES DO NOT SPEAK OUT, THEY ONLY HINT.

HE IS A FOOL WHO SEEKS KNOWLEDGE FROM THEM. The person who seeks knowledge from these indications in the scriptures, in words, in statues is a fool. The search has to be withinwards, because they are all pointing - that the kingdom of God is within you. And unless you go inwards, unless you close your eyes and relax your mind, unless your heart, your mind, your body all become a synchronicity, a harmony, a deep accord - you will not be able to hear the still small voice within you.

And that voice is nobody else's voice, it is your own. And remember, only the truth that is your own, liberates. Anybody else's truth always becomes a bondage.

WHENEVER YOUR SPIRIT WANTS TO SPEAK IN IMAGES, PAY HEED: FOR THAT IS WHEN YOUR VIRTUE HAS ITS ORIGIN AND BEGINNING.

THEN YOUR BODY IS ELEVATED AND RISEN UP; IT ENRAPTURES THE SPIRIT WITH ITS JOY, THAT IT MAY BECOME CREATOR AND EVALUATOR AND LOVER AND BENEFACTOR OF ALL THINGS.

The past has been an utter failure, because we created so-called religious people, but we could not create the creators. And unless a religious person contributes to the world through some creativity, he has not known the ecstasy of his being; otherwise, he would have shared it in a thousand and one ways - perhaps in music, perhaps in dance, perhaps in song, perhaps in poetry. But he would have uttered it; it would have overflowed him.

In my vision, the creators are more religious than the people who go to the churches, to the temples, to the mosques, the people who do long fasts, the people who torture their bodies, the people who go through many kinds of austerities: these are a little bit crazy type of people - off center. If the whole world becomes religious in their way, you will find it turning into a madhouse. It has almost turned!

Just the other day, I was telling you about Vincent Van Gogh, the famous Dutch painter, who could not sell a single painting in his life, because nobody could understand the beauty of his paintings.

He was too far ahead of his times. And just today, Anando brought me a newsclipping about one of his paintings of flowers, which has broken all the records up to now. It has been sold for forty million dollars. Van Gogh died in poverty, and finally became mad, because he had not enough to eat.

Rather than eating, he preferred to paint. So whatsoever he could get, he would not eat, he would purchase paint, canvasses. And he would paint, hungry, the whole day in the hot sun, standing when he was painting. The hot sun and hunger drove him to madness. When he was released from the madhouse after one year - because all that he needed was rest, good food - he painted his last painting, and committed suicide. He was only thirty-three.

And he wrote a letter to his brothers, "Don't think that I am committing suicide. I am not an escapist, but the reason that I am leaving this world is that I cannot manage both my body and my paintings.

I have prolonged as long as it was possible; moreover, I have painted the painting that I wanted to paint. I am dying completely fulfilled, with no regret, with no complaint."

And now, in that news cutting, in front of his painting there are iron bars - because now it is worth forty million dollars - and two constables standing with loaded guns to protect the painting, and nobody gave even bread and butter to the painter.

I will call Van Gogh a saint, because life mistreated him as badly as you can conceive. Yet in his last letter he has no complaint, no grudge; and he's dying utterly fulfilled, because whatever he wanted to do he has done. He contributed some beauty to the world. He has contributed it whether people understand it or not. "That is not my business; that is their problem." After one hundred years, now his paintings are being searched out, because each painting has become so valuable, that even the greatest painters are left far behind. This is the record: no painting has been sold up to now for forty million dollars. And it is a painting only of roses. You will not give forty million dollars for real roses.

But in his whole life - I have read all his letters, that's all that he has written - there is not even a single place where he is angry, or condemnatory, or in any way saying anything against the world.

Again and again he says, "I can understand. If they cannot see beauty in my paintings, what can they do? Neither I can do anything, nor they can do anything.

"I have come before my time; my paintings will have to wait for my people to come. When my people are here, perhaps they will recognize then, if my paintings survive."

No museum was ready to take those paintings free. People were ashamed; his friends were ashamed, because he used to give his friends his paintings, these same paintings "... just to keep, because I don't have enough space. I live in a small room, I cannot pay more rent, and I don't have a space to keep all my paintings. So, just hang it on your wall." People would hang it on their wall, and the moment he was gone they would throw it in their basement. "Anybody who comes here will think we are mad because we cannot say what this painting means."

All two hundred paintings have been found in people's basements, in strange places. And a great search goes on, because he has painted thousands of paintings and distributed them to people, because he had no place to keep them.

I will call this man a saint who lives the life of sacrifice; but sacrifice not to some hypothetical god, sacrifice not to some wooden statue, but sacrifice to share his joy, and his beauty, and his vision, and his dreams. If the contemporary people cannot understand it, he is ready to wait. He will not be here, but somebody, somewhere in the future will understand it, will rejoice in it; and that is a good enough reward.

Such trust in one's own creativity, such trust that someday there will be someone who is going to understand him - he cannot remain misunderstood forever - can only be a quality of a saint, a true sage.

WHEN YOUR HEART SURGES BROAD AND FULL LIKE A RIVER, A BLESSING AND A DANGER TO THOSE WHO LIVE NEARBY: THAT IS WHEN YOUR VIRTUE HAS ITS ORIGIN AND BEGINNING. Zarathustra is saying a tremendously significant thing. WHEN YOUR HEART SURGES BROAD AND FULL LIKE A RIVER, A BLESSING AND A DANGER TO THOSE WHO LIVE NEARBY. A man like Zarathustra is a blessing only to very few people; only for those who are courageous enough to come close to him, who are courageous enough to go with him into the unknown, on the untrodden path, against tradition, against orthodoxies, against conventions, against the crowd.

But to most of the people it is a danger. The very presence of a man whose heart is overflowing like a river, with love, is a danger. His love can drown you, his love can destroy your ego. To be close to such a person is to lose your boundaries, your identity.

That's why such people are hated so much; so much that Socrates has to be poisoned. He must have become a great danger to the people of Athens. What danger can he be? His love, his truth, his individuality, his overflowing bliss is as dangerous as a flood. Perhaps in a flood there is a possibility that you can swim out; but once you are caught in the flood of love, you cannot swim out.

Down the ages, people who have been really a blessing have been thought to be curses. Only very few people, courageous, intelligent, with guts, ready to risk, and ready to go on an adventure in deep trust and love, knew their blessings; the others knew only their danger. And it is better to destroy such dangerous people, because they can create chaos in the whole society.

But the chaos created by a man like Zarathustra, Socrates, or Jesus is a chaos out of which stars are born, is a chaos out of which man reaches to higher peaks of evolution. The old is destroyed, and the new is born. It is a chaos to be welcomed. But even now, the situation remains exactly the same.

WHEN YOU ARE EXALTED ABOVE PRAISE AND BLAME, AND YOUR WILL WANTS TO COMMAND ALL THINGS AS ETHE WILL OF A LOVER: THAT IS WHEN YOUR VIRTUE HAS ITS ORIGIN AND BEGINNING....

WHEN YOU ARE WILLERS OF A SINGLE WILL, AND YOU CALL THIS DISPELLER OF NEED YOUR ESSENTIAL AND NECESSITY: THAT IS WHEN YOUR VIRTUE HAS ITS ORIGIN AND BEGINNING.

TRULY, IT IS A NEW GOOD AND EVIL! TRULY, A NEW ROARING IN THE DEPTHS AND THE VOICE OF A NEW FOUNTAIN!

IT IS POWER, THIS NEW VIRTUE: IT IS A RULING IDEA, AND AROUND IT A SUBTLE SOUL: A GOLDEN SUN, AND AROUND IT THE SERPENT OF KNOWLEDGE.

Love is his central theme, is his God; and love is the beginning and the origin of all virtue, and love is the essential need of everyone, to dispel darkness and ignorance.

Love is a new morality, a new good, a new God.

TRULY A NEW ROARING IN THE DEPTHS AND THE VOICE OF A NEW FOUNTAIN.

IT IS POWER, THIS NEW VIRTUE: IT IS A RULING IDEA, AND AROUND IT A SUBTLE SOUL: A GOLDEN SUN, AND AROUND IT THE SERPENT OF KNOWLEDGE.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.