Of the bestowing virtue, part 2

Man is an experiment - an experiment of existence to reach to the heights of consciousness and to reach to the depths of the very sources of life. Man should be understood only in this way. You are not born complete. All other animals are born complete; a dog is born a dog and will die a dog. Man can be born a man and can die as a Gautam Buddha. Between birth and death no other animal evolves, except man.

Once this is recognized in your heart - that you are an experiment of existence - you bestow upon yourself the greatest dignity possible. Then you cannot go on living in a mechanical, robot-like fashion. You have to move - move towards the stars. You have to progress, and your progress knows no limits.

You are a pilgrimage without any goal; a pilgrimage from eternity to eternity. Because your reality is not just on the outside - the outside is very superficial - your authentic evolution is going to be inner.

Your journey is inwards. Hence, your being an experiment finally turns into being an experience. We experiment with things which are outside us. Science is experimental. We experience things which are inside our being. Religion is experiential. Man has to do both. He has to be an experiment in the hands of existence, and he has also to become an experience in his own right, in his own subjectivity.

These words of Zarathustra are too important to be forgotten. Each single word has to become a vibration within you; not just a memory, but a living opening towards vaster fields, towards greater skies.

Zarathustra is not a priest, he is a scientist of the soul. His religion does not consist in worshiping, his religion consists in transformation - the symbol of his religion is fire. The symbol of fire is significant, it is the only thing that defies gravitation. It does not go low-wards; it always goes upwards.

But the same fallacy has happened to those who think as followers of Zarathustra. Rather than becoming a flame, moving upwards into the higher realms of consciousness, they have become worshipers of fire. Worship is a very cunning device; it leads people astray.

If a scientist starts worshiping his instruments, do you think there will be any progress? If a painter starts worshiping paints and canvasses, do you think there is going to be any creativity? A musician worshiping the instruments of music will not be able to bring great music to the world.

But this has happened as far as religion is concerned. People are worshiping, and they think worship is religion. Worship is not religion. You have gone astray, clinging to the symbols still in the temples of Zarathustra. The fire has been kept alive for twenty-five centuries but nobody becomes a fire himself, so that all that is rubbish in you can be burned and only the gold, pure gold, can be saved.

Zarathustra was talking about the highest value, of love. Love to him is synonymous with God, but not in the same way as it is with Jesus. With Jesus God comes first, love comes second. Jesus says, "God is love." It indicates that love is one of the attributes of God, but he may have many other attributes. God is not only love, just love; he is many more things.

With Zarathustra love comes first; love is God because love is the highest value. And just to change those words makes such a tremendous difference that it looks unbelievable. If love is God, then God becomes an attribute of love - and what is God except creativity? Love being creative is all that religion is about.

He has defined the highest value in an absolutely unique way. First, that it is not common - so whatever you think about love cannot be the love Zarathustra is talking about. Your love is very common. Your love is only a name; behind it is nothing but biological lust. Your love is not a value, but a degradation, a bondage - not a freedom. It brings misery and anguish in your life, not blissfulness, not silence, not serenity, not godliness. Unless love brings these qualities it remains common. According to Zarathustra the first important thing about the highest value is, it has to be unique, very rare.

Secondly, it has to be useless. To understand the second point is a little bit difficult, because we have all been taught in the philosophies of utility. Anything that is useless, how can it be the highest value? It cannot even be called a value.

But Zarathustra's meaning is clear. He is saying: Love cannot be a means to another end. You cannot use it. You can live it, you can be it, but you cannot use it for any purpose, for any goal, for any end; you cannot reduce it into a means. That's what he means when he says the highest value is the end of all other values, but itself is useless - because there is nothing higher than this to which it can become a means. It is an end unto itself.

And thirdly, that it does not need any outside support to make it valuable; it shines from its own inner center. It is luminous. It bestows beauty upon itself. It is absolutely independent.

After talking about the highest value, HERE ZARATHUSTRA FELL SILENT A WHILE AND REGARDED HIS DISCIPLES LOVINGLY. Whenever something profound is uttered it has to be followed, of necessity, by silence. That silence gives it more depth, more meaning, more profundity.

HERE ZARATHUSTRA FELL SILENT A WHILE. Masters are not orators. They are not practicing a particular kind of art of speaking, they are trying to transfer their experience to their disciples. Hence they use words and they also use wordless silences. More often their truth has to be found in the gaps, when they fall silent.

When you have heard a profound truth and the master becomes silent, suddenly words disappear and the presence of the master fills your heart. Something transpires in those silent moments, which nobody has ever been able to say, and nobody will ever be able to say. That transfer is possible only when the master is silent and the disciples are silent. Where two silences meet you experience the highest value; you experience love.

HERE ZARATHUSTRA FELL SILENT A WHILE AND REGARDED HIS DISCIPLES LOVINGLY. In that silence there was nothing but a love radiating from the master and penetrating the hearts of the disciples. Nothing was said but everything was understood. And he was happy, and looked at the disciples lovingly, because the silence has not been empty; the disciples have been able to receive it, to become pregnant with it.

THEN HE WENT ON SPEAKING THUS, AND HIS VOICE WAS DIFFERENT. Just a moment before he fell silent he was speaking about the highest value and its qualities. It was more a philosophical statement; more verbal, more in the words of the words - but now his voice is different. He is not speaking to an anonymous crowd, he is speaking to those who love him; he is speaking to those who can fall silent with him, who can be in a state of meditation with him.

Now his words and his voice have a difference - they are not dry, they have become more juicy; they are not philosophical, they have become more poetic. He does not have to give any argument to these disciples; he has given them the experience itself. Now he can talk to them without argumentation, without logic. Now he has the freedom even to be irrational - because all that is great in life is irrational. And he is immensely pleased.

Just as a disciple needs a master, perhaps the master needs the disciple even more. The disciple is groping in darkness, he is empty, he is not burdened. The master is overflowing; he wants to share, and he is in a hurry to find those who are capable of being receptive, open - who are capable of communion.

STAY LOYAL TO THE EARTH. That is one of the fundamentals of Zarathustra, he is against all religions. They say, "Remain loyal to heaven; remain loyal to God, who is far away beyond the clouds." Zarathustra's insistence is: STAY LOYAL TO THE EARTH, MY BROTHERS, WITH THE POWER OF YOUR VIRTUE! - with your love. Be loving to the earth. Sow the seeds of love on the earth.

The question is not for you to enter into some paradise in the skies. On the contrary, the question is how to transform this earth into paradise. It has all the potential. Just an awakening about the potential of the earth, about the potential of the people on the earth, and there will be no talk about any heaven or any paradise or any God. Man can become complete, fulfilled unto himself.

This earth is our home, it is our mother; that is why he calls his disciples "my brothers". Neither Krishna, nor Mohammed, nor Moses, nor Buddha has ever called their disciples "my brothers".

They were far away, holy men, and you were far below, earthly, worldly. What relationship can exist between you and them? Certainly it cannot be the relationship of brothers.

MAY YOUR BESTOWING LOVE AND YOUR KNOWLEDGE SERVE TOWARDS THE MEANING OF THE EARTH! The earth is searching through you for its own meaning. You are the highest evolved part of the earth. Have you ever considered? - your body is earth, your brain is earth, your heart is earth. You are the highest flowering, a great metamorphosis. There seems to be no connection between the earth and your eyes, but your eyes are nothing but the eyes of the earth. It is an effort of the earth to see. Your ears are an effort of the earth to hear the music.

MAY YOUR BESTOWING LOVE AND YOUR KNOWLEDGE SERVE TOWARDS THE MEANING OF THE EARTH! THUS I BEG AND ENTREAT YOU....

A HUNDRED TIMES HAS SPIRIT AS WELL AS VIRTUE EXPERIMENTED AND GONE ASTRAY.

YES, MAN WAS AN EXPERIMENT. ALAS, MUCH IGNORANCE AND ERROR HAS BECOME BODY IN US!

This single sentence, YES, MAN WAS AN EXPERIMENT, makes Zarathustra one of the greatest scientists of your inner being. Man is not a complete being; man is a becoming. You see the trees - they are beings, they are following a fixed program. They will live so long, each spring they will yield flowers and fruits - everything is fixed about them. They only grow old, they never grow up.

All animals are the same; they grow old. It is only in man that there is a distinction: he can grow old just like animals and trees, or he can grow up - in consciousness, in love, in gratitude, and can bring to the earth the meaning it has been searching for... searching for the meaning it has reached up to man.

But A HUNDRED TIMES HAS SPIRIT AS WELL AS VIRTUE EXPERIMENTED AND GONE ASTRAY. And the reason why the experiments have failed, is that nobody recognized that we are experiments of the earth. All the religions started renouncing the earth, and that is where they went wrong. They were sons and daughters of the earth and they started renouncing the earth; and it was the earth who had brought them to this level of life and consciousness. Zarathustra would like you to remain loyal to the earth so that the experiment cannot go astray.

NOT ONLY THE REASON OF MILLENNIA - THE MADNESS OF MILLENNIA TOO BREAKS OUT IN US. It is not only the reason of the millions of years that have passed that we get in heritage. We also get in heritage the MADNESS OF MILLENNIA.

All that has gone wrong in millions of years also comes to us as our heritage. And one has to be very alert to sort out what is wrong in the traditions, in the orthodoxies, in the religions of the past, and find the point from where other experiments have gone astray. You cannot blindly follow the paths, otherwise you will also go wrong.

IT IS DANGEROUS TO BE AN HEIR, because in heritage you get everything: the rationality and the madness too, the successes and the failures too. And the difficulty is: successes are very few and failures are many. Sanity is very rare and madness is very common. Almost ninety-nine percent of your heritage is insane. It is because of that heritage that humanity remains miserable, cannot get free from the ancient bondage - because it thinks that it is our heritage, slavery is our heritage.

Chains become ornaments and imprisonments become our homes.

To be religious one needs to be a rebel.

To be religious one needs fire to burn all that is false, to burn all that is superfluous, to burn all that is not essential and to save only that which is very small, from where you can move in the right direction.

WE ARE STILL FIGHTING STEP BY STEP WITH THE GIANT CHANCE AND HITHERTO THE SENSELESS, THE MEANINGLESS, HAS STILL RULED OVER MANKIND. Our greatest problem is why the experiment has not succeeded, why man has always proved a failure, why man has not proved himself to be the salt of the earth, the meaning and the significance.

Just a little intelligence and it is not difficult to find. HITHERTO THE SENSELESS AND MEANINGLESS HAS STILL RULED OVER MANKIND. Just watch your own life and watch the life of the people around you. How much is senseless? How much is meaningless? And that senselessness and meaninglessness predominates.

In one of the Indian religions, Jainism, there are two sects. Their differences are so senseless and meaningless - but they go on fighting for them. As an example, I will tell you: One of their differences is that their twenty-fourth tirthankara, twenty-fourth messiah, Mahavira, lived naked. The difference is that one sect said, "It is a historical fact that Mahavira lived actually naked." And the other sect says, "He only appeared naked because he has got clothes from God which are transparent. So he was not naked, he only appeared naked."

Now, as far as anybody is concerned he was naked, whether he was actually naked or was using some absolutely transparent clothes... what difference does it make? But that created a rift. And both the religions, for twenty-five centuries, have been fighting with each other. Do you call it reasonable, sensible, or just stupid?

Another problem is whether Mahavira meditated with closed eyes or open eyes. An intelligent man should be concerned, what his meditation was. What does it matter whether he meditated with open eyes or with closed eyes? What matters is meditation.

I was talking to a Jaina monk and I said, "You both are wrong."

He said, "What do you mean?"

I said, "I'm going to create a third sect. He meditated with blinking eyes," which seems to be more natural. So, for a second open, for a second closed.

But they cannot worship the same statue of Mahavira. If the eyes are closed then one sect can worship it; the other sect can worship it only by putting false eyes over the statue's eyes. Then it is good, everything is good. But they will worship only with the open eyes.

And I told the Jaina monk, "I know Mahavira perfectly well; he blinked, just as you blink. So you both are right. For a second he was with closed eyes, for a second he was with open eyes. He was not blind. Don't force the idea that he kept his eyes closed forever. And don't force the contrary idea, that he kept his eyes open forever, because that is not in the nature of things." The eyelids are not uselessly given to you. Your eyes are the most delicate part of your body, they need constant cleaning. Not even a small piece of dust should settle on them; it can be destructive. Your eyelids are doing exactly what the wipers on the windshield of a car do, just cleaning.

But whatsoever the case, the fight is so stupid. People get engaged in these fights and forget the essential. And it is not only one religion, the same is the case with all the religions of the world.

Their conflicts are so trivial.

For example, Mohammedans have two sects: Sia and Sunni. And the difference.... They both believe in the prophet Mohammed; they both believe in the holy KORAN; they both believe in the God preached by the holy KORAN, they both believe in the kaaba; they both believe that every Mohammedan, at least once in his life, must go for a pilgrimage to the kaaba; so on all essential things that make a Mohammedan, they are in agreement. But they are continually killing each other.

Mohammed had a son and Mohammed had a daughter, and naturally, a son-in-law. And that is the problem: who succeeded Mohammed, the son or the son-in-law? But what does it matter? You are neither the son nor are you the son-in-law. Whoever succeeded him, it is the same religion. You are in absolute agreement about the religion - now who succeeded Mohammed, A, B, C, does not matter, should not matter.

But for fourteen centuries Sias and Sunnis have been killing each other. And they become so much involved in these trivial matters they forget all about religion, they forget all about evolution, they forget all about inner growth - there is no time! First they have to settle these stupid things, which cannot be settled, there is no way to settle them now.

MAY YOUR SPIRIT AND YOUR VIRTUE SERVE THE MEANING OF THE EARTH, MY BROTHERS: AND MAY THE VALUE OF ALL THINGS BE FIXED ANEW BY YOU. The value has to be fixed anew constantly, as times change. Life is a flux; just like a river it goes on moving. It remains fresh and clean only through movement. Stop the movement of the river and it becomes dirty. The movement is the cleansing process. This is another point where man's experiments have gone astray; they become fixed.

What Confucius said cannot be changed. Everything has changed. But the values given by Confucius remain the same - that creates a dichotomy in man's mind. If he follows life, which is natural, then he goes against the fixed value. If he follows the fixed value, he goes against life. You have created a dilemma for every man. The fixations of values have destroyed humanity and the whole experiment of evolution.

One should be alert each moment to die to the past and be born anew, so one remains, fresh, clean, flowing; otherwise - all the religions have stopped at some point; life has gone far away from them, but they are not willing to change.

When Galileo discovered that the earth goes around the sun, not vice versa, it was against THE BIBLE. THE BIBLE simply reports the ordinary illusion we see because we are standing on the earth, and the earth is so vast we cannot see its movement. Everything is moving together. But we can see the sun rising in the morning, setting in the evening, so it is the common understanding that the sun goes around the earth. That is reported in THE BIBLE. It is a common man's, a layman's view.

Galileo was a scientist. With instruments, with higher mathematics he figured out that humanity has lived with a wrong concept: the sun does not go around the earth - the earth goes around the sun.

Immediately he was called into the court of the pope. He was old, seventy-five or eighty years old, one of the greatest scientists the world has known. And the pope ordered him: "You change your book, because THE BIBLE is written by God himself, and you cannot be wiser than God. Write in your book that the sun goes around the earth; otherwise, all your books will be burnt and you will be burnt alive. You are a heretic. You are creating a religious idea."

He said, "Religion has nothing to do with it. Whether the sun goes around or the earth goes around, what concern is it of religion? You can still meditate the same; you can still meditate, pray, dance, sing - whatever your religion teaches you. My statement will not make any difference to you."

But the pope said, "My order is final. You are spreading fallacies." Galileo I love, because of his sense of humor. He said, "Then it is perfectly good. I will change it and in the footnotes I will write, 'Although I have changed the statement according to the order of the pope, neither the earth reads my book, nor the sun reads my book.' And I'm sorry: the earth will still go around the sun. There will be no change. My book cannot make any change."

These are the people who have stopped. Even today, Christianity preaches that the earth is flat.

Now we have airplanes and rockets moving around the earth, and it is not an assumption, but an actual experience that it is a globe, not flat. You can start a journey from here, and if you go directly and go on going, finally you will come to the same point again. If the earth was flat, somewhere you would fall off the earth into the empty sky, but because the earth is round you cannot fall; you will come back full circle.

But Christianity is not ready to change its concepts. And all the religions have similar concepts; they have stopped thousands of years ago. Zarathustra is saying: "Renew your values always. To that end you should be fighters!" And if a fight is needed against the fixed values, be fighters. "To that end you should be creators and create new values," - values which are contemporary, values which are supported by the latest discoveries, the latest experiments in science, in psychology, in every other field. Only then man can go on without being stuck somewhere; his evolution can be unhindered.

THE BODY PURIFIES ITSELF THROUGH KNOWLEDGE; EXPERIMENTING WITH KNOWLEDGE IT ELEVATES ITSELF....

PHYSICIAN, HEAL YOURSELF: THUS YOU WILL HEAL YOUR PATIENT TOO. LET HIS BEST HEALING-AID BE TO SEE WITH HIS OWN EYES HIM WHO MAKES HIMSELF WELL.

This is great advice to those who want human consciousness to reach to its highest possible peaks.

The first thing is: "Physician heal thyself." You should be completely free of all superstitions, all senseless dead pasts, you should be new every moment. This will be your health. And this will help people: seeing you, seeing your awareness, seeing your love, seeing your compassion, seeing your blissfulness will be the proof that others are wrong and they have to change. It is not a question of arguing; it is a question of presenting your life in the new light, so those who are standing in darkness can see that they are standing in darkness, and THAT IS THE CAUSE OF THEIR MISERY AND THEIR SICKNESS.

THERE ARE A THOUSAND PATHS THAT HAVE NEVER YET BEEN TRODDEN, A THOUSAND FORMS OF HEALTH AND HIDDEN ISLANDS OF LIFE. This is where anybody who has intelligence will fall in love with Zarathustra. He is so different from other teachers of religion.

Mahavira says, "I have said the last word; now there is no more to be discovered. All that has to be discovered about human consciousness I have discovered. There will not be a twenty- fifth TIRTHANKARA." Gautam Buddha says the same thing. Mohammed says, "There have been prophets before me, but after me there will be no prophets, because I have brought all knowledge; now nothing is any longer hidden."

Zarathustra has a very different approach, very humble. THERE ARE A THOUSAND PATHS THAT HAVE NEVER YET BEEN TRODDEN, A THOUSAND FORMS OF HEALTH AND HIDDEN ISLANDS OF LIFE. MAN AND MAN'S EARTH ARE STILL UNEXHAUSTED AND UNDISCOVERED.

He does not want to be the last word. On the contrary he wants to be the beginning, and leaves everything open. "Go on changing as you come into new spaces. You don't have to be in agreement with me, because there are thousands of paths which are untrodden, and there are thousands of islands on the earth and in the inner being of man which are not yet discovered. So don't remain clinging to me - move on!"

He is saying, "I teach you movement. I don't give you a fixed doctrine; I only give you an impetus, an incentive, a challenge." A real master is always a challenge: challenge for new discoveries, challenge for new unknown spaces, challenge for faraway stars. He simply gives encouragement. He helps you to be on the wing, and leaves the whole sky open for you.

WATCH AND LISTEN, YOU SOLITARIES! FROM THE FUTURE COME WINDS WITH A STEALTHY FLAPPING OF WINGS; AND GOOD TIDINGS GO OUT TO DELICATE EARS.

YOU SOLITARIES OF TODAY, YOU WHO HAVE SECEDED FROM SOCIETY.... Be careful about these words: YOU SOLITARIES OF TODAY, YOU WHO HAVE SECEDED FROM SOCIETY, YOU SHALL ONE DAY BE A PEOPLE: FROM YOU, WHO HAVE CHOSEN OUT YOURSELVES, SHALL A CHOSEN PEOPLE SPRING - AND FROM THIS CHOSEN PEOPLE, THE SUPERMAN.

It is unfortunate that it has not happened yet. Still.... You are solitaries today; my name for solitaries is sannyasins. Still you are few. Twenty-five centuries have past, but the words of Zarathustra sound as if they are being spoken today.

YOU SOLITARIES OF TODAY, YOU WHO HAVE SECEDED FROM SOCIETY, YOU SHALL ONE DAY BE A PEOPLE. Twenty-five centuries ago he was hoping - and it is still a hope. I am still hoping that you will not remain few. I have even started calling you "my people".

FROM YOU, WHO HAVE CHOSEN OUT YOURSELVES, SHALL A CHOSEN PEOPLE SPRING - AND FROM THIS CHOSEN PEOPLE, THE SUPERMAN.

TRULY, THE EARTH SHALL YET BECOME A HOUSE OF HEALING! AND ALREADY A NEW ODOUR FLOATS ABOUT IT, AN ODOUR THAT BRINGS HEALTH - AND A NEW HOPE! I can simply repeat his words, because they are as true today as they were twenty-five centuries ago. It is very saddening; it is unfortunate, but perhaps he came too early, ahead of his time. Every genius comes early, but Zarathustra seems to have come too early.

Perhaps now is the time that we can make this earth a temple of healing - not only of the body but of the soul too, a holy place where everybody is whole, not split, not schizophrenic.

AND ALREADY A NEW ODOUR FLOATS ABOUT IT. It is still very small, but it is there in the hearts of many intelligent and courageous people. A longing for a greater life, for a higher life, for a better life has already arisen. Perhaps the spring is very close. Perhaps we have come at the right time.

AN ODOUR THAT BRINGS HEALTH - AND A NEW HOPE! We want this hope to become a reality; it has remained a hope too long. It is time that the dream is realized and if we cannot realize this dream, then there is no future for humanity.

This gives me great hope, because the mad crowd has come close to a global suicide. And now there will be only two alternatives: either transform yourself into a new man, the superman, or get ready to disappear from this earth. And I don't think that man wants to die. I don't think that trees want to die or the birds or the animals. I don't think that life wants to commit suicide.

Hence, most probably, it will choose to transform itself and give birth to the superman, and drop this whole arrangement that politicians around the world are making ready for you, for committing suicide. Now the forces of life and the forces of death are confronting each other. The forces of life are fragile, just like an odor in the air. And the forces of death are very strong.

Still, death cannot win over life. Hate cannot win over love. The ugly cannot win over the beautiful.

It was a hope for him; to me it is coming more and more close to being a reality. You may be the fortunate ones to see the dream transformed into a fact. You may be the witness to the birth of the superman.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.