Life is not a dictionary

Maneesha, before I discuss the anecdote placed before me, I have few a urgent things to say.

First: one of my very intimate and ancient enemies, ex-Prime Minister Morarji Desai, has been thrown out of his home in Bombay by the Supreme Court. At his age - he must be more than ninety .... He has been occupying the house, Oceana, on Marine Drive, for twenty-two years illegally. When he was in power the owner of the house could not do anything, but now he is no more in power. He is weeping before the news media, saying, "I have been made homeless."

I would like to invite him to be part of my ashram here, on two conditions. First, he has to undergo a test for AIDS and produce the negative certificate. Secondly, he has to drop the dirty old habit of drinking his own urine - that is prohibited here. He can bring his spinning wheel, it is innocent; and we will not ask him to do anything else - he can go on spinning his wheel day and night. We will provide him with every facility that is possible, even though while he was in power he tried constantly to destroy this ashram, not knowing that in the end only this ashram would provide him a home.

Life takes strange turns.

Secondly: all over India, the progressive and intelligent newspapers and magazines have supported my statements against the Shankaracharya of Puri. But a few Hindu chauvinists have criticized me and I have to answer them.

One criticism has appeared in many papers by a man called Sharma. It is hilarious to see that people don't even understand the meaning of their surnames. Sharma comes from sharman, the name of the lowest brahmin class, who used to butcher cows in their religious rituals. 'Sharman' means 'the butcher'. Still, people go on writing under the name Sharma, not knowing that they are declaring their butcherhood and their forefathers' ugly violence.

He has been writing against me, that I should not ask for a negative AIDS test from the Shankaracharya because he is celibate. How does he know? Just because he is a religious head, that does not mean that he cannot have AIDS. In fact, there is more possibility of his having AIDS because he is a celibate and a religious head than there would be in any other profession.

It is now a proved fact all over the world that priests have been found to be homosexuals, and many priests are suffering from AIDS. We cannot make any exception for anybody. In fact, the Shankaracharya of Puri has declared himself a harijan. According to his scriptures, he should not enter into any temple - his own temple included. And if he enters into any temple, that means that harijans can enter into any temple around the country.

People have been deceiving ... that just by changing names .... All the Hindu scriptures call them sudras - untouchables - but now suddenly they have become 'harijans' - 'beloved of God'. And if they are beloved of God, who are all these other bastards - five billion - in the world? And only God's beloveds are not allowed to enter in the temples, and everybody else is allowed?

Religion and politics together have been the greatest calamity for humanity. Not a single politician has spoken against the Shankaracharya's statements because they are afraid that if harijans separate from Hindus - although Hindus have for thousands of years kept them separate .... There is no need to keep them separate - they are separate. The politician is worried, not about the temple, not about the scriptures - but because the harijans have one fourth of the Hindu votes. If they go out of the Hindu fold, these politicians will be out of power.

They are completely silent on such an important issue, and rather than arresting the priests who were preventing harijans from entering Nath Dwara, the harijans have been arrested. And still these politicians and priests want harijans to remain part of Hindu society.

There is a limit to everything. This is too much - too inhuman! They cannot read Hindu scriptures.

They cannot touch Hindus - not even with their shadow. They cannot remain in the city - they have to live outside it. They cannot enter into any temple. On what grounds are they called Hindus?

And this fellow, Sharma, is blaming me, that I am trying to create a separation. I am not creating a separation, Sharma; it is you and your forefathers who have kept the harijans separate. I am trying to bring them into the temples. And if you want them to be part of your politics, then forget your scriptures and let them into the temples.

Even a man like Mahatma Gandhi lied. Although he has written an autobiography entitled MY EXPERIMENTS WITH THE TRUTH, he obviously does not know truth; he is still experimenting.

And meanwhile he is using so many lies. He promised that the first president of India after the British left would be a harijan - and not only a harijan, but a harijan woman. And as the British Empire disappeared, the person who became president was neither a harijan nor a woman. The person who became the prime minister .... The whole power went into the hands of those same exploiters who had been oppressing this country for centuries. From the British, it passed into the hands of the old exploiters, and India remains in slavery.

Because I am telling the truth, it hurts.

Mahatma Gandhi used to pray every evening and morning, "God is one. You can call him Ram, you can call him Allah." But it was just to keep the Hindus and Mohammedans together for political reasons. He never mentioned the KORAN; he always mentioned the GITA and called the GITA his mother. Although he is dead, I want it to be on record that the KORAN must therefore be his father.

His eldest son, Haridas, married a Mohammedan woman, and converted to Mohammedanism. It was a true test of Mahatma Gandhi's honesty, his integrity - and he failed in it. He said to his wife, "Haridas cannot enter into my house again. And I don't want to see him even when I die." The tradition in India is that when a man dies, his eldest son gives fire to the funeral pyre. Gandhi's anger was so much that he willed it that Haridas would not be allowed to even come near his funeral pyre. He would be dead, but his anger ... and the whole world thinks he was a man of peace; the whole world thinks he was a mahatma, a 'great soul' - my foot!

He had said that the country would be divided into India and Pakistan only over his dead body.

But the country was divided with his consent, and he completely forgot that he had been saying continually: "While I am alive, the country cannot be divided." He was the one who was responsible for dividing the country.

He was also the one who gave the untouchables the name 'harijans'. But he himself never tried to allow harijans their dignity as human beings, because he could not offend the higher Hindu castes.

Harijans are perhaps the longest-exploited group of people in the world - they are utterly crushed.

But not even the prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, has spoken against the Shankaracharya.

In fact, he will go and touch his feet just to gain the votes of the high-caste Hindus. Those two hundred harijans could not have been arrested without Rajiv's knowing. It will be good when the Shankaracharya gathers the courage to come here. Rajiv is also invited - because these politicians and priests together are the cause of the poverty and the slavery of this country. But they are interested only in their power. I am not a politician, but they seem to be very much afraid of me.

It is a strange story but even Indians coming to the ashram are being harassed by the police; and these are police sent from Delhi, by the central government. And Indians are being asked for their passports - in their own country. It is against the very constitution; it is against freedom of movement - in your own country you have to carry your passport! I have never heard such a stupidity happening anywhere in the world; but India is really a genius in being stupid.

It is strange that although India is in such poverty, it is wasting 190 million dollars per year on advertising in other countries for tourists to come to India. And on the other hand, when my people come here they are harassed in every possible way. And my people are pouring ten million rupees per day into Poona's economy. If the government was a little intelligent, instead of there being seven thousand people here, there could be one hundred thousand sannyasins from all over the world. I wanted Poona to be the capital of the world. But because of these idiots ....

Rajiv is perfectly aware that it was me who proposed to Indira Gandhi to train him to be the prime minister. He is taking revenge on me because he knows I was the person. And he was afraid and Indira said to me, "What can I do? You try to convince him. He does not want to leave his service as a pilot in Indian Airlines."

And now that he is the prime minister .... When he was just a pilot, he was asking again and again to come here to see me, to ask my advice. And now he is the person in power who is trying all around the world, through the Indian embassies, to refuse to give visas to anybody who is coming to Poona.

Poona has become my personal property!

I want the whole world to know that if people are harassed because they are coming to Poona, then no tourist should come to India. Then let them suffer the whole loss, and stop your Department of Tourism - the whole ministry is meaningless. They are doing contradictory things: they invite people to see the relics of Ajanta and Ellora and now they are advertising very heavily in Japan for the Buddhists to come to Bodhgaya where Buddha became enlightened. But they are preventing people from coming here where Buddha is still alive! He is not only alive - he is ready to impart the same consciousness to anybody who is receptive. Bodhgaya can have no meaning at all, it is just a graveyard.

I want my sannyasins to be aware that they should not be in any way defensive in Indian embassies.

Make them aware: "Your government is inviting us - all these posters and advertisements on the television, on the radio, in newspapers - and who are you to prevent us?"

Hundreds of people have been sent back from Indian airports, just on the suspicion that they may be my sannyasins. Perhaps many may not even have known my name. A few sannyasins who have come have had to deny that they know me at all. "Do you want us to know something about Osho before we can enter India?" They have to give a promise that they are not going to see Osho. What kind of fear is this? It is the fear of truth; because politics is the profession of lying, just as priesthood is.

We have to fight around the world against all kinds of priests and all kinds of politicians. It is a question of the very survival of freedom on the earth.

Maneesha has brought:

In translation, the most significant part is always lost. Tokusan is a great master. Ganto was a student, not even a disciple, because a disciple never takes leave of the master. A disciple becomes almost a part of the very being of the master. There arises an invisible connection between the two hearts. They dance together.

But Ganto must have been just a student, collecting knowledge from this master, from that master.

He was not even aware of the distinction between the teacher and the master, nor about the distinction between the disciple and the student. A student is concerned with knowledge, a disciple is concerned with being; he just wants to be at the highest peak of his own potentiality. He does not want to carry scriptures unnecessarily on his back, he wants the lotus to blossom within his own being. A disciple is not a student. A disciple is a lover. The student is only collecting knowledge.

TOKUSAN SAID, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING? If you are really a disciple, there is no going, no coming anymore, because you have found the catalytic agent which is going to transform your being.

But if you are going, at least I can ask you where." It is out of compassion that Tokusan is saying to Ganto, "Please understand: going away from here is going away from yourself. By accident, you have come very close to the explosion, so where are you going now? When spring is about to come, you are going? When the flowers are going to blossom in all their colors, you are going? Where are you going?"

Ganto could not understand. A student is very poor as far as existential experience is concerned.

GANTO SAID, "FOR NOW I AM TAKING LEAVE OF YOU, MASTER, AND GOING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN."

He does not know the difference between master and teacher; he has no right to call Tokusan 'master'. In the dictionary it means the same thing, but life is not a dictionary. The master is one who can transmit his being to you, who can - just by being present - create a situation in which you become a fire. The teacher can only talk about what the scriptures say. The master is a presence, a silence. Even in his words, he is trying to help you to move towards the wordless.

But Ganto was in sheer confusion. He said, "FOR NOW I AM TAKING LEAVE OF YOU, MASTER ..."

If I had been in the place of Tokusan, I would have ordered Sardar Gurudayal Singh to take care of this fellow Ganto, to hit him three times. He cannot use the word 'master', he is making it synonymous with 'teacher'.

" ... AND GOING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN." TOKUSAN SAID, "AFTER THAT, THEN WHAT?

What will you do down the mountain? From THERE, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"GANTO SAID, "I WON'T FORGET YOU, MASTER." There is no question of forgetting the master. The disciple carries the master in his heart, not in his memory. He is carrying the same flame within him, not in his thoughts.

GANTO SAID, "I WON'T FORGET YOU, MASTER."

Again and again, it is becoming clearer that he is simply a student.

Tokusan asked him, "BY VIRTUE OF WHAT DO YOU SAY THIS?" He is saying, "You have not even known me. On what grounds are you saying that you will not forget me? How can you forget someone you have not known either? Before you can forget, the basic requirement is at least to know. By what virtue are you saying this?"

GANTO SAID, - and this is a quotation from ancient Buddhist scriptures - "HAVEN'T YOU HEARD THAT WHEN A MONK'S KNOWLEDGE IS EQUAL TO HIS TEACHER'S, HE HAS LESS THAN HALF HIS TEACHER'S VIRTUE; WHEN HIS KNOWLEDGE SURPASSES THE TEACHER'S, ONLY THEN IS HE QUALIFIED FOR THE TRANSMISSION?"

He does not understand what he is talking about. This statement in the Buddhist scriptures has nothing to do with knowledge; it has something to do with knowing. That's how things change their color in translations. Knowing is an existential thing, knowledge is just memory. Even a computer has knowledge because it has memory. By memorizing scriptures, you don't prove your intelligence, you only prove that you are a good computer.

The scriptures certainly say this, "If the disciple's knowing is even half of his master's knowing, he also has half the virtue that his master has. But if his knowing surpasses the teacher's, only then is he qualified for the transmission."

In the translation, everything has become topsy-turvy. You cannot surpass the master's knowing because the master in the ultimate sense knows nothing. How can you surpass nothing - do you think there is any possibility? Something can be surpassed, but nothing cannot be surpassed.

Nothing is vast and limitless, how can you surpass it?

But Tokusan is one of the great compassionate teachers. Rather than hitting Ganto, out of compassion he simply says, "Yes. It is so, SO IT IS. GUARD IT WELL ON YOUR OWN. I take back my responsibility for you, now you are on your own, be on guard." In fact what he is saying is, "Now I am no more concerned with you. You are breaking all the bridges between you and me.

Whatever you think, whatever you have understood, guard it well and be on your own."

No master can force anybody to be enlightened. No master can create a fetter for the disciple. No master will say, "Remain with me." It is the disciple's heart that wants to remain. It is not an order from the side of the master, it is the love from the side of the disciple. It is a great love affair, 'the great matter'. You can understand it because you are not students and this is not a university. This is simply a gathering of seekers who have fallen in love with a master, who have recognized in their deepest heart that this is the place where they belong.

But it is not an order. From my side, you are absolutely free. If nobody comes here, I will still come every evening to talk to the bamboos. It is your decision to be here or not to be here. But Tokusan is compassionate, saying that, "If you are leaving, then just be on guard. You can go astray very easily. You have not understood anything."

A haiku by Boryu:

CLOUD ABOVE LOTUS - IT TOO BECOMES A BUDDHA.

I love this haiku particularly for this series. It is dedicated to the clouds. CLOUD ABOVE LOTUS - IT TOO BECOMES A BUDDHA. To be a buddha is everybody's right. If you don't claim it, it is only your fault. Recognize it and live it and you will be suddenly surprised that everything in your life is changing - just from the recognition that your inner being is already a buddha, already awakened.

But you have not taken care.

The English word 'ignorance' is beautiful, but not in the sense that it is usually understood. To me it means ignoring your buddhahood. That is ignorance, the only ignorance. Ignoring your buddhahood - the only ignorance; knowing your buddhahood - the only knowledge.

Saigyo's verse runs:

WHAT IT IS I KNOW NOT; BUT WITH GRATITUDE MY TEARS FALL.

Just today, Leela has sent a question to me: "People who are doing the Mystic Rose meditation in the third stage, the watcher on the hills - many start feeling tears coming for no reason at all. What has to be done about it?"

Leela, nothing has to be done about it. This is simply beautiful. These tears are not of pain. These tears of people in silence are of gratitude. These are just flowers, they are pouring unto the feet of existence itself. Rejoice in their tears. Remember this saying of Saigyo - a great master - WHAT IT IS, I KNOW NOT; BUT WITH GRATITUDE MY TEARS FALL.

Maneesha has asked:

The moment, Maneesha, you surpass yourself ... then there is no you and no I. When the disciple surpasses himself, there is a great meeting of consciousnesses; just as when lovers meet, it is at a lower status, a meeting of bodies. The master and disciple meet at the highest altitude - as pure consciousnesses, as two clouds merging into each other. There is no question of surpassing the master, because when you have surpassed yourself, you will not find any master, you will not find any disciple. You will find only a pure consciousness which is one.

Before we enter into this one consciousness, a few small laughters, just to make the journey a little light.

Old Mrs. Bathead and Mrs. Kooch meet on holiday and are sitting on the porch of their Catskill Mountain hotel.

"Oh my God!" exclaims Mrs. Bathead. "Look at that boy. Did you ever see such a big twisted nose?

And such a huge crooked mouth? And look - he is cross-eyed too!"

"That," says Mrs. Kooch, "happens to be my son."

"Well," says Mrs. Bathead, "on him, it looks very becoming."

Kowalski and Nurdski stagger out of the bar, stumble over to a lamppost, unzip, take things in hand and start to pee.

A cop sees them standing there, walks over and says, "Hey, you two! Put those things away and stop what you are doing. Where do you think you are, India?"

The two Polacks zip up their pants obediently. But when the cop has gone, Kowalski starts to laugh.

"What is so funny?" asks Nurdski.

"I fooled that cop," says Kowalski, "I put it away, but I didn't stop!"

Jemima and Beulah are hanging out on the front porch.

"Did you hear about Mrs. Berrypatch having quadruplets?" says Jemima.

"Well what the hell are they?" cries Beulah.

"Dumb cluck!" says Jemima. "That's when you have four babies in one go. And I heard that it only happens once every sixty thousand times!"

"Glory Jeezus!" howls Beulah. "When the hell does that woman ever get her housework done?"

In this insane world, a few minutes of sanity now. Nivedano, give the beat and everybody goes crazy.

(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat) Be silent.

Close your eyes.

Let your body become almost frozen, no movement.

Gather your consciousness inwards.

Deeper and deeper, without any fear, because it is your own sky and there are no clouds, no obstacles.

Just go like an arrow, in and in.

At this moment you are the buddha.

Remember it, guard it, because it is your ultimate treasure.

This is your height, this is your depth.

This is you in your eternity.

To make it more clear, Nivedano ...

(Drumbeat) Relax, let go.

Be dead, so that you can feel the contrast between the body and consciousness.

The body is only a temporary house, a caravanserai, an overnight stay.

In the morning we have to go.

But consciousness is the eternal pilgrim, a journey without any beginning and without any end.

It is a journey of dances and songs and music and poetry, a festive journey, a ceremony without any reason.

Just being is enough.

At this moment, you make this place the holiest place in the world.

So many buddhas, so many people centered in their being, the whole garden is full of roses.

Drink it deep.

It is the very juice of your immortality.

Nivedano ... call all the buddhas back.

(Drumbeat) Sit down for few moments, remembering, rejoicing, recollecting where you have been.

Keep on guard twenty-four hours.

Remain a buddha, alert, aware, joyous; so blissful that even others can start feeling your blissfulness.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the meeting of so many buddhas?

Yes, Osho.