Can we celebrate now?

Maneesha, before I discuss the last sutra of this series, I have to say something about the British Parliament.

After two years the British Parliament is still discussing me, and the Home Minister lied just like any politician. He said I was not allowed entry, because I could have destroyed the morality, the religion, the character of the country.

In the first place I never asked for entry into England. How can you deny a man entry who has not asked for it? I had asked only to stay for six hours in the night in the international airport lounge, because my pilot's time for running the jet was finished. He had to take a rest by law.

From the lounge, in the middle of the night, within six hours, how could I manage to destroy the British character, morality, religion? I had no idea - otherwise I would not have asked about staying even though it was my right - that the British morality, character, religion all live in the lounge of the international airport.

I had not asked for any entry and I will never ask, because Britain is the most barbarous country of this century. They have oppressed almost half the world, raped, murdered, and still they think they have morality, religion, culture. Even if this Home Minister requests me, I am not going to spit on his face in the British Parliament.

I want him to answer to the British Parliament, because he has been deceiving his own country by stating a lie.

But the whole business of politicians is lying.

Just today I have received the information that one Arya Samaj leader, Swami Agnivesh, wants untouchables allowed into Hindu temples. It is strange and apparently contradictory, but not really so. The Shankaracharya of Puri is insisting that no harijan can enter a Hindu temple and another Hindu leader is trying to let them in. It appears a contradiction, but it is not; both are playing politics.

Swami Agnivesh wants them to enter temples not because he's against the Hindu scriptures and against the whole Hindu tradition, but just because harijans have twenty-five crore votes. They are poor people, oppressed for centuries and not allowed any education, but it needs no education to see that if a religion does not want you to enter its temples or to read its scriptures, then it's not worth being a part of it.

Every harijan should get out of the Hindu fold. That will mean they will have one fourth of the parliament in their hands. For the first time in history let the oppressed, the enslaved be the rulers.

And women, whether they are harijan or not, should support harijans, because they have been treated in the same way by the Hindus.

But it seems man's mind is so irrational that women are the only people who go to the temples and these same temples have reduced women to a secondary status. Hindu shastras say that women should be treated just like animals, and still women go on worshipping these shastras and going to these temples.

Thousands of harijans have been burned alive down the ages. Even today, whole villages are burned, their animals, their children, their old people... everybody is burned except young women who are raped. Still they want to go to the temples of these same people! They have to remind themselves that these Hindus are human beings!

Religion has nothing to do with temples. Religion is something about finding yourself, about knowing your eternal consciousness; it does not need any priest as a mediator between you and existence.

But the priesthood all over the world has been insisting that religion is their monopoly. You cannot have a direct, intimate love affair with existence; it has to be "care of" the priest, the pope.

Just a few months ago the pope created a sin, which has never existed before. The new sin is to confess directly to God. You have to confess to the priest who will take care of you, because he has a direct line to God.

The world is tortured by two kinds of people, the politicians and the priests. Both are liars. The priest does not know truth, because it is not written in the scriptures, and politicians are just beggars, suffering from an inferiority complex. They are trying to be powerful by begging votes to convince themselves that they are not inferior, but are superior beings.

Do you hear all the birds giving their support?

Unfortunately even the birds are freer than you. All your religions are your imprisonment, they are your chains. If you really want to taste existence and its dance, then you have to renounce not the world, but religions and their scriptures, you have to renounce the priests, the temples, the synagogues, you have to come directly in contact with your being, because there is the door to the kingdom of God. Everyone individually is capable of rejoicing in this beautiful existence, in the divinity of everything that is. No temples are needed, no statues are needed, no scriptures are needed; what is needed is a deep silence and a search within yourself.

I would like to say to the harijans of this country, "Please, get out of the Hindu fold." Nor should women support Hinduism, because Hinduism has been murdering thousands of women in the name of sati pratha. This is the ugliest thing that anybody can do, forcing millions of women down the centuries to be burned alive on their husbands' funeral pyre. This is not religiousness, this is simply male-chauvinistic bondage of women, of the poor, of the oppressed.

We have been waiting for three hundred years to get rid of the British Empire. They exploited this country to the point where the Prime Minister, Attlee, under whom India became independent, sent Mountbatten as Governor-General of India with a message to make the country free quickly; otherwise, "... all its poverty, all its exploding population, all its starving millions will be our burden."

Attlee insisted on speed, giving an exact date by which they should move out.

They sucked the blood of the country and their Home Minister thinks they are a religious people.

They murdered and corrupted almost half of humanity without any concern for life; and I cannot stay in their airport for six hours when they stayed in this country for three hundred years. What right did they have?

And the same applies to the brahmins. What right do they have that they should prevent the oppressed of centuries from even entering the temples? What harm can they do?

But the whole history of religion is just a history of bloodshed. A better humanity will be without organized religions; a better humanity will respect the individual, will not take away the dignity of anyone, man or woman, black or white. Religiousness concerns itself with freedom, with consciousness, with exploring the divine which is spread all over the place, in the trees and in the stars, in the birds, in the rivers and in the mountains. There is one soul: we are part of it.

Nobody is born a Hindu or a Mohammedan, a Christian or a Communist; everybody is born as an innocence. To regain that innocence is my whole effort here. I call this place really holy and sacred.

All other temples are only so-called; they are profane, because they have been committing all kinds of crime against the growth of humanity, its spirituality, its love, its intelligence.

These sutras are concerned with authentic religion, they are concerned with you, in your deepest consciousness, in your flowering as individual roses.

HAIKYU SAID, "ILLUSION OBSTRUCTS THE MIND; HOW CAN ILLUSION BE GOT RID OF?"

The question seems to be relevant and logical because all the buddhas, all the awakened ones have said that illusion obstructs the Mind. Mind with a capital "M" means consciousness; it is not your small mind but the mind of the whole of existence.

English is a poor language compared to Sanskrit, particularly as far as religious experience is concerned. Sanskrit has a dozen names for different qualities of consciousness, just as Eskimos have twelve names for ice. No other language needs that many: Eskimos know the different qualities, because they have lived for centuries in the snow. And in this country many people have blossomed to the moment where they are no longer bodies and no longer with a small mind, but have become the very mind of the universe.

The question Haikyu is asking is relevant: "ILLUSION OBSTRUCTS..." so say all the buddhas:

"HOW CAN ILLUSION BE GOT RID OF?" Obviously, he is asking for a method, a technique. And that is where people get lost. You cannot get rid of illusions. Can you get rid of your dreams? When you are dreaming you cannot get out of it and get back into it.

One night, Mulla Nasruddin nudged his wife in the middle of the night, "Bring my glasses, quick."

The wife said, "What is the matter? What are you going to do in the night with glasses?"

He said, "Don't argue. Argue in the day. Now just bring the glasses. I was seeing such a beautiful woman and you know my eyesight is not good."

He put on his glasses and tried hard to find the woman. He could not find her, but only found his wife laughing, "You are an idiot. Even in your sleep you are an idiot."

You cannot throw a dream away, you cannot create it, you cannot uncreate it, but you can still get out of it by becoming aware, by simply jumping out of bed.

OBAKU SAID to Haikyu's question, "CREATING ILLUSION, GETTING RID OF ILLUSION - BOTH THESE ARE ILLUSION, FOR ILLUSION HAS NO ROOT; IT APPEARS BY REASON OF DISCRIMINATION. IF YOU DO NOT THINK OF CONTRARIES, SUCH AS ORDINARY AND SUPERIOR, the sudra and the brahmin, the black and the white, ILLUSION CEASES OF ITSELF, AND HOW CAN YOU THEN GET RID OF IT when it has ceased? Do you ask when you wake up how to get rid of the dreams?"

Once you are awake you never ask. Not a single person in the whole of history has ever asked; when he is awake he is out of the dreams and there is no question of getting rid of them. The very idea of "getting rid of" means you still have it. This is a very significant statement by Obaku that, "Illusion is illusion. Getting rid of illusion is illusion. Just be awake." There is no need to get rid of it.

Illusion is just writing in the air, soap bubbles.

This is a Zen expression: giving with both hands means giving totally, not half-heartedly. Your two hands represent your totality. Your mind is divided into two parts. The right hand represents your left mind, the left hand represents your right mind. Crosswise, they are connected.

So it is a symbol of totality: giving with both hands - keeping nothing back, holding nothing. And a man who can give himself to existence with both hands, awakes, becomes a buddha himself.

Don't be deceived by language. It is the poverty of language that words have to be used which cannot be correct. Receiving buddhahood... the word receiving is not right because buddhahood does not come from somewhere else.

If I was in place of Obaku, I would say, "Open both your hands and you are the buddha." Your clinging, your greed, your holding is the only problem. Just be as open as the sky and buddhahood blossoms in your being.

He seems to be of a philosophical mind. His questions are logical but Zen or existence or being are simply there, without any logic. He is asking,

OBAKU SAID, "MIND..." with a capital M - the translation should be, 'Consciousness is transmitted by consciousness'. That's what he means by writing Mind with a capital M. When there is silence and no small mind, no thinking, no thought, when there is open space, suddenly two open spaces become one without any effort. There is no way to keep them separate. Can you keep two open spaces separate?

Haikyu does not understand the difference between a mind with a small m and Mind with a capital M. And the translator does not understand either that for the capital M Mind something else should be used: consciousness, awareness, watchfulness. But the same word creates unnecessary confusion. There is no such thing as the small mind. It is just dust gathered on the mirror. Just clean the mirror and the mirror starts reflecting all the stars and the moon in the sky.

What are your thoughts except dust? Every evening we try to dust off as much as possible because we have been gathering dust for centuries, for many lives. Thick layers are sitting upon our consciousness and anyway, if you don't dust the mirror every day, it will be covered with dust.

As time passes dust gathers again. You have to clean your mirror every day. And as far as your consciousness is concerned, you have to cleanse it every moment. Don't allow any thought to settle in your consciousness. Every thought corrupts. Be without any thinking, just a pure opening, a clarity. That is what is meant by meditation.

OBAKU SAID, "NOT RECEIVING THE LAW IS CALLED 'TRANSMISSION OF MIND'. IF YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MIND IS, THIS IS THE NO-MIND, THE NO-LAW."

It is difficult to understand the language because it is the very special language of Zen. If you are aware, there is no mind and there is no dharma, there is no religion either. You are drowned in the music of the cosmos. Your heartbeat becomes part of the universal heartbeat.

But poor Haikyu seems to be stuck with his logical mind. He says, "IF THERE IS NO MIND, AND NO LAW, HOW CAN YOU TALK ABOUT 'TRANSMITTING' SOMETHING?" He goes on insisting again and again; he seems to be absolutely incapable of going beyond logic.

OBAKU SAID, "WHEN YOU HEAR ME SAY 'TRANSMISSION OF MIND,' YOU THINK OF THERE BEING A 'SOMETHING' TO TRANSMIT."

Transmitting consciousness is neither transmitting nor giving, it is just a way to say something which is not available to language. I can look into your eyes and this is transmission. In this silence, I am giving you with both my hands your buddhahood. I am not giving anything but only waking you up.

I'm reminded of a small, but very beautiful story.

One morning when Chuang Tzu woke up, his disciples were very sad because they saw him weeping. They had never seen him even being sad. Tears? Something really bad must have happened.

They asked, "What is the matter? How can we help you?"

Chuang Tzu said, "I don't think you can help me. I have got into trouble. But if you think you can do something I will tell you. Just a few minutes ago I was asleep and in my sleep I saw I had become a butterfly."

The disciples started laughing. They said, "A dream? Becoming a butterfly in a dream...? And you are making so much fuss about it. You, one of the greatest masters!"

Chuang Tzu said, "You have not understood. The problem is not so simple. The problem is that if Chuang Tzu in his dream can become a butterfly, why cannot a butterfly become Chuang Tzu in her dream? Now the problem is, who am I? Chuang Tzu or the butterfly?"

The disciples became aware that this was certainly a difficult problem. They started dispersing outside the hut. "There is no point in staying here because this man is crazy. But his question is right. If Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly, then certainly there is no barrier to a butterfly having a good afternoon nap and becoming Chuang Tzu."

His chief disciple, Lieh Tzu, was out. When he came back, he saw the other disciples sitting sadly outside the hut of Chuang Tzu. They said, "We were waiting for you. Our master is in difficulty and we cannot help. Perhaps you may be able to do something."

He said, "What is the problem?"

They told him the problem. He said, "I'll come."

They said, "Where are you going? The master is inside."

He said, "I'm going to the well."

They said, "This seems strange; the master is suffering and in tears."

Chuang Tzu was waiting for Lieh Tzu: perhaps he would solve the problem; he did solve it. He went to the well - it was wintertime and the water was cold - brought a bucket full of water and poured it over Chuang Tzu. And Chuang Tzu said, "Wait, wait. I am Chuang Tzu, wait."

He said, "Just get right out of the bed. Otherwise I will have to bring another bucket of water - ice- cold. I just went out for a while and you started torturing the other disciples. Ask me the question."

Chuang Tzu said, "There is no question; just take that bucket out. The butterfly has gone. The water is too cold."

All that you need is cold water thrown into your eyes. Nothing has to be transmitted; you just have to be awakened.

WHEN YOU REALIZE THE NATURE OF ULTIMATE MIND, the very consciousness of existence, you SPEAK OF IT AS A WONDERFUL MYSTERY, not as a problem.

ENLIGHTENMENT IS UNATTAINABLE.

WHEN ATTAINED, YOU DO NOT DESCRIBE IT AS SOMETHING KNOWN.

Enlightenment is unattainable because you are already enlightened. You have just forgotten it. It is not a question of attaining it, but of remembering it. And when you remember it, you don't have to say anything about it, because anything said is bound to be wrong. No word can contain your spirituality; no word can contain your inner light; no word can contain your immortality.

OBAKU SAID, "IF I GET YOU TO UNDERSTAND THIS, DO YOU THINK YOU COULD?"

I'm also asking the same question to you all. Can you drop the idea of attainment and just be?

Can you forget any effort to attain, to know, to inquire and just be a luminous being? Then you will have found the indescribable, the mysterious, the very truth of your existence, the meaning and the significance.

Basho wrote a poem about this dialogue:

SEPARATED WE SHALL BE

FOR EVER, MY FRIENDS,

LIKE THE WILD GEESE

LOST IN THE CLOUDS.

Basho is saying that if you think with the mind and logic... we shall be separated from our own being and from the being of existence, which are not two things. A dew drop has in it the whole ocean.

Another master, Dogen, wrote about the previous dialogue:

FOUR AND FIFTY YEARS

I HAVE HUNG THE SKY WITH STARS.

NOW I LEAP THROUGH -

WHAT SHATTERING!

He is saying, "I have been decorating my mind for fifty years and now I know that I'm not the mind:

what shattering, but also what freedom!"

Another master, Shunoku:

AFTER THE SPRING SONG, 'VAST EMPTINESS, NO HOLINESS,'

COMES THE SONG OF SNOW-WIND ALONG THE YANGTZE RIVER.

LATE AT NIGHT I TOO PLAY THE NOTELESS FLUTE OF SHORIN,

PIERCING THE MOUNTAINS WITH ITS SOUND, THE RIVER.

Question 1:

Maneesha is asking:

Maneesha, there is no need to rely on anything because you are all. In the ultimate sense all and nothing are synonymous. The day you become awakened you will know: nothing and all are two names of the same experience. Positively you can say, "I am all." Negatively you can say, "I am nothing." But you are both because they are not two.

This is the ultimate experience, brought into language. It is difficult to bring it into language but in silence it comes very easily, without making even the sound of footsteps. In silence it comes, without any whispering.

Before we enter this silence where you are all and nothing, the bamboos are waiting in silence for a few jokes. Too much silence... the poor bamboos remain for twenty-four hours waiting for you, hoping that Sardar Gurudayal Singh will be coming, and he comes.

Two Southern red-necks and Kowalski are removed from a Mississippi courtroom after being sentenced.

In the prison truck one red-neck turns to the other and asks, "What did yarl git?"

"Two goddam years for beating a Polack," the first red-neck groans, "but," he adds more cheerfully, "I will be out in six months with good behavior. What did yarl git?"

"Three goddam years for beating an entire Polack family. But I will be out in ten months with good behavior," says the second red-neck.

After a short silence, they both turn to Kowalski and ask what he got.

"Life," replies Kowalski. "I got life for riding my bike without lights. But," Kowalski brightens, "I should be out in fifteen years. It was not even dark."

Sarjano goes to see Dr. Azima in the medical center. "Doctor," says Sarjano, "I think-a I got-a flying crabs!"

Azima is amazed and takes a test. Sarjano anxiously awaits the results. He is dismayed to see Azima come back with a sad look on his face. "I am-a sorry, Sarjano," says Azima, "but I have-a some good news and-a some bad news."

"Give-a me the good news," replies Sarjano.

"The good-a news," says Azima, "is-a that those flying crabs you-a had, turned out to be-a fruit flies."

"Great-a!" cries Sarjano, "and what about the bad news?"

"I am sorry," says Azima, "but the bad-a news is, your banana is-a dead!"

Ma Papaya Pineapple is standing naked on the floor, talking endlessly. Swami Deva Coconut is lying naked at her feet.

"My life is empty!" cries Papaya Pineapple. "It is a mockery... I am nothing, just a facade, a shell - a dead and useless thing! I am twenty-six years old, and I have never had a meaningful relationship, never had a truly meaningful relationship. I should not admit that, I suppose. It is very humiliating!

I have passed from one shallow sexual episode to another. That is the story of my entire life, one shallow clutching incident after another. My relationships have no deep, lasting significance. If I could just once lie down and have something meaningful happen!"

Coconut replies, from the floor, "Have you ever tried talking less, and lying down sooner?"

Two shrinks, Dr. Slope and Dr. Feelgood, are discussing a patient.

"I was having great success with Mr. Philpott," says Slope. "When he first came to me, he was suffering from a massive inferiority complex. He thought that he was too small - which, of course, was all nonsense."

"So how did you treat him?" asks Feelgood.

"I started out with intensive analysis," replies Slope. "Then I moved him on to group therapy. I convinced him that many of the world's greatest leaders were men of small physical stature. It was a pity; I really hated losing Mr. Philpott."

"What do you mean?" enquires Feelgood. "How did you lose him?"

"A terrible accident - a tragedy!" replies Slope. "The cat ate him!"

Now, Rupesh give the drum for everybody to go crazy.

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Rupesh...

(Drumbeat)

Everyone becomes silent.

Close your eyes.

No movement,

just go within.

This is the only temple.

A jump, a quantum leap

from mind to no-mind...

In this silence you are the buddha.

In this silence

opens the lotus of your being.

Deeper and deeper.

Don't be afraid,

you are going into yourself.

There is no question of being afraid.

Fearlessly penetrate to the

deepest core.

To help them, Rupesh, give the beat and everyone dies completely.

(Drumbeat)

Let the body breathe

but you simply become the center

of your innermost being.

This is the truth,

this is the most blissful moment.

Carry this taste

as an undercurrent twenty-four hours

like a fragrance surrounding you.

In every one of your actions

let this silence penetrate

and make them graceful.

Rupesh...

(Drumbeat)

Come back to life,

absolutely new as if you are just born,

fresh, knowing nothing,

with open hands.

You have completed the pilgrimage

from animal to the ultimate consciousness

of being a buddha,

an awakened one.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate so many buddhas together?