Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-11

Only God Is

... THAT THESE UNFORTUNATES SEEK AFAR THE GOODNESS WHOSE SOURCE WITHIN THEY BEAR.

FOR FEW KNOW HAPPINESS: PLAYTHINGS OF THE PASSIONS, HITHER; HITHER TOSSED BY ADVERSE WAVES, UPON A SHORELESS SEA, THEY BLINDED ROLL, UNABLE TO RESIST OR TO THE TEMPEST YIELD.

GOD! THOU COULDST SAVE THEM BY OPENING THEIR EYES.

BUT NO: 'TIS FOR THE HUMANS OF A RACE DIVINE TO DISCERN ERROR,

AND TO SEE THE TRUTH.

NATURE SERVES THEM....

... THOU WHO FATHOMED IT. O WISE AND HAPPY MAN, REST IN ITS HAVEN.

BUT OBSERVE MY LAWS, ABSTAINING FROM THE THINGS WHICH THY SOUL MUST FEAR, DISTINGUISHING THEM WELL; LETTING INTELLIGENCE O'ER THY BODY REIGN.

SO THAT, ASCENDING INTO RADIANT ETHER, MIDST THE IMMORTALS,

THOU SHALT BE THYSELF A GOD.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-10

Known, Unknown, Unknowable

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, WHICH IS THE REAL QUESTION?

Sudhir,

SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS ARE ALL REAL, because they are answerable. Religious questions are all unreal because they are unanswerable.

Religion is the concern with the unanswerable. To ask a religious question is basically wrong - it is wrong because religion is the search for the mystery, not the search for the answer. Religion is diving deep into that which is basically unknowable - not only unknown but unknowable.

These three words have to be understood: the known, the unknown and the unknowable.

The known is that which we have accumulated in the past - through experience, through experimentation. Whatsoever answers we have forced nature to give to us, that has become the known. That's what science is all about. And the remaining, for science, is only the unknown.

The basic hypothesis is this: that life is divided into only two categories - the known and the unknown. Sooner or later the category of the known will become bigger and bigger, more and more things will be known. And it is assumed by sCience that one day there will be only one category - the known. The unknown will disappear because we would have discovered all the answers.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-09

There's No God Till You've Met Him

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, IS NO-MIND THE ULTIMATE PRAYER?

Prabuddha,

PRAYER IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DONE. Prayer is not something that can be thought either. Prayer is a state of silent being, of utter silence. One simply is...

then one is in prayer. If you do prayer, you miss the whole point. Doing remains on the circumference; doing cannot enter to the center of your being.

If you are saying your prayer, you again miss - because in saying it you are thinking of yourself as separate from God, you are relating to God as if he is separate from you. And that is the basic illusion: God is not separate from you.

Hence, prayer cannot be a dialogue between I and thou. I is thou - there is no possibility of any dialogue. The moment you say your prayer, you have accepted a hypothesis which is basically wrong - that God is there, far away from you, separate. You have reduced God to an object. And God is your very subjectivity, he is your very center.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-08

Escape to Reality

The first question

Question 1:

WHAT DOES YOUR MOVEMENT SIGNIFY ABOUT THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY? IS IT AN ESCAPIST AND SELF-REGARDING CULT? OR DO YOU PROPOSE THROUGH CHANGING HUMAN NATURE TO CHANGE SOCIETY AND THE WORLD?

Peter Jenkins,

WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE IS NOT A movement: it is a mutation. It has no concern with the society: its whole concern is with the individual. It is a revolution in the true sense of the word.

There is no idea of changing the society or the world, because there is no society at all.

Only individuals exist - society is an illusion. And because we believe in society, all the revolutions have failed. The belief that the society exists has sabotaged all efforts to change man - because the belief is rooted in illusion.

Ask the scientist: he says there is no matter but only electrons. Matter is an illusion. In exactly the same way, those who understand human consciousness will say that society is an illusion like matter. Electrons are true, so are individuals.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-07

A Bold Experiment

The first question

Question 1:

WHAT IS FAITH? ALSO, HERMAN HESSE HAS SAID, 'FAITH AND DOUBT BELONG TOGETHER AND GOVERN EACH OTHER LIKE INHALING AND EXHALING.' CAN YOU PLEASE COMMENT?

Deva Vinaya,

FAITH CAN HAVE THREE MEANINGS. First is belief - belief is a lie, it is insincere, dishonest. To believe something means you don't know it and yet you believe. It is hypocrisy. Belief is out of fear or out of greed. Belief is a conditioning by others imposed upon you; it is a slavery.

The true religious man cannot be a believer and he cannot be a disbeliever either - because disbelief is nothing but belief in a negative form. The catholic and the communist are not very different; the atheist and the theist are not very different - in fact not at all. They are aspects of the same coin. One believes in God, one believes in no- God. One loves God - the love is based on conditioning; it is not true - one hates God - that hate is also based on conditioning; that is not true either.

Those who start by belief never arrive, they cannot arrive. They will go round and round, but they will never penetrate the truth of existence. The beginning has to be open - neither of belief nor of disbelief. The beginning has to be innocent. And if the beginning is innocent, THEN it is faith.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-06

Enlightenment is Your Birthright

LET NO SLEEP E'ER CLOSE THY TIRED EYES, WITHOUT THOU ASK THYSELF: WHAT HAVE I OMITTED, AND WHAT DONE?

ABSTAIN THOU IF 'TIS EVIL; PERSEVERE IF GOOD.

MEDITATE UPON MY COUNSELS; LOVE THEM, FOLLOW THEM: TO THE DIVINE VIRTUES WILL THEY KNOW HOW TO LEAD THEE.

I SWEAR IT BY THE ONE WHO IN OUR HEARTS ENGRAVED THE SACRED TETRAD, SYMBOL IMMENSE AND PURE, SOURCE OF NATURE AND MODEL OF THE GODS.

BUT BEFORE ALL, THY SOUL TO ITS FAITHFUL DUTY, INVOKE THESE GODS WITH FERVOUR; THEY WHOSE AID, THY WORK BEGUN, ALONE CAN TERMINATE.

INSTRUCTED BY THEM, NAUGHT SHALL THEN DECEIVE THEE; OF DIVERSE BEINGS THOU SHALT SOUND THE ESSENCE; AND THOU SHALT KNOW THE PRINCIPLE AND END OF ALL.

IF HEAVEN WILLS IT, THOU SHALT KNOW THAT NATURE, ALIKE IN EVERYTHING, IS THE SAME IN EVERY PLACE.

SO THAT, AS TO THY TRUE RIGHTS ENLIGHTENED, THINE HEART SHALL NO MORE FEED ON VAIN DESIRES.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-05

Love is Always Virgin

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, YOU SAY THAT YOUR MAIN CONCERN IS OUR SPIRITUAL NOT OUR PSYCHOLOGICAL GROWTH. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM?

Deva Yachana,

MAN IS A THREE-STOREYED BUILDING: one body, the mind and the soul. The body contains only the body. The mind contains body and mind both. And the soul contains all the three. The higher implies the lower, but not vice versa: the lower does not imply the higher.

This is one of the fundamental laws to be remembered. If you work on the higher, the lower will be automatically solved. If you work on the lower, the higher will not be automatically solved.

Spirit contains all the three dimensions of your being. That's why I say my concern is your spiritual growth - because it contains your totality. To be concerned with your psychological growth will leave the most essential and the highest part of you outside.

And then there are many more problems.

Mind is a multiplicity; mind means the many. Millions of problems are there. If you start solving each single problem it will take millions of lives - even then you cannot be certain that you have solved the mind problems.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-04

The Perfume of Absolute Contentment

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, AS WELL AS BEING SOMEONE LIKE YOU, PYTHAGORAS WAS ALSO A GREAT MATHEMATICIAN.

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Bruno,

MAN IS NOT ONLY THE OUTER, and he is not only the inner either - he is both. And more: he is inner, he is outer, and he is transcendental too. Man is a three dimensional being. Those three dimensions are represented by Christianity as the Trinity, and by Hinduism as TRIMURTI - three faces of God. And the man who lives only in one dimension lives a partial life. He will never know the beauty of the whole and the joy of the whole.

To live a partial life is to live in sickness, because the parts that are not allowed go on fighting with you. They want to express themselves. The denied being will take revenge on you. it will sabotage your life. It will not allow you to live peacefully; you will be in a constant civil war.

If you deny the body, the body will be angry with you. If you deny the soul, the soul will be angry with you. And d house divided against itself cannot be whole, cannot be at peace, cannot be at ease.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-03

Don't Spit on the Ceiling!

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, EVERYTHING SEEMS SO UNREAL, LIKE A DREAM. TO ME, YOU SEEM TO BE SO UNREAL, FLOATING IN AND OUT OF DISCOURSE EACH DAY. I DO FEEL SOMETHING DEEP INSIDE HAPPENING IN YOUR PRESENCE, AND MORE EACH MOMENT BEING HERE WITH YOU, BUT I CANNOT SEEM TO FEEL A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING. COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

Sophia.

THE DESIRE FOR A CLEAR Understanding is a logical desire. It is a desire to demystify things - and things cannot be demystified. Life IS mysterious, more mysterious than any dream can ever be.

You cannot know it clearly, it cannot be reduced to knowledge - because once something is reduced to clear knowledge it is no more mysterious.

That's what science has been trying to do for centuries all effort to demystify existence.

Wherever science smells any mystery it becomes suspicious - because if the mystery is accepted then the desire for clear understanding will have to be dropped. You cannot fulfill both. If you stick to the desire for clear, logical understanding then the only way is to deny the mystery, to say that it doesn't exist.

That's why God denied existence, the soul is denied existence, love is denied existence.

And when God, soul, love, beauty, truth, all disappear, what is left? A very flat, ugly.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-02

Zorba The Buddha

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, RIGHT NOW, HERE, I COULD DRINK YOU, SHARE IN YOUR BUDDHAHOOD, BUT I DON'T. DAY AFTER DAY, I DON'T. BELOVED OSHO, IS OUR CONDITIONING THAT DIFFICULT TO DROP?

Rashid,

THE MOST DIFFICULT THING IN LIFE IS TO DROP THE past - because to drop the past means to drop the whole identity, to drop the whole personality. It is to drop yourself. You are nothing but your past, you are nothing but your conditionings.

It is not like dropping clothes - it is as if one's skin is being peeled off. Your past is all that you know you are. Dropping is difficult, arduous - the most difficult thing in life.

But those who can dare to drop it, only they live. Others simply pretend to live, others simply go on dragging themselves somehow. They don't have any vitality - they can't have. They live at the minimum. And to live at the minimum is to miss the whole thing.

It is only when you live at the optimum of your potential that blossoming happens. It is only at the optimum expression of your being, of your truth, that God arrives - that you start feeling the presence of the divine.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 2 Lecture-01

The Golden Mean

LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS, KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR 'GAINST PREJUDICE, OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; THINK FOR THYSELF.

CONSULT, DELIBERATE, AND FREELY CHOOSE.

LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT; CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE.

THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST.

INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL.

NEGLECT NOT THY HEALTH...

... DISPENSE WITH MODERATION FOOD TO THE BODY AND TO THE MIND REPOSE.

TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN; FOR ENVY THUS, TO EITHER

EXCESS IS ALIKE ATTACHED.

LUXURY AND AVARICE HAVE SIMILAR RESULTS. ONE MUST CHOOSE IN

ALL THINGS A MEAN JUST AND GOOD.

PYTHAGORAS ALSO INTRODUCED THE WORD 'COSMOS'.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-09

Bliss Beyond All Duality

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, WHAT IS THE TOTALITY OF MYSELF? WHY DO I GO ON AVOIDING IT?

Vasumati,

THE TOTALITY OF YOURSELF has nothing to do with you. It is not your totality or my totality; totality is one - in which we all disappear. That is the fear. You can remain only if you are partial, if you are only a part. The moment you want to be the total, you will have to commit a kind of suicide, a spiritual suicide. You will have to disappear.

If the dewdrop wants to be the ocean, the only possible way is to disappear into the ocean, to die as a dewdrop. The moment a dewdrop dies as a dewdrop, it becomes the ocean. That creates fear.

People talk about God, but nobody wants to lose himself. Hence the talk of God remains impotent, meaningless. People worship God but they keep a distance. They go the temples, but really they never go - because they go on clinging to their idea of themselves.

There are two ways to be. One is as an ego, separate from the total - which is illusory because there is no way to be really separate. You can only believe that you are separate; deep down you remain one with the whole. Hence all that you create around the idea of the ego remains illusory. In the East we call it MAYA: MAYA means a world of futile dreams.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-08

You Are Without Stain

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE EXPULSION OF INDIRA GANDHI FROM THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT, AND HER IMPRISONMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MORARJI DESAI, WHICH HAS CAUSED SUCH CHAOS THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE COUNTRY.

Kamal Bharti,

INDIRA GANDHI IS NOT PUNISHED BUT REWARDED. This is the fate of every revolutionary.

Anybody who wants to do something in this world, which is not according to the status quo, is going to be rewarded in the same way again and again.

The herd, the crowd, never forgives a person who tries to bring something new into existence. The crowd is always past-oriented. It lives in that which is already dead. It has no vision of the future.

And the visionaries and the utopians and the dreamers are bound to be punished or rewarded in this way.

I call it a reward. It has enhanced the prestige of Indira Gandhi, and it has exposed Morarji Desai. It has exposed his hypocrisy, it has exposed his so-called non-violence, it has exposed his so-called mahatmahood. It has simply proved one thing: his fear, his paranoia.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-07

Awareness: The Master Key

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, TODAY YOU SPOKE OF AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS AND IT SEEMED AS THOUGH THIS WAS ALL THAT WAS NEEDED TO GUIDE ONE S ACTIONS. DOES THIS MEAN THEN THAT MURDER, RAPE AND THEFT ARE ONLY WRONG IN SO FAR AS THEY ARE DONE WITHOUT AWARENESS, WITHOUT CONSCIOUSNESS?

Pradipam,

YES - THE ONLY SIN IS UNAWARENESS, and the holy virtue is awareness. That which cannot be done without unawareness is sin. That which can only be done through awareness is virtue. It is impossible to murder if you are aware; it is impossible to be violent at all - if you are aware. It is impossible to rape, to steal, to torture - these are impossibilities if awareness is there. It is only when unawareness prevails that, in the darkness of unawareness, all kinds of enemies enter you.

Buddha has said: If the light is on in a house, thieves avoid it; and if the watchman is awake, thieves will not even try. And if the people are walking and talking inside, and the house has not yet fallen into sleep, there is no possibility for thieves to enter or even to think about it.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-06

Logos: Power: Necessity

STILL IT IS GIVEN THEE TO FIGHT AND OVERCOME THY FOOLISH PASSIONS: LEARN THOU TO SUBDUE THEM.

BE SOBER; DILIGENT, AND CHASTE; AVOID ALL WRATH. IN PUBLIC OR IN SECRET NE'ER PERMIT THOU ANY EVIL; AND ABOVE ALL ELSE RESPECT THYSELF.

SPEAK NOT NOR ACT BEFORE THOU HAST REFLECTED; BE JUST.

... REMEMBER THAT A POWER INVINCIBLE ORDAINS TO DIE;

... THAT RICHES AND THE HONOURS EASILY ACQUIRED, ARE EASY THUS TO LOSE.

AS TO THE EVILS WHICH DESTINY INVOLVES, JUDGE THEM WHAT THEY ARE; ENDURE THEM ALL AND STRIVE, AS MUCH AS THOU ART ABLE, TO MODIFY THE TRAITS. THE GODS, TO THE MOST CRUEL, HAVE NOT EXPOSED THE SAGE.

EVEN AS TRUTH, DOES ERROR HAVE ITS LOVERS; WITH PRUDENCE THE PHILOSOPHER APPROVES OR BLAMES; IF ERROR TRIUMPH, HE DEPARTS AND WAITS.

PYTHAGORAS WAS THE fiRST TO COIN AND USE THE words 'philosophy' and 'philosopher'.

'Philosophy' means love of wisdom, and 'philosopher' means a friend of wisdom. Before Pythagoras, other words were used for the same purpose. For philosophy, the word SOPHIA was used - SOPHIA means wisdom; and for the philosopher, SOPHOS - SOPHOS means the wise man, the sage. They were beautiful words, but they had fallen, they had become associated with wrong people. They had fallen on bad times. Words also have good times and bad times, days of glory and days of humiliation.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-05

Beep Beep!

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, PLEASE TELL A LITTLE STORY ABOUT JESUS TODAY....

IN THE GUTTER OF THE MARKETPLACE lay a dead dog, to the disgust of the passer-by. "How loathsome!" said one, and turned his head. "Pah, how he stinks!" said another and held his nose as he passed. "Look at his protruding ribs - how ugly! nauseating!" said a third. "He has not enough skin on his carcass to make even a shoestring," said a fourth. "No wonder he came to a bad end,"

said a fifth.

Then a gentle, rebuking voice broke in on the chorus of calumny, saying, "Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!" And the people drew away whispering, "Surely that must be Jesus, for who else would say a good word for a dead dog?"

That's the very spirit of Jesus. He loved the world so totally that he could not find any sin anywhere.

He loved the world so totally that nothing was ugly to him - all was transformed into a luminous beauty.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-04

I Mean Business!

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO - BUDDHA, MAHAVIRA, MOHAMMED AND CHRIST WERE ENLIGHTENED MAN. THEY TRIED TO TEACH THEIR DISCIPLES THE METHODS TO BECOME ENLIGHTENED. THEY WANTED TO FORM AN ENDLESS CHAIN OF ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE, AND, INSTEAD OF BECOMING ENLIGHTENED, ALMOST ALL OF THEM TRIED TO BE CUNNING ENOUGH TO CHEAT THE COMMON PEOPLE BY MAKING LARGE SCALE BUSINESS fiRMS BEHIND THESE GREAT MEN. WILL YOU EXPLAIN THE REASON FOR THIS? WILL THIS ASHRAM BECOME THE HEAD OFfiCE OF SUCH A NEW BUSINESS?

James P. Thomas,

EVERYTHING THAT IS BORN DIES. The flower that is in the morning, full of life and juice, by the evening will be gone. It is a natural law: nothing can live for ever. In time, things appear and disappear. In time, everything is just a soap-bubble. You don't condemn the morning flower just because by the evening the petals will have withered away, or do you? You don't condemn the sunrise because once the sunrise has happened the sunset is coming closer.

When there is a Buddha, a flower blooms. But it cannot remain for ever - that is not the way of time. The flower will disappear. And man is cunning, and man is calculating. A few cunning and calculating people will gather around; they will make a business out of it - that too is natural. When

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-03

Falling Upwards

The first question

Question 1:

OSHO, THANK YOU FOR THE DELICATE SYNTHESIS. GREAT JOY ARISES IN UNDERSTANDING THE PURPOSELESSNESS OF EXISTENCE.

Deva Nirguna,

TRUTH ALWAYS TRIGGERS A PROCESS IN YOU, even if the truth is not your own. The very hearing of it creates a parallel process in you. It is not caused by hearing it; it follows not the law of cause and effect but the law of synchronicity.

Listening to great music, music arises in you. There is no necessity: it may arise, it may not arise.

There is no inevitability about it. But if you are open, it arises. If you are available, it arises. Watching a great dancer, something starts dancing in you. This is communion.

The truth of Pythagoras, the truth of the greatest synthesis ever attempted, CAN trigger a process in you, CAN start something so immense that you could not have ever dreamt about it. That is the whole purpose of satsang: being in communion with a Master. His presence, his utterances, his silences, start working on you AND sometimes even in spite of you. Sometimes you become aware of those processes, sometimes you are not even aware of them; they start working underneath your consciousness. One day they explode into great blossoming.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-02

Love Comes Faceless

The first question, Dharma Chetana,

Question 1:

OSHO,

MEMORY CAN'T RECALL YOUR FACE, SO LOVE COMES, FACELESS.

UNFAMILIAR IS THE PART OF ME

THAT LOVES YOU.

SHE HAS NO NAME,

AND SHE COMES AND GOES

AND WHEN GONE,

I WIPE MY TEAR-STAINED FACE

SO THAT IT REMAINS A SECRET.

Dharma Chetana, LOVE IS A MYSTERY - the greatest mystery there is. It can be lived, but it cannot be known; it can be tasted, experienced, but cannot be understood. It is something beyond understanding, something that surpasses all understanding.

Philosophia Perennis Vol 1 Lecture-01

The Greatest Luxury

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT; GUARD THEN THY FAITH:

... REVERE THE MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS HEROES, OF SPIRITS, DEMI-GODS....

BE A GOOD SON, JUST BROTHER; SPOUSE TENDER; AND GOOD FATHER.

CHOOSE FOR THY FRIEND, THE FRIEND OF VIRTUE; YIELD TO HIS GENTLE COUNSELS, PROfiT BY HIS LIFE; AND FOR A TRIFLING GRIEVANCE NEVER LEAVE HIM; IF THOU CANST AT LEAST: FOR A MOST RIGID LAW BINDS POWER TO NECESSITY.

PYTHAGORAS REPRESENTS THE ETERNAL PILGRIM for PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS - the perennial philosophy of life. He is a seeker of truth par excellence. He staked all that he had for the search. He travelled far and wide, almost the whole known world of those days, in search of the Masters, of the mystery schools, of any hidden secrets. From Greece he went to Egypt - in search of the lost Atlantis and its secrets.

In Egypt, the great library of Alexandria was still intact. It had all the secrets of the past preserved.

I Am That-Talks on the Isha Upanishad - 16

It is Already the Best

The first question:

Question 1:

OSHO,

I AM FEELING HELPLESS. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I CAN DO ANY MORE. IT IS AS IF EVERYTHING I DO WON'T CHANGE THIS, IT ONLY MAKES THINGS WORSE. BUT ALSO DOING NOTHING DOES NOT MAKE THINGS BETTER. YOU SAY THAT EMPTINESS IS BLISS.

FOR ME IT SEEMS TO BE DULL AND BORING; IT IS LIKE BEING DEAD. WHEN THERE IS NOTHING I CANNOT SEE ANY BEAUTY IN IT. I AM FED UP WITH IT, I WANT TO GET OUT OUT.

PLEASE ANSWER ME, BUT PLEASE DON'T ANSWER ME LIKE THIS: THAT TAKING SANNYAS WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING AND MAKE EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL. THANK YOU.

Alexander,

THE FIRST THING is to understand that life remains the same whatsoever you do. It is already perfect; it cannot be improved upon. The very idea of improving it is egoistic; it is the cause of our misery. It is the way it is - there is no need to improve it. Enjoy it! Don't waste your time in improving it. If you try to improve it you will feel helpless, obviously, because you will be failing again and again, falling short. And your desire can never be fulfilled - it isn't in the very nature of things.

I Am That-Talks on the Isha Upanishad - 15

Everybody has his Uniqueness

The first question:

Question 1:

OSHO,

YOU HAVE BEEN SPEAKING ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS AGAINST SOCIALISM, AND YET I FEEL THAT IN THIS COMMUNE THE FIRST EXPERIMENT OF AN ALIVE SOCIALISM IS HAPPENING. IS THIS ANOTHER OF YOUR CONTRADICTIONS?

Swatantra Sarjano,

THE REAL SOCIALISM can only be the fragrance of a commune deep in meditation. It has nothing to do with the social structure or the economy. Real socialism is not a revolution in the society, it is not social: it is the revolution in the individual consciousness.

If many people who are going through an inner revolution live together, then there is bound to be a new quality. You can call it socialism; the better word will be "communism", out of "commune". Only a commune can have communism, but a commune exists only once in a while. When Buddha was alive a commune grew around him; he called it sangha, another name for commune. The meaning of sangha is: where the initiates have dropped their egos and are no more functioning like islands but have become one with each other, where a communion is happening. Communication is between the heads; communion is between the hearts.