Seriousness is a sickness

Question 1:

Devageet, the cosmos is full of laughter, but a laughter that is very silent, a laughter that you can feel but cannot hear, a laughter that spreads all over your being. You can feel the lightness and the benediction that it brings to you, but there is no way to hear it, and there is no way to compare it to the laughter we are aware of.

It was for this reason that all the ancient awakened ones have not talked about laughter. The danger was that you may think the laughter that you know is the laughter of the ultimate. The difference is very great. Our laughter is simply ripples on the surface of the lake. The cosmic laughter of sachchidanand is the whole lake, but without ripples - utterly silent and serene, still, just like a sweetness, joyfulness, very delicate, very subtle. The ancient awakened ones never mentioned it, just as they have never mentioned many other things out of a certain fear of misunderstanding.

They have not mentioned that there is an orgasmic joy in the experience of enlightenment. It is sheer fear that the moment they use the word 'orgasmic' you will think about sexual orgasm. It is not sexual, it is nonsexual. But as far as the orgasmic experience of utter relaxedness, of absolute stoppage of time and mind is concerned, it is the same.

I have dared to walk on paths untrodden by the ancient awakened ones because my feeling is that the fear of misunderstanding should not prevent one from saying the truth. And if one is too afraid of being misunderstood, then there is nothing to say, because everything is going to be misunderstood.

You talk about truth and it will be understood as a fact. You talk about consciousness, and people will think, of course, that they are conscious. Maybe it will be a bigger consciousness, but there is not going to be any qualitative change. Yet there is going to be a qualitative change.

In fact every quantitative change at a certain point turns into a qualitative change. You heat water.

Up to ninety-nine degrees it is water. The moment it reaches a hundred degrees a transformation happens. Water starts disappearing into vapor. This is a qualitative change. You can quench your thirst with the water, but not with the vapor.

Water always goes downwards, it moves towards the sea, which is the lowest level. Vapor goes upwards: it creates the clouds. Their paths are different, their qualities are different. Water is visible, vapor soon becomes invisible.

Or, from the other side, at a certain point water can become ice. The qualities are different. Water is continuously flowing, ice has lost that flow. It is static, it has become almost like a stone.

Quantity at a certain point brings a new quality. Out of fear of being misunderstood, many things have not been said to humanity. Not that they were not known to those who have come to the highest peak, but they have chosen to speak only of certain aspects. Even those certain aspects are misunderstood. And many they have left unsaid. They know that when you reach, you will experience.

I don't want to leave anything unsaid. I don't function out of fear at all. And I trust my people's intelligence more than any awakened person has ever trusted.

Mahavira never allowed his male and female sannyasins to be together - a fear that they might fall back into their old habits. He arranged that the women sannyasins should remain separate from the men sannyasins. If you go into details you can see the fear. The women sannyasins should always bow down to the men sannyasins, even if the male sannyasin may be just one day old. He may have taken sannyas just one day before, still a sixty-year-old woman sannyasin has to bow down to this young person. She has been a sannyasin for sixty years. The reason? The reason is that whenever a woman bows down to a man there is a protection. She is paying so much respect to you, you cannot behave in any disrespectful way towards her. And according to Mahavira, even to think about sex will be disrespectful.

But all these details have a hidden psychology of fear. All male sannyasins and women sannyasins had to move in a group of five; nobody was allowed to move alone. Why? Lions move alone because they are unafraid. What is the fear? Why should five men move together? So they can keep an eye on each other, that nobody falls below the discipline, that nobody does things which are not allowed.

Five women moving together will keep alert about each other, will see that nobody falls in love, nobody becomes too much attached to anyone. Mahavira has put four against one. Their jealousy, their competitiveness, and their very nature of putting the other down will keep them alert. But this is functioning out of fear.

And I know Mahavira was not afraid as far as he himself was concerned. He was afraid about his disciples. That means he was not as respectful to the disciples and their intelligence as he should have been. My feeling is, if I am not respectful towards you and I cannot trust you, then no arrangement is going to help. And all these people in the past ... although they thought of every detail, there were always loopholes. Sannyasins have been finding ways for perverted sex.

Gautam Buddha was afraid even to initiate women in his commune as sannyasins. He remained very stubborn. But that was out of a certain fear that if women entered in the commune ... He did not believe in his own sannyasins. He knew that they would start falling back into their biological heritage.

Hence many things have not been said and many disciplines have been created which ultimately turn into fetters. And all these people were trying to help you to attain ultimate freedom. But if you want freedom, then you have to start with freedom. If you start with bondage, you cannot end with freedom. Freedom has to be the first if you want freedom to be the last, because it is a growth. They fettered their people so tightly. In Buddhism there are thirty-three thousand rules of discipline. Now, you have put almost the whole Himalayas on the chests of your sannyasins. They are small things ...

A sannyasin is going to preach in faraway places where Buddha cannot go, because he is too old.

Before he leaves, Buddha says, "Remember a few things. Don't talk to a woman."

The young sannyasin must have been a man of tremendous courage. He said, "Generally, you are right. There is no need for me to talk to any woman. But there is a possibility ... at least one percent you should keep open. Ninety-nine percent of the time I will not talk, but there can be a situation in which talking becomes absolutely necessary. If I am standing on a crossroad and I don't know where to go, where the village is, and a woman comes by, should I ask her or not? Or should I remain stuck on the crossroad? Or a woman falls into a ditch and I am passing by, should I ask her if I can help?"

Buddha was silent. Then he said, "Okay, for one percent you are allowed. Remember, that is only in emergency situations. But never touch a woman." The man was again raising the same question.

"There can be a situation when you have to touch a woman. A woman falls on the road, maybe sunstroke, maybe epilepsy, maybe some kind of coma ... Do you want me not to touch her? There are emergency situations when it will be very uncompassionate not to touch the woman. And I think compassion is the foundation of your philosophy."

Very reluctantly Buddha said, "Okay, in emergency situations you can touch a woman, but remember one thing, whenever you are close to a woman, speaking to her or touching her, be very alert. Don't get back to your old habits, which are tremendously powerful, because they belong to your whole past of millions of years."

But that one percent emergency becomes the loophole. Who is going to decide what is emergency and what is not? So all the rules, thirty-three thousand in all, have their loopholes. You cannot have a foolproof system. Human beings are human beings.

My approach is totally different. My approach is to bring men and women so close together that there is no need to keep arbitrary disciplines. Just their very closeness, slowly, slowly, will make them drop their differences. Their closeness and understanding about each other will help them go beyond the biological heritage.

The farther away you put them, the stronger is the magnetic force. One is more attracted towards the unknown, the unachievable. If the woman is sitting far away, first she looks immensely beautiful, just a goddess who has descended to the earth, because you cannot smell her perspiration, nor do you know that her teeth are false; you know nothing. From far away all grass looks greener.

My own understanding and approach is totally different from anyone who has lived before me. I want to bring the male and female sannyasins as close as possible, with no restrictions, with no repressions, with no inhibitions. Sooner or later they are going to be fed up. That is my hope. The whole arrangement here is to make you completely bored.

And every day somebody writes, "Sex has fallen away." That's great if it falls away! Repressed sex is bound to create a psychological sickness within you. But when sex drops on its own accord just like a dead leaf dropping from a tree, it does not leave any wound on the tree. When sex drops out of understanding, not with your effort but on its own accord and your unconscious is not carrying any repression, your whole being is purified.

So I am saying everything that has not been said. Laughter has been completely avoided, because it seemed that it destroyed your seriousness. And all the masters of the past wanted you to be serious about your search. They misunderstood one thing, that sincerity about the search is one thing, and seriousness about the search is not the same thing. I want you to be sincere and authentic about your search - not only about your search, but about everything, because you cannot be sincere only in one dimension. If you are sincere, then all dimensions of your life are sincere.

But seriousness has been misunderstood as sincerity. Seriousness is a sickness. A serious seeker is searching for truth with sadness, with a burden on his head. He is not interested in the pilgrimage.

He is only interested in the end, the goal, the paradise, the heaven, whatever name has been chosen by the master. My own understanding is: there is no heaven, and there is no paradise, there is no goal. Life is an eternal pilgrimage.

Now, making people serious is making them sick for eternity. They will lose all joy, they will shrink, all their juice will be gone. They will not see the beauty of the path and the trees and the mountains that they will be passing through, because seriousness does not allow these things. Seriousness condemns all this as mundane.

To me, there is no division like mundane and sacred. It is one universe. There are not two universes.

Yes, the same universe you can look at in a mundane way, you can look at in a sacred way. The distinction is not between two universes, the distinction is only in two outlooks. And my feeling is, the more joyous you are, the more full of juice, love, laughter, music and dance, the more your journey will become a tremendously beautiful pilgrimage.

And because there is no goal ... Life is eternal, hence there cannot be any goal. All ideas of goals are contradictory to the idea of eternal life. And if life is eternal, then you have to enjoy each moment as if you have reached the goal. Each moment is a goal in itself. Don't wait to rejoice when you have reached the goal. That kind of goal does not exist. Use every moment as if you have arrived. It is always as if you have arrived. You are always arriving.

And I don't think existence wants you to be serious. I have not seen a serious tree. I have not seen a serious bird. I have not seen a serious sunrise. I have not seen a serious starry night. It seems they are all laughing in their own ways, dancing in their own ways. We may not understand it, but there is a subtle feeling that the whole existence is a celebration. I teach you celebration. And laughter has certainly to be one of the major ingredients in this celebration.

You are asking, Devageet, "Is there laughter in the mysterious silence of sachchidanand?" Certainly!

But a laughter which is very silent. A soundless sound. A ripple-less lake. Full of joy, but it is too much to be expressed. There is no seriousness in the ultimate experience of existence.

And the second thing you are asking is also true. "There must be, because you are such a laughter; or is your laughter just for us?" The laughter of the ultimate experience is silent. You can have a very delicate feeling, but it is not tangible, you cannot hear it. It is more like a whisper. So the second thing is also true, I am absolutely nonserious. I am laughter, but the laughter that I have achieved in my disappearance into the whole you cannot hear. I have to laugh for you the way you can understand it.

As far as I am concerned, there is no need for me to remain in the body even for a single moment more. I have done my homework. Whatever I am doing - talking to you, laughing with you, rejoicing with you - my silence, my words, are all dedicated to you, to provoke a certain synchronicity.

It is said Buddha never laughed. And you can see Jesus ... it is impossible that that face can laugh.

Mahavira cannot laugh. There is only one man ... and because of his laughter all the houses I have stayed in have been called Lao Tzu House. Lao Tzu is the only man who was born laughing. Every child is born crying. That is absolutely unique about Lao Tzu. There are many things in his life which are unique, but nothing to be compared with the fact that he was born laughing. Everybody was shocked. His mother and father could not believe it. Even a smile would have been too much, but he was laughing. And he remained a laughter all his life.

He had chosen Chuang Tzu as his disciple just because Chuang Tzu was continuously making everybody laugh. He was creating such absurd stories that nobody in the whole world literature can be compared to him. The stories are so complicated and so absurd, you cannot figure out the meaning. But certainly they tickle you. There are points when you suddenly start laughing. Lao Tzu loved Chuang Tzu for the simple reason that he was an absolutely nonserious man.

Except these two enlightened ones, nobody has laughed. But because of their strangeness they have not been able to create a religion like Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism. What they have created has remained an individual approach. They never created any organized church, a pope, a priest, an imam, a shankaracharya. Nobody has succeeded them. Once in a while some individual understands the significance. They have not even named their religion. It is simply called Tao. And Tao means only 'the path' - no goal. They understood exactly what I am saying: that there is no goal, but only the path.

And unless you learn to enjoy the journey itself, you will become more and more serious - because the goal is not there - the farther you move on the path, the more shrunken and dead you will be. If you want to remain in tune with life, then remain always in celebration. Find out in every moment, in every situation, a possibility of festivity. And I don't know a single situation in which you cannot find some way to celebrate.

Even death I have been teaching you to celebrate. Somebody has become free from the body, and you are crying. Feel ashamed! Somebody is out of jail and you are weeping. You wanted the poor fellow to remain always in the jail! Unless you know how to turn the worst into the best, you are not aware of the real essence of sannyas.

So certainly I am laughing for you, speaking for you, living for you, but it is not in any way making you obliged to me. It is just my joy. You need not even be thankful towards me. It is out of my own joy that I will continue to rejoice with you as long as existence goes on giving me a little more time to linger on this shore.

My time is up, that is certain. It has been up for almost thirty-five years. But existence is very understanding and very intelligent and very compassionate. It knows that I am not living for myself.

And to take me away is not just taking me away, it is taking away millions of people's laughter, their joy, their possibility of flowering; and existence will not do it. It will allow me a longer holiday. Nor am I in a hurry to reach to the other shore, because I know both the shores are the same; one is on this side of the river, the other is on the other side of the river. When you reach the other side you know it is the same shore, there is nothing different.

And existence understands certainly that my body or my mind are no more a bondage to me. I am no more confined to them. I am already free. Death is not an urgency to make me free. I will continue until I penetrate into the deepest core of your being. All that I have experienced I would love you also to experience. Hence I am not keeping anything secret.

A psychology professor is teaching a class and tells his students that he is going to conduct a survey about sex. He says to the class, "If you have sex once a day, raise your hand." About fifteen percent of the students raise their hands.

"Okay," says the professor. "If you have sex three times a week, raise your hand." About forty percent raise their hands.

"Interesting," says the professor. "If you have sex once a week, raise your hand." Another twenty percent do.

Then the professor asks, "If you have sex once a month, raise your hand." A few hands go up.

"And lastly," says the professor, with a smile, "does anyone have sex once a year?"

A little guy in the back of the room starts waving his arms wildly, with a huge grin on his face.

"And what are you so happy about?" asks the professor. The guy gets up, begins to dance and sing, "Tonight is the night!"

The pope decides to visit America. When his plane arrives, a big crowd is there to meet him. As the pope steps off the plane, the crowd chants, "Elvis, Elvis, Elvis!"

He says to them, "My children, thank you very much, but I am the pope, not Elvis."

He is picked up in a long white limousine that has Elvis written on the side with big sparkling letters.

As he steps into the limo he says, "Bless you, but I am the pope, not Elvis!"

He is taken to the hotel where there is a huge crowd standing behind police barricades shouting, "Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!"

The pope says with growing irritation, "Thank you my children, but I am the pope, not Elvis!"

At last he gets to his room and as he begins to unpack his bags, the door opens and in walk three beautiful women, all dressed only in their underwear. The pope looks at them for a moment and then says, "Okay girls. It is one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and go man, go!"

Question 2:

Deva Manja, it really feels great! I can repeat the pope: "Okay girls. It is one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and go man, go!"

It is true what you are saying, that no man has ever been loved so much by so many women. But you don't know one secret. One woman is dangerous; so many women are not dangerous, they fight amongst themselves. I am completely at ease. They don't have time to fight with me; that is the beauty of having a great crowd of women. It is certainly the biggest harem.

And the second secret you have to understand: it is a love that is not of the ordinary kind. It is a love that has the same fragrance as prayer. It is a love that is the ultimate expression of trust. It does not have hate as its counterpart. It is love totally purified from any impact of its opposite. And moreover, listen to this small joke.

The women of the harem are sitting in a circle, casting dice on a thick persian carpet. Slowly, the dice make their way round the circle to the hands of each excited player. All of a sudden, the cry goes up. "It is Camelia tonight! Poor Camelia!"

With a deep sigh Camelia rises, and with dragging footsteps she goes out through the velvet curtains.

"I would hate to be that poor kid," remarks Gloria. "That is the third time this week she has had to wash the dishes."

The women who love me, they have to wash dishes. They have to clean my clothes, they have to make my bed, they have to cook my food, they have to make my clothes. They have to do all kinds of things, take care of my garden, take care of my body. This is a totally different kind of harem. It is not the harem of the Arabian Nights.

Love here is prayer. And because it is prayer, there is no jealousy. Otherwise, so many women, if they are in love in a biological sense, will create a chaos. They will start killing each other, just out of jealousy. But I know my people, jealousy does not touch them at all.

And it is not only the women, this harem has a speciality. It has men too. There has never been any harem where men were also in the same love, in the same trust, with the same heart dancing, rejoicing. But you are right, it is certainly something that has never happened before.

Although Mahavira initiated women, all his caretakers were male sannyasins, not a single woman.

I see some hidden fear somewhere. Some repressed sexuality seems to be still lurking in the shadows, not very strong, but he has not forgotten his past completely. At least in his mind one thing is certain, the women can drag him down.

The same was true with Gautam Buddha, although finally he had to concede. His own mother died after his birth, and his mother's sister never married - just to look after the child. This second mother, Mahamaya, in her old age came to ask for initiation. He had refused for almost twenty years, hundreds of women, but he could not refuse Mahamaya. He was too much obliged to her. She had given him more than any real mother would give. All that he was, Mahamaya had contributed to.

It was impossible to say no to her. So reluctantly he had to give her initiation into sannyas. But once one woman had entered, he could not prevent other women; then hundreds of other women entered.

But as far as personal staff was concerned, those who were taking care of his body, of his day, of his food, every small detail, they were all men - not a single woman. Not even Mahamaya was allowed. I think it is something not worth appreciating. I love Gautam Buddha, but what can I do? I can see things which are not right. They are small things. Nobody has noticed them. For twenty-five centuries nobody has criticized that women were not allowed. They could have cooked better. They would have looked after him better. They could have taken care of his health better.

Every woman is a born mother. Even a small girl has the qualities of a mother. The man can do the same things, but it doesn't come from his inner being. There are male nurses in hospitals - not yet in India, but in American jails I came across them. In my first jail there were five women nurses and one male nurse. That male nurse looked stupid.

In India the word 'nurse' has become feminine. We cannot conceive that a man is a nurse. He can be a doctor, but a nurse? It seems to be cuckoo. And I saw that man who was the nurse, because each week one day he was to take care of me. And I could see the difference. The women nurses were making me at home even in the jail. They were trying to bring the best clothes, they were changing my bedsheets and my pillow covers every day, which is not done - it is usually once a month - they were changing everything every day.

They used to go to the market specially to bring fruits and vegetables, because I would not eat the jail food which was non-vegetarian. They would go to the market themselves and they would bring so many fruits and so many vegetables. And I told them that I could not eat that much. But a woman is basically a mother.

They cleaned the whole place so that I would not suffer from any smell. They had come to know that I am allergic to smell. They were cleaning every day. And when they were cleaning they would remove me from the place, because while they were cleaning the dust might have disturbed me.

But when the male nurse was there, there was no question of making me feel at ease. On the contrary, the male nurse was torturing me. He would come to my cell and he was interested in philosophy. And he would start asking questions and I would say to him, "Just don't harass me."

But he would say, "I may never see you again." And once it was two o'clock in the night and I said, "It is enough! And now I will not be able to sleep at all, you have tortured me so much. And a nurse is not supposed to torture, you have to help me."

He said, "You don't think about me. I will never be able to see you again. So I will ask as many questions as have been in my mind."

Not a single female nurse ever asked a single question. It is a totally different world on the inside of a woman.

My effort is to create the same quality of love and trust in the men who have by chance joined my caravan. And those qualities are arising. If those qualities don't arise you remain stuck in the head.

If those qualities arise then you can enter into the heart. The woman is born with those qualities of the heart, the man is born with the qualities of the head.

And a disciple has to be feminine. Whether he is male or female doesn't matter, because without reaching to the heart, there is no way towards being, and no way of disappearing into the universal life source, sachchidanand.

One day, young Herschel tells Hymie, "Dad, I have these urges all the time." Hymie tells him to go and visit the rabbi.

"Rabbi," says Herschel, "even in the middle of the night I get an erection."

"Pray harder," advises the rabbi. Herschel goes home and a few days later approaches Hymie.

"Dad," he says, "I still keep getting these urges."

"Go and see the rabbi again," Hymie advises. The rabbi is out, so the rabbi's wife asks Herschel about his problem.

"I get these terrible strong urges," explains Herschel.

"Oh, that's simple," replies the rabbi's wife. She takes him into the bedroom and makes love to him.

When Herschel gets home, Hymie asks, "What happened?"

"It was wonderful," Herschel replies. "The rabbi's wife has more sense between her legs than the rabbi has in his head."

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.