Maneesha, before I enter into your tremendously significant anecdotes, I have to reply again to the old goat of Puri, the Shankaracharya. He is such a nice fellow. He goes on inventing such things that you cannot even imagine. Now he has come with the idea that I lead a procession of naked women in the ashram every day. Do you think you could have imagined it?
Now these seven thousand people here are a witness, but who will tell this idiot?
(SARDAR GURUDAYAL SINGH IS LAUGHING LOUDLY IN THE BACK OF THE HALL.) I have to send Sardar, because it is a question between Poona and Puri. Only Sardar can convince him, tapping three times on his head and saying, "Stop talking nonsense."
Another thing he has said is that he cannot bring an AIDS-negative certificate, because he is a celibate. Celibate or not, if he wants to discuss with me in this assembly of buddhas he will have to bring the certificate. And particularly because he is a celibate, the certificate is an absolute necessity.
It is out of celibacy that homosexuality has arisen, and AIDS is the final flowering of homosexuality.
It is a very religious phenomenon. The Buddhist monks, the Christian monks, the Hindu monks, they are the originators of homosexuality. And the whole credit goes to these monks for bringing AIDS to the world. Celibacy is the cause of AIDS.
His idea that I lead a procession of naked ladies proves simply that he has really become a Hindu saint, because all Hindu scriptures are full of stories that whenever a Hindu saint reaches to his highest sagehood, God becomes afraid, because the saint may dethrone him. So he sends beautiful women to distract the mind of the sage. And obviously up to now they have been successful in distracting, because God has not been replaced.
But it certainly proves one thing, that the Shankaracharya of Puri is a sage. He has started dreaming naked processions of apsaras. Apsaras are heavenly prostitutes. But why should I enter into his dreams? To me he is a harijan, untouchable.
It reminds me of Sigmund Freud's great insight that people who remain celibate for a long time start dreaming of women, or if they are women they start dreaming of men. Now this idea of a procession is perfectly right as far as Hindu sages are concerned. But I am not the leader of the procession.
Perhaps it is Swami Agnivesh, who goes on leading processions of harijans, and now has declared that he is going to lead processions in Bihar, in Karnataka and other states. But he is really afraid of me, not Agnivesh. I am his fear, because Agnivesh belongs to the same rotten tradition. They are just playing different roles to exploit the Hindus. One exploits the higher classes, one the lower classes; but their aim is the same. He must be afraid of me, if he has seen me in his dreams.
Sigmund Freud's insight was that you dream only if you suppress something. He must be suppressing a great anger against me, otherwise he cannot dream of me. But for his dream I am not responsible, he can dream anything he wants.
There was a pharaoh in Egypt who declared to the kingdom that if anybody entered into his dreams he would be beheaded the next morning. His whole court became very afraid because it is a very strange thing, nobody can enter into anybody else's dream. It is his dream, he is projecting something and throwing the responsibility on somebody else.
The Shankaracharya must be seeing naked women in his dreams. But the strangest part is that in his dreams I am leading the procession. He knows I will expose him. It is his fear and anger and repressed sex all together, that creates the dream. But for that, nobody except him is responsible.
He has also come with a new idea; he always comes with new ideas, he is such an original idiot!
You cannot find any comparison in the whole world. He has come to the conclusion that men and women are not equal, and cannot be equal, because their sexual organs are different.
This is a new criterion, never heard before. And has he ever wondered about breasts? Perhaps he has breasts also, just dry buttons!
If it has to be decided by genitals who is superior and who is inferior, then woman is going to be superior, because she is the mother. Just think - if men and women had the same kind of genital mechanism how would idiots like the Puri Shankaracharya have been born? The world would have been very dry - everybody moving here and there with his sexual organ hanging sad, weeping. The difference between man and woman does not mean that they are not equal. It simply means they are different; they have to be different, otherwise there will be no reproduction. But just because they are different you cannot condemn one of them as inferior.
Hinduism has been doing it for centuries, so I cannot blame the Shankaracharya. He is simply repeating like a parrot the old rotten scriptures, without even caring that he will be laughed at. He is very courageous, he does not care what the intelligentsia of the world will think of him and his religion.
I want the other seven Shankaracharyas - because there are eight Shankaracharyas in India for the eight directions - to meet together and dethrone this fool. He is doing immense harm to their religion, to their respectability; he is making Hinduism a laughing-stock. But all those seven Shankaracharyas are absolutely silent. Perhaps they also agree with him.
Obviously he is supported by Hindu scriptures. So a tremendous revolution is needed in Hinduism to get rid of all the nonsense that it has carried for thousands of years: that the woman is inferior, the sudra is untouchable; that the brahmin, whether he deserves it or not, has to be respected. All these obscurantist ideas should be thrown away. Hinduism needs a tremendous cleaning, a dry-cleaning.
But because of these people who pretend to be heads of the religion millions of Hindus cannot even raise a question against it. Because I have raised questions against the Shankaracharya, letters have started coming to me saying, "You are insulting our head."
That man has any head? Do I have to insult a man who has no head at all? He has given the challenge to have a discussion with me on these matters, and now he is not talking about it. Seeing the situation he has stopped talking about discussion, rather he has started asking the government to arrest me. What crime have I committed that I should be arrested? Just because I have questioned a stupid man and called a spade just a fucking spade - this is no crime!
Now let us be - for the moment - spiritual.
ONCE, A MONK ASKED JOSHU, "WHAT IS THE BODY WITHOUT ILLNESS?"
JOSHU SAID, "THE BODY MADE OF THE FOUR ELEMENTS AND FIVE SKANDHAS."
The questioner was asking, "Is there anything in the body that is without illness?" - because as far as the body is concerned, it is full of illnesses, and then old age and finally death.
Joshu's answer was very subtle. He is saying that the body is made of chemistry and physics, but there is someone behind watching this; that it is made of four elements and five skandhas; that the watching one is without illness, without birth and without death.
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, UMMON ASKED A MONK, "WHAT ARE YOU?"
HE REPLIED, "I'M THE HEAD OF THE INFIRMARY."
"YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY SO!" SAID UMMON. "IS THERE ANYBODY NOT ILL?"
"I DON'T UNDERSTAND," REPLIED THE MONK.
"WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND?" ASKED UMMON.
THE MONK WAS SILENT, AND THEN UMMON SAID, "ASK ME THE SAME QUESTION."
SO THE MONK ASKED UMMON, "WHO IS THE MAN WITHOUT ANY ILLNESS?"
UMMON POINTED TO THE NEXT MONK.
Zen is so strange in its methods and devices that unless you are very silent and deep in meditation, you will not understand even these simple anecdotes. When the monk asked again, "WHO IS THE MAN WITHOUT ANY ILLNESS?" Ummon without saying anything pointed to the next monk, asking him, "Do you also have any question?"
This means that the question that the monk is asking is unanswerable. There is someone in you without illness; even when you are sick, your consciousness is as whole and healthy as it has always been. You may be a child, you may be young, you may be old, you may be dying, but your consciousness remains without any illness. And that is your reality, your existence.
To ask unnecessary questions is simply to waste the time of the master.
ONCE THERE WAS A MONK ILL IN THE INFIRMARY WHO ASKED TO SEE TOZAN. WHEN TOZAN WENT THERE THE MONK SAID TO HIM, "WHY DON'T YOU SAVE ORDINARY PEOPLE?"
TOZAN ASKED HIM, "WHO IS YOUR FAMILY?"
THE MONK REPLIED, "A GREAT ICCHANTIKA FAMILY."
Now this word, icchantika, comes from the Sanskrit ekantika. In the time of Gautam Buddha there were two schools of thought: one was the ekantikas who believed that there is only one consciousness, one existence. 'Ek' means one, and from 'ek' comes ekant and ekantika - they believed in one cosmos only.
The other school was called anekant. Jainism is of that other school; they believe that there are as many souls as there are living beings. And these souls contain even in the final realization their individuality. Gautam Buddha is not an ekantika.
It is very difficult to understand, unless you understand the difference between your personality and your individuality. The personality will be lost. As you reach higher, the personality will disappear, it is just a paper bag. But that does not mean that your individuality, your center of being, will disappear.
Yes, it will throb with the universe, it will dance with the universe, there will be no barrier between it and the universe; but it will remain as individual as it has ever been.
To attain this individuality, this aloneness, which is not against the universe, but is in absolute tune with the universe .... In a way it can be said that you have disappeared in the ocean, or it can be said that the ocean has disappeared in you. But one thing is certain; that there is no barrier any more, nothing divides you. But it is not a question to be discussed, it is something to be experienced. A dewdrop dropping into the ocean - from the outside it seems to be disappearing, but from the inside it remains itself, though it loses all distinctions, all discriminations, all divisions, all separations. It has become one with the cosmos, but it still is.
The feeling of isness is more acute and sharp in the ultimate realization. So when the monk said, "I come from a great icchantika family,"
TOZAN REMAINED SILENT FOR SOME TIME. THEN THE MONK SAID, "WHAT SHALL WE DO WHEN THE FOUR MOUNTAINS COME PRESSING ROUND US?"
TOZAN SAID, "I MYSELF CAME FROM UNDER THE ROOF OF A FAMILY."
THE MONK SAID, "IS THERE RELATIVITY OR NO RELATIVITY?"
TOZAN ANSWERED, "NONE."
THE MONK ASKED "WHERE WILL YOU LET ME GO? - you are closing all doors!"
Tozan was a man of great understanding. He said, "TO A RICE FIELD."
THE MONK HEAVED A SIGH AND SAID, "GOODBYE," AND DIED SITTING THERE.
TOZAN TAPPED HIM ON THE HEAD ...
That's what Sardar Gurudayal Singh has to do.
TOZAN TAPPED HIM ON THE HEAD THREE TIMES WITH HIS STAFF AND SAID, "LIKE THIS, YOU KNEW HOW TO DIE, BUT NOT HOW TO LIVE."
The real thing is the art of living. If you know how to live, you will automatically know how to die. But knowing how to die is not enough, anybody can commit suicide. There are simple ways of leaving the body.
Even without poison there have been methods in Yoga, in Tantra, in Zen, by which you can stop your heart and your breathing. This may be a miracle to some, but it is not the way of an intelligent man, it is not the way of the buddha. First you have to learn to live rightly, with awareness, consciousness, love and compassion. Your life first has to become a dance, worthy to be offered back to existence.
Death is a small affair, a single moment thing. In a split second you will die, but life is eternal.
But if you know the grace and the beauty and the joy and the splendor of life, you will die joyously, laughingly, because you know death is a fiction, the greatest fiction. It has never happened, you simply move house.
I am reminded of Mulla Nasruddin. One night a thief entered his house. He was sleeping, but he opened one of his eyes, looked at the thief and then closed it. The thief was a little afraid - "a strange man, he opens one eye, sees me and yet says nothing and remains completely still!" So he quickly gathered whatever he could, and as he was going out, Mulla Nasruddin took his blanket, covered himself, for it was a cold night, and followed the thief.
The thief looked back, and said, "What are you doing?"
He said, "Nothing, we are moving house. You have carried everything, now what am I supposed to do? I am coming along."
A man of enlightenment simply moves house. When the body becomes too old and it is no longer a joy to be in the old dilapidated house, you leave it. But you can leave either consciously or unconsciously. If you leave unconsciously you won't know what has happened. You will open your eyes in some womb, not knowing where you came from or why you are here in this womb. You will be born, but you will not know why you are born.
If you cannot die consciously you cannot be born consciously; they are two poles of the same reality.
A man who can die consciously, meditatively, moves either into another womb - if his consciousness is not yet total - or he moves into the formless sky; now he is no more in bondage. Except for unconsciousness there is no bondage anywhere.
WHEN SOZAN WAS ABOUT TO DIE, HE MADE A VERSE:
Now look at this strange kind of people; he is going to die and he is writing a poem! In Zen it has become a tradition that before dying you should write a poem, just to show your insight for the coming generations, to show that you have not died unconsciously, that you knew death was coming. Without knowing that death is coming, how can you write the last verse?
He wrote:
MY ROAD IS BEYOND THE BLUE SKY; THE CLOUDS NEVER MAKE ANY COMMOTION.
IN THIS WORLD THERE IS A TREE WITHOUT ANY ROOTS; ITS YELLOW LEAVES SEND BACK THE WIND.
AFTER SAYING THIS, HE PASSED AWAY.
What a way to die, and what a way to live!
Just today I received some information from Europe, that a famous astrologer, almost worshipped like a prophet, had declared years ago that at a certain date he would die. Now the date had come and he was in great difficulty. So he committed suicide.
This is not the way of Zen. They are not committing suicide, they simply see that this body needs rest, that this body has done its work. This life has ripened its fruits, this life has experienced all that was available, and now it is time to go on a pilgrimage. They call it 'cloud pilgrimage' - moving just like a cloud, without creating any disturbance, without direction, knowing not where they are going, just enjoying the going itself.
A haiku reads:
IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE, LOOK AT SEPTEMBER, LOOK AT OCTOBER; HOW THE YELLOW LEAVES FALL, AND FILL MOUNTAIN AND RIVER.
A man of awakening just drops like a dry leaf when the time comes. There is no grudge, no clinging, no desire to go on living in this body, but an absolute trust that life will continue. But this is possible only if you enter yourself and experience the continuum of existence.
Maneesha has asked,
Maneesha, unless you are awakened to your innermost self, this grace will not be available to you - to live gracefully while alive and to die gracefully while dying. The grace remains as a shadow of consciousness. The moment you are unconscious, you lose your grace, you lose your beauty; you lose everything that life is ready to give to you, because you are not ready to receive it.
We will try dying gracefully again today, and then let us see how many come back gracefully. A few come too quickly, they were just waiting for Nivedano. A few remain longer, enjoying the beautiful death, and then get up and start moving towards the canteen. Because here in Buddha Hall one is not supposed to die for ever. This is a place to live forever. If you want to die, you can move towards the canteen.
Caruso and his buddy, Leonardo, two Italian crickets, meet in the garden. Caruso is walking with a limp, and Leonardo notices that he has a bandage on his prick.
"What-a happened to you?" asks Leonardo.
"Last-a night," says Caruso, "I was feeling like-a making love. So I got on my best-a suit and brushed- a back my wings and went out into the city lights."
"But," asks Leonardo the cricket, "why you got-a the bandage on your salami?"
"Well," says Caruso, "I was-a walking along when suddenly I see this gorgeous firefly. So I-a come up slowly and silently, and then I jumped on-a her!"
"Wow!" exclaims Leonardo. "But what happened?"
"Mama Mia!" cries Caruso. "It was-a no firefly - it was-a somebody's old cigar!"
Miss Whitewash, the prim young librarian, is, in her spare time, a Lieutenant in Christ's Salvation Army. She moves into a new apartment, and does not know anybody else in the building. One day, she needs a screwdriver to hang up her picture of Jesus, but she does not have one. So, plucking up her courage, she decides to borrow one from her neighbor across the hall.
When the door is opened, she is shocked, but secretly impressed, to be confronted by a huge, Rambo-type guy, dressed only in his underwear.
She is suitably flustered by this smiling hulk in jockey shorts, but nevertheless manages to remember what she came for.
"Hi," she stammers. "I'm your new screw across the hall - can I use your driver, neighbor?"
After checking into the hotel, Father O'Dilly finds a Bible on the bed-side table. He reads it for a couple of hours and then leaves his room and wanders into the lobby. There he strikes up a conversation with the pretty young receptionist.
After she has finished work, they share a few drinks in the bar and then retire to Father O'Dilly's room, but when the priest starts removing her clothes, she begins to have second thoughts.
"Are you sure this is alright?" she asks. "I mean, you are a priest."
"Don't worry, my dear," he replies, "it is written in the Bible."
She believes him and the two of them spend a very pleasant night together. But in the morning, as the girl is preparing to leave, she says, "You know, Father, I don't remember that part in the Bible you mentioned last night. Could you show it to me?"
So the priest takes the Bible from the bed-side table, opens the cover and points to the bottom of the title page, where someone has written in pencil, "The girl in reception screws!"
Now, Nivedano, give the first beat ...
(Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) Be silent, close your eyes, no movement.
Just feel as if you are frozen.
In this silent space enter inwards.
Deeper, deeper, without any fear.
It is your own home.
Just go deep like a thunderbolt, like an arrow towards the center.
And the closer you reach to the center, the more you are in tune with existence.
This is the only prayer, the only worship.
When you settle down in your center, your heart is beating in tune with the universe.
This is the very meaning of life.
To get deeper, Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) Relax, let go, die.
Don't be worried.
Let the body go on breathing, it will take care of itself, it knows its way.
Concentrate your consciousness inwards.
In this silent moment you become buddhas.
Every day you become buddhas and forget again.
At least this time don't forget, because who knows whether tomorrow will come or not.
Go as deep as you can, don't hold back.
Fully conscious, even death is a dance; Without consciousness even life is worthless.
In this silence have blossomed all the great roses, lotuses.
In this silence have emerged great grace, love, freedom.
This silence is the source of all great poetry, art, music.
Let this silence become your twenty-four-hour presence.
I am saying it, because if it is possible for me, why is it not possible for you?
Nivedano ...
(Drumbeat) Call all the buddhas back to life, and for few seconds sit silently in the immense treasure that you have discovered, in the great sky that has opened, the blue sky above the clouds.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
Can we celebrate the thousands of buddhas assembled here?
Yes, Osho.