Osho – From Death to Deathlessness

Belief is a barrier, trust is a bridge

Question 1:

BELOVED OSHO,
I TRUST YOU UNCONDITIONALLY. AT THE SAME TIME, I DON’T BELIEVE YOU. CAN YOU SPEAK ABOUT TRUST AND BELIEF?

Baby, that is really great! Just groovy. I don’t believe in my own statements either! We are in perfect agreement. I trust myself, I trust you, because I trust love.

Trust is of the heart, belief is of the mind. They are diametrically opposite, they never meet. They can run parallel to each other, but they will never meet. Belief will remain hollow, without any content, and trust is overflowing with joy, blissfulness.

You say you trust me. That’s enough, more than enough. I don’t want you to believe in my statements, because my statements go on changing every day. If you believe in my statements you are going to be crazy. They are so contradictory, you will not be able to figure out what I actually want to say to you.

But trust remains the same – the same flavor, the same grace, the same beauty, because it is not a statement of the mind. It is not a statement at all. It is a silent communion between two hearts, a silent communion in which two hearts synchronize; their beats become a rhythm, their vibe takes the same color and aroma.

I am not a man who wants you to believe in anything, including me. I am against belief as such.

That’s why I have been continuously contradicting myself, so nobody can make any belief out of my statements. No scholar, no theologian is going to make any system out of my statements. In thirty years I must have contradicted myself thirty thousand times. Anybody working on me for a Ph.D.

will soon be found in a madhouse. And my reason for doing so is crystal clear. If I were making statements consistent with each other, you would not listen to me, you would make a belief system out of it. I am a little outlandish.

In the forty-two years Buddha spoke, you cannot find a single inconsistency, no contradiction. Now it is so easy to make the whole living religion into a dead belief, a dogma. The religion becomes a cult.

Religion is religion only when the master is there continuously watching that you don’t get into the head, that you remain centered in the heart. But when the master is gone, all that you have left with you is his statements. If they are consistent, then it is very easy for you to make a theology, a Christianity, a Buddhism, a Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and then cling to it. You have forgotten the master; now you have only words, which mean nothing. It was the man behind the words who had meant something to you. Can’t you see the difference?

When Gautam Buddha spoke, many hearts started melting into him. The same words are written in the books; the Buddhist theologian is not speaking any other words, he is speaking the same words Buddha used – but nothing stirs in your heart. On the contrary, your head becomes interested; you start arguing for and against.

My strategy has never been used before. No master has been self-contradictory, and because they were not self-contradictory they have all failed. Although Buddha goes on saying, “Don’t believe in me,” that does not make any difference. When Buddha is gone, they need some substitute – a holy book, the DHAMMAPADA, the BIBLE, the KORAN – they need something substantial to hold on to.

They will make a belief, they will make a theology, they will make a philosophy. And that’s how all the religions have slowly slowly died.

By the time a religion becomes a theology, it is only a cult. Christianity is a cult, Hinduism is a cult, Buddhism is a cult. But the miracle of miracles is, they call my people a cult and I am managing things in such a way that whatsoever you do, you cannot make it a cult. Either it remains as religion or it disappears. It is better that it disappears than that it becomes a cult.

I am not going to leave any successor because we have seen what happens to successors. Two thousand years of popes coming and going…. If you want to find idiots in history, it is so easy – take the names of all the popes, because other names have disappeared. These popes are representing Jesus Christ, and because they are representing Jesus Christ they are infallible. I am not going to leave any successor behind me, because in the first place I, myself, am fallible. How can my representative be infallible?

I am not special, not holier-than-thou. I am not a messiah, not a prophet, just a simple, ordinary human being like you. You cannot manage with such a man to have anything like the whole history of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism. They fall into the same pit, into the same darkness. And the basic reason is that their prophets and messiahs and their founders were trying hard to be consistent, because consistency has been thought to be of immense value. It is of immense value, but only for the head. No scientist can afford self-contradictions, he has to be consistent.

I am not a scientist. I am a mystic.

Science tries to demystify things. What does knowing everything about existence mean? In other words, it is demystifying existence.

I do just the opposite: I mystify the rose, I mystify the cloud. I mystify the sky, the stars. I mystify you. And remember, it is no mystification-that is bogus. I simply reveal your reality to you. And it is such a mystery.

I can afford contradictions, because I am not aiming at your head. My aim is somewhere else. You can ask, then why do I talk? I talk to keep your head engaged; meanwhile, my arrow goes directly to your heart. Continuously I am throwing arrows to your heart; but the head knows nothing about it, cannot know anything about it. They are not on talking terms either.

And I have to contradict; otherwise my arrows will be futile. Your head will find rationality, consistency, a better philosophy, better argument, more contemporary, and you will be satisfied with your head.

And your head is just a computer, it is not you.

Anything can be fed into the head. It can contain almost all the books of all the libraries of the world; a single head can contain that much information. And the more information you have, the more your head starts swelling up, becoming bigger and bigger. And in the noise and the clamor, who is going to listen to the still, small voice of the heart? Hence, you need not believe my contradictions; you should not believe what I say.

When I am here, why not have a heart-to-heart meeting? That is trust. Behead yourself completely!

You are right, and I can see your difficulty, because in ordinary dictionaries “belief,” “faith,” and “trust,”

are all synonymous. They are not. Belief is rational, it is in favor of the better argument, it simply goes on following a long line since Adam and Eve – blindly, faithfully. If so many people are ahead of him, they must be going in the right direction. And everybody thinks so too.

My word is “trust,” and it has a different orientation altogether. It is simply a love affair.

Just think of a situation: a man says to a woman, “I believe I love you.” The statement will offend the woman. He believes he loves you. You simply say, “I love you.” There is no question of belief or faith.

You cannot say to a beautiful woman, “I have faith, that are beautiful.” That is enough proof that the woman is not beautiful.

Just the other night, I was talking to a very beautiful heart, a Dutch journalist – which is rare, because journalism is worse than politics. In fact, of the people who become journalists, ninety-nine percent are the people who wanted to be politicians but could not manage. They did not have guts enough to fight and struggle. They could not race in competition, so the second alternative was standing by the side and throwing stones at anybody who is going up higher. The whole function of journalism has become nothing but a frustration, and out of frustration, naturally, comes revengefulness against the politicians.

But this man was not of that category. Accidentally it seems, he became a journalist. He had as pure a heart as you have. I was asked by him, “I have been reading so many contradictions in your books. You say one thing today, tomorrow you contradict it. Then how do your sannyasins go on believing in you?”

A consistent question, relevant. You can believe in a person who says the same thing. You cannot believe in a person when you know perfectly well tomorrow he may say just the opposite: “So at least let us wait for tomorrow, then we can see what to do.” But tomorrow never comes, it is always coming.

And I don’t take any account of my past statements. For me there is no contradiction at all, because unless I compare two statements how can I find there is contradiction? By the time I go to bed I am finished with that day. In the morning I wake up fresh – just like an innocent child, carrying no burden of the past. I speak to you from that innocence.

And I speak not to emphasize a certain psychology, a certain theology – I do not speak to program your mind. I cannot humiliate any human being by programming his mind. Programming the mind of a human being means you are reducing the man to a machine.

His question was relevant. He was puzzled: “There are people who have been with you for twenty, thirty years – can’t they see these many contradictions? And they go on believing in you?” He was simply using the word “belief” wrongly.

My people trust me, love me. It is not a question of my statements to them. They enjoy my statements, it is good entertainment, but it is not a belief system for which you have to live and die. It is only pure entertainment. You have just to laugh and enjoy.

My real work is going on underground. Whatever I am doing is just creating a situation so your head is engaged. And my real approach, my target, is your heart, not your skull. And it is the best way I have found to sort out people. Those who approach me rationally will soon find the way towards Santa Fe. Santa Fe is going to be a world-famous place. All the camels of different sizes and shapes!

To be with me you have to learn one art, and that is, don’t take my statements seriously. For the moment enjoy them, but don’t expect that I am not going to contradict them. Don’t impose any expectations of yours on me. I never impose any expectations on you. At least this much you can do – a simple thing.

For centuries masters have been imposing their ideas on the disciples. I am not imposing any of my ideas on you. Don’t from your side insist on how I should behave, what I should say or not say; accept that saying something will create contradiction, saying it will create hostility in people outside, saying it will create unnecessary confusion. Don’t expect anything from me. Open your heart. That is where the real surgery has to happen.

And once you have known the beauty, the joy, the blessing of dancing in tune with my heart, you will never be bothered by what I said yesterday, what I said ten years ago. Leave all this to people whose profession is gravedigging. Let them settle with the skeletons of the past.

You be here now in this moment, part of my life, part of my love, part of my being. Let me reach you in your innermost core. Allow me to touch your center.

The head is only the periphery, and I am not interested in your heads. I don’t count heads, I count the hearts.

The Dutch journalist could understand. When I stood up and started dancing with the sannyasins, he was dancing behind me – in absolute abandon, as if nothing else existed in that moment but the dance.

I told the man, “You can write anything you want about me. Even if you want to say things which I have not said, I give you the authority, because I have been able to touch your heart. And beware, soon you will be a sannyasin!”

I could see the glow in his eyes – just the idea of being a sannyasin, a great adventure ahead, a great pilgrimage. And the way he was dancing was absolutely drunk. It is just coincidence that he happens to be a journalist, that is not his place. His place is amongst the sannyasins, he is a seeker.

And he trusts me….

The second problem that you have raised is about believing. But who is asking you to believe me? I go on destroying every possibility of believing in me. Even if you want to believe in me, you cannot; I will not allow it. To the very last breath of my life I will go on contradicting continuously.

Perhaps at the last breath I may say all this enlightenment business is just bullshit. Forget all about it! Just be human, ordinary, enjoying the small things of life, relishing the beauty of nature, drowning yourself in love, friendship – and you have something better than enlightenment.

Yes, I want it to be remembered: It is difficult to be enlightened, but enlightenment is not the end.

One has to transcend enlightenment too. Then one is completely free. Enlightenment helps one to be free from every other bondage, but then one becomes dependent on enlightenment. The real enlightened person transcends it, and he becomes again simple, ordinary, with no idea of any holiness, no idea of meditation, no idea about anything. He lives moment to moment, joyously.

It is good that you trust me unconditionally. Trust can only be unconditional. Belief is always conditional. A better argument, and your belief can be destroyed. But your trust is unconditional, nothing can destroy it. If there is a condition, then it is easy to argue and prove that the condition is wrong, that the condition has loopholes. And when you see that in your condition there are loopholes, your belief falls down.

Trust has to be intrinsically unconditional; hence, nobody can argue against my people. My people are not believers. They have known something far deeper and far higher: they have tasted the juice of trust.

You are fortunate. Don’t be worried that you don’t believe in me. I don’t want you to believe in me!

And what you are feeling, an unconditional trust, is what is needed between me and you.

Belief is a barrier. Trust is a bridge.

So rejoice, and forget all about beliefs. Anyway you cannot believe because I am going to contradict myself.

When I was talking to the Dutch journalist, he was worried. He loves me, he has been here before at celebrations, he has been reading my books. He himself has paid his fare, because the editor was not ready to pay the fare. The editor is ready to publish whatsoever the journalist writes, but he was not ready to pay the fare from Holland to here. The journalist has paid it himself.

It was a problem for him, and naturally he said: “I cannot conceive – you go on contradicting and still your people are not disturbed by your contradictions.”

I said, “That is one of the fire tests for becoming a sannyasin. I will contradict my statements. I can start contradicting them by my actions, but trust has no condition.”

He asked me, “In the world press conference you said that you are a showman.”

I said, “Me, a showman? What are you asking?”

He was, for a moment, silent. And then he said, “You said in the press conference, ‘My people are a circus.'”

I said, “my people? The whole world is a circus except my people! These are the sanest people in the whole world, and anybody who is sane is going to join my people.”

Naturally one gets puzzled. But if you trust, you don’t get puzzled at all. You can enjoy. You laughed when I said I am a showman, and you are laughing when I am saying I am not! You were laughing when I said you are my circus, and now you are laughing when I am saying you are the only people who are not a circus.

This is the beauty of trust.

Question 2:

BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE BEEN A SANNYASIN FOR ONE YEAR, AND FEEL LIKE A KANGAROO WHO HAS TO MAKE BIG JUMPS TO FOLLOW YOU. TODAY, I WAS SHOCKED TO READ THAT YOU HAD SAID YOU MAY NOT REMAIN CELIBATE WHEN YOU ARE HEALTHY AGAIN. I THOUGHT YOU HAD SAID THAT AN ENLIGHTENED PERSON HAS TRANSCENDED SEX. YET, I KNOW HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS TO MAKE LOVE. WHY DO I FEEL SO CONFUSED?
PLEASE COMMENT.

One always feels confused if one has expectations. Now who told you that enlightened people transcend sex? And immediately you are saying, “… although love is such a beautiful experience.”

So why prevent enlightened people from having such a beautiful experience? But the idea has been created down the centuries that the truly religious people are celibate, and particularly that the enlightened person is celibate.

I have never been celibate. Amongst so many beautiful women, you want me to be celibate? It is like standing by a beautiful spring, purest water flowing from the top of the hill, and you are standing thirsty by the side of it because you are enlightened. Forget all about it! I will take care of enlightenment later on – right now I am going to drink from this beautiful spring.

And you have also misunderstood. I have said enlightened people transcend sex, but I have never said they transcend love. It is a complicated phenomenon.

You think sex is love? It is simply biological bondage. In fact, only an enlightened person can make love. What you call making love is just biological gymnastics. You don’t know what making love means. So I say to you that the enlightened man and the enlightened woman are the most beautiful lovers. It need not necessarily be sexual, it need not necessarily be non-sexual. An enlightened man is free.

My mother came to me yesterday; she was a little worried. She said, “It is beautiful to see you dancing, but now you have started dancing with girls!” She was concerned that if people in India see this, in the pictures, on the video, they will be very much shocked. I said, “So far, so good.”

But I am free – more free than Gautam Buddha, more free than Mahavira. Gautam Buddha did not have the guts to dance with a girl.

I can dance because I don’t see any problem. There is no hindrance, no boundary to me; I can do anything.

Just the other night, Vivek was asking me, “Should we go to the disco?”

I said, “I am going to the disco one day, but right now it is too late.”

My discos, my restaurants are called Zorba the Buddha. First I am a Zorba, and then I am a Buddha.

And remember, if I have to choose between the two, I will choose Zorba, not Buddha… because the Zorba can always become the Buddha, but the Buddha becomes confined to his own holiness. He cannot go to the disco and become the Zorba. And to me, freedom is the highest value; there is nothing greater, more precious, than freedom.

My enlightenment has freed me from everything, including enlightenment.

Now will be the crucial point. Those who trust me will trust me even when I am drinking champagne, because there was no condition. You had not told me, “I will trust you only until you start drinking champagne.” The trust is unconditional.

The heart knows different ways of seeing. The mind is linear, it looks only towards one line. The heart is multi-dimensional. And the more I feel my people’s trust, the more dimensions of my being I can reveal to them.

I would like you to know me in my total freedom, because that is what I want you to be – totally free, no strings attached.

Blessed is the sannyasin who can trust me without bothering about my statements or my actions.

His is the kingdom of God right now!

Question 3:

BELOVED OSHO,
LIKE YOURS, MY TASTES ARE SIMPLE: I LIKE THE BEST. HOWEVER, I TAKE THIS TO THE EXTREME, AND WANT THE ULTIMATE IN EVERYTHING – AND NOT ONLY IN MATERIAL THINGS. I WANT, ESPECIALLY WITH WOMEN, EACH MEETING, EACH LOVE AFFAIR TO BE THE PERFECT, ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE. CONSEQUENTLY I REMAIN SEPARATE, MISS MUCH, AND MAKE MYSELF MISERABLE. PLEASE COMMENT.

Strange… you compare yourself with me, and I don’t know what misery is, what frustration is.

You say that your tastes are just like mine: for the best. But before you can have that taste for the best, you will have to become like me – and you are far away.

I have said it, that my tastes are simple; I am easily satisfied with the best of anything. But remember, I am easily satisfied, and your question ends with misery and frustration. You cannot be simple.

And who does not want the best? And do you think I always get the best? For example, you are here…. Now, what am I supposed to do with you? You certainly are not the best – miserable, frustrated – but I will still love you, whether you are the best or not the best.

You have heard only half the statement. It is time you should know the other half also. There are people who want the best; these are the people who fill the whole world, all frustrated, all miserable.

There are also a few people who make the best out of anything. They are the people who can say they are like me. I make the best out of anything.

Yes, I am satisfied with the best, but the best is not always handed over to you. You have to learn to transform it into the best. And it is easy, if you understand towards what I am taking you.

Don’t think that there are great things in life and small things in life. It all depends on you, how you look at them. It is your attitude which is determining. You can enjoy a small grass flower, there is no need for lotuses to blossom for you. The joy comes from within you – anything can trigger it.

You need not have what is considered the best by the society, but you can make anything that you have the best. Enjoy it, live it totally, squeeze the whole juice of it – and you will find that everything is the best.

You say particularly with women you would like each experience to be the very ultimate. Have you seen your face in the mirror? Before you think of having the ultimate experience every time, just go into the bathroom and see your face first. That will cool you down.

To get the ultimate, you have to be ultimate. You are just a monkey, and trying to have the ultimate experience with a woman. Thank God that she is tolerating you! Thank God that she only throws pillows at you, and does not throw you out of the window.

Deserve it! Earn it! Nothing comes without your capacity to absorb it. You get only that which you deserve. Remember that maxim: you get only that which you deserve. And there is no need to be frustrated, you always get that which you deserve. Nature is very compassionate. It never gives you less, it never gives you more; it is very fair.

So if you are not getting the best from your women, have you asked the women what they are getting? You may not be getting the best, but you must be getting something. And those poor women may not be getting even that!

Love needs two partners. It is almost like two musical instruments playing together in symphony. If you want the best, then create the capacity to be the best lover, and help the woman also to be the best lover.

There are biological discrepancies for which nobody can be blamed, because biology’s purpose in your love affairs is different. It is not to give you joy. It is just to give reproductions of you, carbon copies, because soon the originals will be in the grave. Biology’s function is finished there. And if you remain only biologically oriented, you are not going to get anything – except frustration.

Every man after making love feels frustrated. It is good that sex helps him to fall asleep; otherwise the whole night he will remain in frustration. It is good that sex helps his heart to be healthier; otherwise the whole night of frustration, and a heart weakening and drowning – by the morning you will find the man finished. Those are biological strategies that make the man go to sleep immediately.

There is no sleeping medication which is more effective than sex.

And one thing you must remember: men have died in all kinds of actions – people have died praying – but nobody has ever died while making love. In the whole history of man… not a single exception.

Strange. People die in all kinds of situations – because there are so many people, and so many people have been before, and before them, it seems to be logical that somebody will die while making love. Somebody will die just walking on the street, somebody will die doing something good:

painting, music, poetry – or serving the poor. But biology has its own ways. It has made it intrinsically impossible for a man to die while he is making love.

Although all the religions have been teaching just the opposite, that if you make love you will die sooner, it is not medically true. The people who love – their hearts are functioning better. Lovers don’t have heart attacks. The celibate can have a heart attack. Do you want your enlightened people to have heart attacks?

Please, don’t compare yourself with a poor man like me, who owns nothing – not a single cent. Even if I have to be deported, the Oregon government will have to pay for my ticket. But I will make the best out of it. Even if they deport me, I will make international news. I will make so much fuss about it that they will be condemned all over the world.

That’s why for four years they have been silent. They neither say yes to my green card, nor do they say no. They don’t want to say yes; they are afraid to say no, because I am not going to accept their no easily. So they have been, for four years, just sitting, working out what to do. Both ways it is dangerous. Saying yes is a danger, saying no is an even bigger danger.

If they deport me, I will go around the world – I have my people around the world. And I am going to expose the American mask completely: that it is not a democracy, that it simply has a different name, but it is exactly what the Soviet Union is – with one difference. The Soviet Union is straightforward, and Americans do the same thing with hypocrisy; they go round about, round about, and try to make it look democratic.

My deportation – I am going to enjoy it as the best. Anything that has happened in my life, I have enjoyed as the best. I make it the best. Even if I have to make love to an ugly, disgusting woman, I put the light off! In darkness, whether you are making love to Cleopatra or your own wife makes no difference.

Just be a little clever. There is no need to be frustrated. Find out ways, whatsoever is available, to make the best of it.

Yes, I enjoy the best because I know how to turn everything to its best. You also want to enjoy the best, but you don’t want to take the trouble to change it to its utmost beauty and flavor.

As a sannyasin you should learn that life consists of small things, but each small thing can be transformed into something glorious.

You can ask Vivek, who carries my tea, my food – and now I am going for Coca-Cola. Just ask her:

whatsoever food is offered to me, I enjoy it as the best food anybody will be enjoying in the whole world. I enjoy my tea – which has no sugar in it, no milk in it, just water and tea leaves; but I really enjoy it, each sip of it. And I feel as if I am in paradise each moment.

So please, learn the alchemy of transforming things.

Question 4:

BELOVED OSHO,
IF THE BRAIN OF AN ENLIGHTENED MAN WAS TRANSPLANTED INTO AN ORDINARY MAN, WOULD HE START BEHAVING LIKE AN ENLIGHTENED MAN? WOULD HE EXPERIENCE ENLIGHTENMENT?

No, because the brain has nothing to do with enlightenment. If you put the enlightened man’s brain into some unenlightened man’s body, he will not behave like the enlightened man. He will simply behave the way he had been behaving. Perhaps for a few days he will be in a little difficulty, but soon he will get adjusted.

The brain has to be adjusted to the soul, not vice versa.

Question 5:

BELOVED OSHO,
COULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR SCIENTISTS TO DEVELOP ENLIGHTENED PEOPLE IN A TEST-TUBE?

Never. Don’t wait for such stupid things. In the test-tube the scientist can produce a great painter, a great artist, a great dancer, a great musician, a great poet. But the scientist cannot produce an enlightened man in the test-tube, because that is the only quality which you have to work for. Nobody can give it to you.

You have to become more conscious. It does not matter whether you are born in a test-tube or in a mother’s womb – both are wombs. It does not matter at all. Enlightenment is the only thing in human life which will remain forever and forever the glory of individuality. Everything else can be produced; enlightenment you have to grow yourself. It is something so intrinsic to you, it is your very soul.

The scientist can give you a better, stronger body, he can give you a longer life, he can give you a better mind – but he cannot give you awareness. He himself is not aware. He is as unconscious as you are. And do you think these unconscious scientists will be able to produce the consciousness of the awakened one? It is absolutely impossible.

So don’t wait for test-tube babies to become enlightened. Don’t waste your time. You become enlightened yourself. Test-tube babies will have to work their way towards enlightenment on their own.

It is something so individual… and that is the beauty of it, that it is individual. It is not something mechanical. It cannot be produced on an assembly line; otherwise, just as Ford cars go on coming out off the assembly line – every minute one car comes out the same as the one before, the same as the one after…. Enlightenment cannot be created on an assembly line.

It is an absolutely individual growth. It is your responsibility to become enlightened or remain in darkness. That is the only area where science cannot be of any help.

Question 6:

BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE OFTEN HEARD THE EXPRESSION: WHEN A WOMAN SAYS NO, SHE MEANS YES. BUT IN THIS COMMUNE, IT DOES NOT SEEM TO BE TRUE. IN YOUR DISCOURSE THE OTHER DAY, HOWEVER, IT SEEMED THAT YOU ARE NOT AGAINST THESE GAMES. CAN YOU PLEASE COMMENT?

I am not against any games. And it is true. This commune is going to create its own proverbs. Here yes means yes, no means no. In the old society outside, when a woman says no she means yes, because that woman is a slave. For centuries she has been taught to be shy, to be unaggressive, not to chase men.

Here, the situation is totally different. Nobody need be shy about anything. So when the woman says no, don’t try to interpret it as yes – she will give you a good punch on your nose! And when she says yes, she means it. If you can escape fast enough… it is up to you. But here, we mean what we say, and we say what we mean!

And I am perfectly in favor of all these beautiful games – men chasing women – but that has become difficult here. In the outside world when the man chases the woman, the woman runs, escapes, hides. Here, the moment a man even starts chasing, the woman catches hold of him: “There is no need, all this unnecessary huffing, puffing, no need! Why waste time in chasing? Why not do the real thing?”

So beware! In the first place, keep quiet, don’t ask.