/lit/ - Literature

>>20400392
As >>20395100 points out Osho, on the other hand, was a huge fan of Gurdjieff’s and studied him very deeply, and simply seemed to have been transmitting wisdom he picked up on from Gurdjieff and his sources, in a very popularized, emotionalized, mystical enticing form, throwing in all the references to interesting Eastern philosophies and traditions he could. Hence, Krishnamurti and Osho seem like diametrically opposite poles of the same approach to a wordless something, a practice (what Osho, picking up from Gurdjieff and Eastern traditions, might call “watching the watcher”) — Krishnamurti in a very abstract, non-religious, anti-traditional way, endlessly pointing out that higher awareness (the state of what he calls “choiceless awareness”) is not to be gained by adherence to any sect, repetitive mindless practice or prayer or system of meditation, but a truly internal revolution and change, and Osho, as a universalist, also quite iconoclastic “guru”, that it is the same higher state of awareness many different traditions have talked about.

As per Gurdjieff, they are both talking about this state of “self-observation” and “self-remembering”. Where these figures (and others like them) actually had genuine spiritual insight, it simply came from them doing “self-observation” and “self-remembering” and hence gradually being able to enter into and have experiences of the higher emotional and higher thinking centers (which, as G. notes, are characterized by a lack of negative emotions, and which the negativity and mechanicality of the lower emotional and thinking centers are gateways to, cover up or obscure).

From G.’s point of view, it would not be improbable to say, that certain of Krishnamurti’s lectures and described experiences, were simply of him getting into the higher emotional and higher thinking centers, which he did by stilling the lower emotional and thinking centers and a practice of self-observation and self-remembering he had somehow come to.

The irony, however, is that someone like Krishnamurti would say following or believing in someone like a Gurdjieff, or taking insights from other traditions like Zen, Vedanta, Samkhya, or Vajrayana Buddhism, would be “fragmentation,” a simple limiting of the psyche and trying to force it to fit the box of some “tradition,” when awareness itself is fundamentally unconditioned and does not belong to a tradition. Ironically enough, this is also what some authentic people of those traditions have pointed out — that they are using their terminology and practices to point to something within you yourself, not to be found “outside” of yourself somewhere. The old cliche is that they are fingers pointing to the moon, another possible formulation is that it is like trying to turn the mirror of your ego away from the world it is reflecting and paradoxically somehow turn it upon yourself, pointing out to you your own self-nature.

Sex can be virgin, and celibacy may not be virgin. Things are very complicated. If a man is celibate and thinks constantly of sex, he is not virgin. On the other hand, if a man makes love to a woman, or the woman makes love to a man, and there is no thought of sex - no sexuality in the head, no cerebral sex - it is virgin. Virgin means pure. Virgin means uncontaminated. Virgin means spontaneous. Virgin means simple, innocent.

Now, sex is not the problem. Sexuality is the problem. There are people who are continually thinking of sex. And the more you try to enforce some celibacy on yourself - you become a nun or a monk - the more you think of sex. In fact, you don't think about anything else, you only think of sex because that is your starved part. It takes revenge, it becomes very aggressive. It comes again and again, bubbles up, surfaces in the head. You go on saying prayers to keep it repressed, and you go on doing this and that - a thousand and one things. But whenever there is rest, it is there. You go to sleep and it is there. It becomes your dream, it becomes your fantasy. If you repress it too much, it then starts coming through different symbols. They may not be sexual on the surface but deep down they are sexual.

Sexuality means that sex has entered into the head, but why has sex entered into the head in the first place? It enters into the head if you repress it. Anything repressed enters into the head. Try for three days: go on a fast, and the thought of food will enter into the head. For seven days don't take a bath_ I am not talking about hippies. If you are a hippie, then this won't do. For seven days don't take a bath, and that will enter into your head. For three, four days don't sleep, and that will enter in your head. Then you will be continuously thinking of sleep, sleep will be continuously coming and you will be yawning. Whatsoever is starved enters the head, and when something enters the head your whole being becomes polluted with it.

These people need votes; they have to pay respect to the leaders of religions. And a shankaracharya feels great that the prime minister is touching his feet. And the followers of the shankaracharya, the Hindus, feel that "our prime minister is a very religious person."

When the pope comes to India, even the president and the prime minister with his whole cabinet stand in line at the airport to receive him. For what? The third-largest religion in India is now Christianity, and to pay respect to the pope means all the votes of the Christians will be yours.

Organized religions - whether it is Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism - have not been seekers of truth. In two thousand years, what truth has organized Christianity added to the statements of Jesus? So what is the need of this organization? It is not increasing religiousness in the world, it is simply repeating what Jesus has said - which is available in books for anybody to read. In twenty-five centuries, how many Buddhists have searched for the truth, or have found the truth? Just a long line of parrots repeating what Gautam Buddha has found.

You should remember that Gautam Buddha was not part of any organized religion; neither was Mahavira part of any organized religion, nor was Jesus part of any organized religion - they were individual seekers. Truth has always been found by individuals. That is the privilege of the individual, and his dignity.

Organized religions have created wars - just as politicians have done. Their names may be different: politicians fight for socialism, for communism, for fascism, for Nazism, and organized religions have been fighting for God, for love, for their concept of what truth is. Millions of people have been killed in the clashes between Christians and Mohammedans, between Christians and Jews, between Mohammedans and Hindus, between Hindus and Buddhists. Religion has nothing to do with war; it is a search for peace. But organized religions are not interested in peace - they are interested in becoming more and more powerful and dominant.

>>16122899
I have heard about a great surgeon who was retiring at the late age of 75. It was not customary to keep somebody in service for that long, but that surgeon was a master surgeon. In the whole country there was nobody who even came close to him. Even at the age of 75, he was the best surgeon. So rather than getting retired at the age of 60 he was persuaded to continue.

At 75 he said, “Enough is enough. Now, I want to rest and relax. I’m utterly tired.”

The day he was leaving his service, his friends gave him a farewell party, and they were all drinking and dancing and rejoicing. But he was standing in a corner, sad and miserable. One of his friends reached to him and asked, “What is the matter? We have come here to give you a joyous festive farewell, and you are standing here in the corner as if somebody has died. Why you are looking so miserable?”

Who is Jesus Christ? The question has been asked down the centuries again and again, and it has been answered too. But the questioners were wrong, and so were those who have answered it, because the question was out of a certain prejudice, and so was the answer. They were not essentially different; their source was one and the same.

The question was asked by those who were suspicious of Jesus' Godhood. And the question was answered by those who were not ready to believe Jesus' manhood. They were only ready to believe half of him. The Jews were ready to believe that he was a man. And the Christians were ready to believe that he was God. The Jews were denying half of him - the Christ part. And the Christians were denying the other half - the Jesus part.

Who is Jesus Christ? Christians don't want to see him as Jesus, son of man - man of flesh, blood and bones, man as other men are. And the Jews did not want to believe him as God, as divine - made of pure consciousness, not of flesh, blood and bones.

Nobody has been ready to believe Jesus in his totality. And that is not only the case with Jesus, that is the case with all the Masters - Buddha, Krishna, Zarathustra. And unless you allow Jesus in his totality to penetrate you, you will not be transformed. Unless you allow him as he is, you will not be in contact with him. Jesus is both Jesus and Christ, and he is not ashamed of it.

In the Bible many times he says 'I am the Son of man', and as many times he also says 'I am the Son of God.' And he seems to have no idea that there is any contradiction between these two. There is none. The contradiction exists in our minds. It doesn't exist in Jesus' being. His being is bridged. His being is bridged between time and eternity, body and soul, this world and that. His being is bridged between the visible and the invisible, the known and the unknown. He is utterly bridged, he is at ease with both, because he is both. Jesus and Christ are like two shores, and the river is only possible if there are two shores. Jesus is the river that flows between these two shores: both shores are his. He exists between them, he is a river.

Who is Jesus Christ - God or man? And I say all the questions that have been asked were wrong, and so were the answers. Why? - because the questions came either from Judaic knowledge or from Muslim knowledge or from Hindu knowledge. And the answers came from Christian knowledge, and knowledge cannot answer it. Knowledge cannot even ask it! Knowledge is impotent. Such questions of such importance can be asked only out of innocence, not out of knowledge. The distinction has to be understood.

Cont.

>Osho,
>Even though I did not understand what was happening, I have had enlightening experiences through the use of hallucinogenic drugs. I know that LSD is false, but what is, if any, the truth about mushrooms?

LSD is not false; LSD is as real as anything else. But the experience that is created by LSD is a false samadhi. Remember the distinction that I am making: LSD is not false, but the experience that is created under the impact of LSD is a false experience.

You say, "I have had enlightening experiences_" They were not enlightening experiences. They may have been lightning experiences, but not enlightening. They are flashes; you are not enlightened through them, you don't become a buddha through them. In fact, you become more of a mess out of them. LSD changes your body chemistry, as do mushrooms. It changes your body chemistry, it does not change you. It changes your body, just as food changes your body, air changes your body, the climate changes your body, the moon, the full moon changes your body. But you are not being changed by it. All those changes happen in the body; all those changes are chemical changes - not alchemical but only chemical.

Even Lenin, who was to become the head of the first communist country in the world, was in Germany - because in Germany the emperor had relaxed the power and given it to the people. It was becoming a democracy, and the Communist Party in Germany was the biggest party so there was every chance it would come into power. Lenin was there to direct them.

But instead of the Communist Party - which it was logical to conclude would succeed - Adolf Hitler came in between. And Adolf Hitler was neither a thinker nor a philosopher.

He was absolutely a fanatic, insane man, and his party, the Nazi Party, began with only nineteen soldiers. These soldiers had been found to be unfit for the army, so they were unemployed and they wanted to do something. Adolf Hitler himself was thrown out of the army because he was psychologically unfit.

These nineteen people gathered together in a small hotel and created the Nazi Party of Germany, with Adolf Hitler as the leader. Because he was a fanatic, he was very emphatic about everything he said. And his strategy was very strange - because he had not a great following, he created a new strategy. It looks absurd, but it worked.

His whole strategy was not to bother about gathering more and more people, gathering membership for the Nazi Party; he knew that was not going to happen. He had no philosophy to offer, no program for the future - why should they join his party? So he started disturbing the communist meetings. Those nineteen people - they were all soldiers - would sit in the communist meetings in separate places, and whenever the communist leader would start speaking, they would create trouble. They would start beating people, whoever was by their side; it was not a question of whom. Just nineteen people would disturb a meeting of ten thousand people or twenty thousand people. And when there are beatings going on, you cannot speak. They were throwing stones at the speaker, they were hitting the audience.

Slowly, slowly it became clear that you are safe only in Adolf Hitler's meetings; you are not safe in any other meeting. When Adolf Hitler would speak, obviously, those nineteen people were standing around the crowd watching that nobody creates any mischief.

People went to hear Adolf Hitler just because that was the only safe meeting. You could come home alive! This is how Adolf Hitler came to power, because he disturbed all meetings of the communists, which was the greatest party and was logically bound to succeed - but could not succeed because it could not approach the masses. Communist leaders would call a meeting and nobody would come.

Only Adolf Hitler was listened to all over the country, and slowly, slowly he started gathering followers because he seemed to be the only savior. All others had left the area. And nobody knew his strategy; it became known only after Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography about how he came into power. Just those nineteen people managed to do the work.

Which religion do you follow /lit/?
Do you hate others that follow different religions?

Intelligence means seeing deeply into things. Has your life any point? Has your life any joy? Has your life any poetry in it? Has your life any creativity in it? Do you feel grateful that you are here? Do you feel grateful that you were born? Can you thank existence? Can you say with your whole heart that it is a blessing? If you cannot, then why do you go on living? Either make your life a blessing - or why go on burdening this earth? Disappear. Somebody else may occupy your space and may do better. This idea comes to the intelligent mind naturally. It is a very, very natural idea when you are intelligent. Intelligent people commit suicide. And those who are even more intelligent than the intelligent people take sannyas. They start creating a meaning, they start creating a significance, they start living.

The old words were destroyed, new words were born; there was much inference and denial for fifteen hundred years. By the time Shankara came Buddha's influence was everywhere.

But then the same fate happened to Buddha's scriptures which had happened to the Upanishads and the Vedas. Buddha's scriptures died, they became well-trodden tracks. They became mere scholarship that was only worthy of discussion in the universities. Now there was no life in them, they were no longer useful even for a seeker - what to say about the awakened ones? Only intellectual analysis had become important.

Then Shankara changed the direction of the flood again. Shankara said that truth is not absolute emptiness, it is absolute fullness, it is brahman.

After a gap of fifteen hundred years this word fullness came back with a freshness, the Upanishads received new life and the Vedas re-emerged into the light. Shankara re-established all that Buddha had destroyed.

And you will be surprised that both are doing the same work. Neither is Buddha destroying the Upanishads nor is Shankara saving them. Buddha is saving the very essence, the very soul of the Upanishads, and Shankara is also doing the same. What they are destroying is just the outer shell because it always becomes dirty.

It is the same as when you want to put new clothes on a child and he is not ready to remove the old ones. He says, "I am attached to them. I like this shirt very much. I don't want to wear the new one." But you know that it has become dirty: "It has become old, it has holes in it - so take it off." The child thinks that perhaps you just want him to go naked. How can he wander around naked in the heat and sun and cold? Why are you after his clothes? He loves them, he holds on to them. But once you have changed his clothes then he becomes happy that he has new clothes. His walk changes, now he walks with joy. But after a year the same thing happens. Those clothes also become old; then again the moment to change them comes.

The awakened ones are not against anybody - they cannot be - because in their awakening their experience is that of absolute oneness. So neither is Shankara against Buddha nor is Buddha against Shankara. Both of them are saying the same thing, only their expressions are different.

And you say that I support both of them. This is true. This is worth asking, this is absolutely relevant. Now even the differences between the two of them have become meaningless. It is now twenty-five hundred years after Buddha and a thousand years after Shankara: now the differences between the two of them have become stale. Now the communication between them should get a new start. Now someone is needed who says that there is no difference, that both are saying the same thing.

Philosophy has not reached any conclusion and it will never reach - it is an exercise in utter futility. It is a good game if you want to play an intellectual game, intellectual gymnastics; it is hair splitting. But I am not interested in it at all - and I know it from the inside. I have been a student of philosophy and a professor of philosophy too. I know it as an insider that philosophy is the most useless activity in the world, the most uncreative, the most pretentious - but very ego-fulfilling, gives you great ideas of knowledgeability without making you wise at all.