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The first question:
Osho,
I have too much sexual energy burning within my body. When I dance, sometimes I feel as if I am going to kill the whole world, and at some stage so much anger and violence bubbles within my body that I can’t channel the energy into meditation techniques, and it drives me crazy. I don’t feel to go into the sex act, but violent energy is still burning like volcanic fire. I can’t bear it, and it makes me sometimes suicidal. Please, explain how to give a creative outlet to this energy.
The problem is created by the mind, not by the energy. Listen to the energy. It is showing you the right direction. It is not sexual energy which is creating the problem; it has never created any problems in the animals, in the trees, in the birds. The energy creates problems because your mind has a wrong attitude about it.
This question is from an Indian lady. In India the whole upbringing is against sex. Then you create the problem. And then, whenever there is energy, you will feel sexual because something is incomplete within you. Something unfulfilled will always wait, and it will assert energy, exploit energy.
In the dynamic methods of meditation much energy is created. Many hidden sources are tapped, and new sources become available. If sex has remained an unfulfilled desire, then this energy will start moving toward sex. You will become more and more sexual if you meditate.
Let me tell you one thing that happened in India. Jaina monks completely stopped meditating just because of sexual energy. They forgot all about meditation because they were repressing sex so much that whenever they meditated, energy would rise. Meditation gives you tremendous energy. It is a source of eternal energy, you cannot exhaust it. So whenever energy arose, they would start feeling sexual. They became afraid of meditations. They dropped them. The most essential thing that Mahavira had given to them they dropped, and the nonessential, fasting and rituals, they continued. This fits with an anti-sexual attitude.
I am not anti-sexual because I am not anti-life. So the problem is not where you think it is; the problem is in your head not in your sexual glands. You will have to change your attitude, otherwise whatsoever you do will be colored by your sexuality. You meditate, and it will become sexual; you look at somebody, and your eyes will become sexual; you touch somebody, and your hand will become sexual; you eat something, and eating can become sexual.
So people who deny sex start eating more. You can watch it in life. Freely flowing, sexually flowing people will not be very fat, they will not eat too much. Love is so satisfying, love is so fulfilling they will not go on stuffing their body with food. When they can’t love, or when they can’t allow themselves to move into love, they start eating too much. That becomes a substitute activity.
Go and see Hindu monks. They go on gathering unnecessary fat. They become ugly. That is another extreme. On one extreme are Jaina monks who cannot eat because they are afraid that once they eat, food will release energy, and the energy will immediately move to the incomplete desire waiting for it. First it goes to the incomplete experience which is hanging in the middle; that is the first requirement, so energy moves there. The body has a certain economy: wherever energy is needed first, energy moves there first.
There is a hierarchy of needs. A person who has been denying sex will have a hierarchy; sex will become first on the list. And whenever any energy is available, it will start moving to the most unfulfilled desire. So Jaina monks cannot eat well, they are afraid, and Hindu monks eat too much. The problem is the same, but they have solved it in two extreme ways.
If you eat too much, you start getting a certain sexual enjoyment by eating, by filling your belly too much. Too much food brings lethargy. And too much food is always a substitute for love because the first thing the child comes in contact with is the mother’s breast. That breast is the first experience in the world, and the breast gives two things to the child: love and food. So love and food become deeply entangled with each other.
Whenever love is missing, your childish mind will think, “Get more food. Complement it.” Have you watched? When you are feeling very full of love, your desire to eat disappears, you don’t feel so much appetite. But whenever love is missing, you start eating too much, you don’t know what to do now. Love was filling a certain space inside you. Now that space is empty, and you don’t know any other way to fill it than food. You create problems by denying nature, by rejecting nature.
So I would like to tell the questioner that it is not a question of meditation. Lady, you need love. You need a lover, and you need courage to move into it.
It is difficult to move into love; there are very hidden fears in it. Love creates as much fear as nothing else because the moment you start approaching the other, you have to go outside yourself. And who knows? The other may accept you or may reject you. The fear arises, you start feeling hesitant, whether to take the move or not, whether to approach the other or not. Hence all over the world the coward ages of the past have decided for marriage instead of love, because if people were left open to love, very few people would be able to love. Many more would die without love; they would live and drag out their lives without love because love is dangerous.
The moment you start moving toward somebody else, you are coming to collide with another world. Who knows if your approach will be accepted or rejected? How can you be certain the other is going to say yes to your need and to your desire? That the other is going to be compassionate, loving? How do you know? He may reject you. He may say no. You may say, “I love you,” but what is the guarantee that he will also feel love for you? He may not. There is no necessity for it, and the fear of rejection is very shattering.
So cunning and clever people decide not to move at all. Keep to yourself, then at least you are not rejected. And you can go on enhancing your ego with the idea that nobody has ever rejected you, even though that ego is absolutely impotent and is not enough to fulfill you. You need to be needed; you need somebody to accept you. You need somebody to love you because only when somebody else loves you, will you be able to love yourself, not before. When somebody accepts you, you will be able to accept yourself, not before. When somebody else feels happy with you, you will start feeling happy with yourself, not before. The other becomes a mirror.
Each relationship is a mirror. It reflects you. How can you know your face without the mirror? There is no way. Others’ eyes become mirrorlike, and when somebody loves you, that mirror is very, very sympathetic toward you; very, very happy with you; delighted with you. In those delighted eyes you are reflected, and for the first time a certain acceptability arises.
Otherwise, you have been rejected from the very beginning. It is part of the ugly structure of society that each child comes to feel that he is not accepted for himself. If he does something good – of course, whatsoever the parents think is good – if he does that, he is accepted. If he does something wrong – what the parents think is wrong – then he is rejected. The child sooner or later starts feeling, “I am not accepted for myself, not as I am, not intrinsically, but for what I do. My being is not loved but my doing.” And that creates a deep self-rejection, a deep self-hatred. He starts hating himself.
If you don’t fall in love, if you don’t find lovers and friends who can accept you, you will remain with that rejection your whole life. Love is a must. You must move through it. You can come out of it one day, you can transcend it one day – it has to be transcended – but how can you transcend it if you never enter into it?
So don’t be afraid, and drop all nonsense from the head. Yes, there is fear. You may be rejected, but don’t be afraid of that fear because that risk has to be taken; only then somebody will come and accept you. If you knock at a hundred doors and ninety-nine remain closed, don’t be afraid; one will open. Somebody is waiting for you. Somebody will be fulfilled through you as you will be fulfilled through somebody. Somebody is waiting to become a mirror for you because somebody is waiting to make you a mirror for himself. And there is no other way to find out who that one is than to go on knocking, groping. It is risky, but life is risky.
So very clever people miss life, they never take the risk. Afraid of falling, they never walk; afraid of drowning, they never swim; afraid of rejection, they may never move in love; afraid of failure, they never make any effort to succeed in anything. Their life is not life at all. They are dead before their death. They die so many times before they really die. Their whole life is nothing but a gradual death.
Live, and live intensely, and don’t take it as a personal offense if somebody cannot love you; there is no necessity. You were ready, you were available. If the other is not willing, that is for him to decide. Don’t make it a wound, it is not. It simply says that you two don’t fit, that’s all; it doesn’t say anything about you or about the other. Don’t say that the other is wrong, and don’t think that it is because you are wrong that you are not accepted. It is just you could not fit.
Move on, and it is good that the other did not deceive you, that the other was true and authentic. He said, “Sorry, I don’t feel any love for you.” At least he was sincere and authentic. Because if he had said a formal yes, then your whole life would have been a mess. Be true. When you love, say it, and when you don’t, say that too. Be true and sincere.
There are so many beautiful people in the world, why remain with yourself? Walk a few steps with somebody. Feel that rhythm also. That rhythm will satisfy you, and the urge will disappear. And when the urge disappears, your meditation will be the first in the hierarchy. Meditation can be the first in the hierarchy only if you have not been denying yourself that which is natural.
A person who has been fasting cannot meditate because whenever he meditates, he thinks about food; whenever he closes his eyes, he visualizes food. A man who is denying love cannot meditate; whenever he meditates, immediately sexuality surrounds him.
Fulfill all natural needs, nothing is wrong in them. What is wrong in food, in sex? Nothing is wrong. Fulfill them. Be so natural that when you meditate, there is no other thing waiting for your attention. If you fulfill your natural needs, you will see that your dreams will disappear. In the night you will not dream because there is nothing to dream about. Fast, then you will dream about food; force celibacy on yourself, then you will dream about sex. If you are moving naturally, if you have found a tune between you and nature, that’s what I call dharma, that’s what I call the ultimate law of life. Find yourself almost always in rhythm. Sometimes even if you go out of step, come back again; remember and fall into line again. Remain with nature, and you will reach the goal; remain with nature, and you will find godliness. You can even forget about godliness, then too you will find it if you remain true to nature. Because when lower needs are fulfilled, higher needs arise; when higher needs are fulfilled, ultimate needs arise. This is the natural economy of life.
If a person is hungry, how can he understand music? It is sheer absurdity to ask him to listen to classical music when he is hungry or to tell him to meditate or sit in zazen. He cannot think anything about Buddha, cannot think anything about God or Jesus. He cannot meditate, his mind will flicker and waver; it will go again and again to his empty stomach. No, he cannot love poetry, and he cannot love music when the first needs are unfulfilled. Give him fulfillment of the first, primary needs – food, shelter, love – and then suddenly the energy is released from the lower world, and he will start reading poetry, listening to music; he will enjoy dancing. Now higher needs are arising; he would like to paint or sculpt. These are luxuries. They only come into existence when lower needs are fulfilled. And when these higher needs are also fulfilled – you have loved music, listened to music; you have loved poetry, enjoyed it; you have painted, danced – one day you will see a new realm of needs is arising which are called the ultimate needs: meditation, godliness, prayer.
If the first needs are not fulfilled, the second will not arise, and the third is out of the question. If the first needs are fulfilled, then there is the possibility for the second needs to arise, and a glimpse of the third to happen also. When the second is fulfilled, the third arises automatically on its own accord.

Just the other day in Kundalini Meditation two dogs were watching. After a while one dog looked at the other and said, “When I act like that they give me worm pills.”

Of course, a dog has a dog’s mind. He has his own world, terminology, understanding, concepts. He can only think that people who are doing Kundalini either have worms in their stomach or have gone crazy. And that is natural to a dog’s understanding.
Your mind has been conditioned for centuries by people who have not understood your real needs. They have not bothered at all. They were looking for something else, and they have managed that very well; they were looking for the way to dominate people, and the easiest way is to create a guilty conscience. Then it is very easy to dominate people. Once the guilt exists, you will be dominated by one or the other, by this or that, but you will be dominated. A guilty person never feels at ease with himself, he cannot have any confidence; he knows that he is wrong, so he goes to find a leader, he goes to find some church, he goes to find somebody to guide him. He is not confident, hence the need arises. Politicians and priests have worked very hard to create a guilty conscience in everybody. Now that guilty conscience is creating trouble.
Now drop it. Life is yours. It belongs to nobody else. No politician, no priest has anything to do with it. Don’t allow anybody to meddle with your life. It is totally yours.
And your body is giving you the right indication; the body is very wise. The mind is a very late arrival. The body has lived millions of years, it knows what is needed. It is the mind that interferes. Mind is very immature, body is very mature. Listen to the body.
When I say listen to the body, I don’t mean to remain confined to the body. If you listen to the body, the body will not have anything to say to you; things will be settled. And when the body is at ease, relaxed, and there is no tension, and the body is not fighting for something, is not trying to attract your attention because you are not fulfilling any need, when the body is calm and quiet, you can float high, you can fly high, you can become a white cloud. But only when the body needs are really, truly looked after. The body is not your enemy, it is your friend. The body is your earth, the body has all your roots. You have to find a bridge between you and your body. If you don’t find that bridge, you will be constantly in conflict with your body, and a person who is fighting with himself is always miserable.
The first thing is to come to a peace pact with your body and never break it. Once you have come to a peace pact with your body, the body will become very, very friendly. You look after the body, the body will look after you; it becomes a vehicle of tremendous value, it becomes the very temple. One day your body itself is revealed to you as the very shrine of godliness.

The second question:
Osho,
For the last ten days I have felt tremendously happy as I never did before. Just being myself and accepting me as I am feels great. Sometimes this incredibly good feeling is disturbed by two thoughts. First, will this stay that way? Can I keep this feeling in the future? And second, why did I have to become so old before I reached this point? I cannot forget and still I feel sorry for all those years that I did not live at all. Please explain how to get rid of these disturbances of my happiness.
This has been asked by Prem Dhyan. When he came just six months ago, he was one of the most miserable persons I have ever come across. And it has been a miracle. He has changed totally. Now I can say just the opposite, he is one of the most happy persons around here.
These two questions are natural because now he is going to leave, he will be going back home. The fear arises. Will he be able to keep this happiness that has happened to him? The future… And the second question: he feels sorry for all those years that he lived but did not really live, that he missed. He could have lived those years as happy as he is now. The past…
These are the two dangers to be alert about. Whenever you become tremendously happy, immediately mind starts spinning its web. And there are two methods of the mind because mind exists either with the past or with the future. It immediately says, “Look, you could have been so happy your whole life.” Now the mind is distracting you. Say to the mind, “What does it matter? Those twenty years, or thirty years, or fifty years, are gone. Whether I lived them happily or unhappily, they are gone; it makes no difference.” In the morning when you awake, what difference does it make that you dreamed a very sweet dream, or that it was a nightmare? What difference does it make? When you awake in the morning, both were dreams. And the night is over, and you are no longer asleep.
When the mind says, “Look, you could have always been this happy,” the mind is creating an absurd desire. You cannot go back, you cannot do anything about the past, the past is gone and gone forever, irreversibly gone. Just think, even if you had been happy all those fifty years, what difference does it make now? Whether happy or unhappy, it is just a memory. In fact, whether your past existed or not, what difference does it make now?
Bertrand Russell has written somewhere that sometimes he starts brooding about whether the past really existed or whether he simply imagines that it existed. Were you a child really, or did you simply dream about being a child? How can you differentiate now? Both are in the memory; whether you dreamed about it or whether you really lived it, both are part of memory, and there is no way to differentiate. The past is in the memory – both real and unreal.
And psychologists say that when people say anything about their past, don’t trust them because in their past many imaginations and dreams have melted and have become mixed. Their past is not factual, and there is no way now because everything is contained only in the memory. Whether you were really living it, or you had just dreamed it, both have been mixed and melted into each other.
Past is just memory, but the mind can create great trouble, and by creating that fuss, it will deprive you of the happiness that is available right now. Just say to the mind, “I am finished with the past, and I don’t care a bit whether it was happy or unhappy, it is gone and gone forever. Now is the only moment.”
If you don’t listen to this trap, then the mind has another trap for you. It will say, “Okay, the past is gone but the future, what about the future? At least you can manage the future, it has yet to happen, you can plan for it. And wouldn’t you like this beautiful space in which you are now to be there forever and ever?” Again the desire will arise. Don’t say yes to it because again it will lead you away from the present. And happiness is always herenow.
Happiness is something that belongs to the present. Now say to the mind, “I am not worried about the future at all because if I can be happy now, this moment, I can be happy forever – because the future never comes as future, it always comes as the present. And now I know the secret of being happy in the present, so why bother about the future? Tomorrow will not come as tomorrow, it will come as today. And I have the key to open the door. At least this moment I am happy, and I know how to be happy in this moment. All moments that will come will come always like this moment.”
Have you watched? There is no difference between one moment and another moment. Time is completely beyond discrimination. It is always pure now.
So beware. These are the two traps of the mind. Mind cannot live without misery, so it is trying to create misery so that it can disturb your peace. Then the mind will be perfectly happy. Once you start feeling sorry for your past – it does not matter for what you feel sorry – you feel sorry, you start getting sad, depressed. And once you start getting too concerned about the future, you become full of desire, tense, worried whether you will be able to manage or not, whether you will be able to perform or not.
Between these two rocks the fragile moment of the present is crushed. So you have to be very alert. When one is unhappy, one can remain without alertness; he has nothing to lose. When one is happy, one has to be very careful and cautious; now he has a treasure to lose. And it can be lost within a second, within a split second. One wrong step and it can be lost. And these are the two directions in which you can lose your treasure.
A person who is poor, a beggar, need not be worried that he can be robbed, but a person who has treasures has to be very cautious. When Buddha walked so cautiously, why was he walking so cautiously? He had something, something tremendously fragile which could be dropped in any moment of unawareness and could be lost.
There is a Zen story…

A king in Japan used to visit his capital every night. He became aware that a beggar was always sitting alert under his tree; he never found him asleep. The king went at different times, but the beggar was alert the whole night, just sitting there, completely immobile, with his eyes open.
Out of curiosity he asked the beggar, “What are you being so cautious for? What are you guarding? I can’t see that you have anything that could be stolen or that anybody could cheat you. Why do you go on sitting like that and watching?”
The beggar laughed, and he said, “Sir, as far as I am concerned I would like to ask you the same question. Why so many guards? Why such an army around the palace? I don’t see that you have anything to be guarded. I have never seen a bigger beggar than you. You are completely empty, I can see through and through you. I don’t see any treasure there. About what are you creating so much fuss? As far as I am concerned, I have a treasure, and I have to be alert about it. A single moment of unconsciousness and it can be lost.”
And the beggar said, “Look into my eyes because my treasure is hidden within me.”
And it is said that the king looked into the eyes of the beggar, entered into his eyes, and was completely lost. It was a tremendously luminous space. He became a disciple to this beggar.
This beggar was a Zen master, and the king had been in search for many years, and he had been to many masters, but he could never feel the vibe of the unknown. With this beggar he could feel it almost crystallized in front of his eyes, he could touch it. Something divine had happened to this man.

So when you have a little treasure to guard, guard it. Now these two will be the thieves, the past and the future. Be alert. Nothing else is needed, just alertness. Just shake yourself out of sleep. Whenever you start falling into the trap, give yourself a jerk and remember.
I would like to tell you one of the most beautiful parables that has been written down the centuries. Parables have almost disappeared from the world because those beautiful people, Jesus, Buddha, who created many parables have disappeared.
A parable is not an ordinary story, a parable is a device, a device to say something which cannot ordinarily be said, a device to hint at something which can be hinted at only very indirectly.
This parable is written in this age; a very rare man, Franz Kafka, has written it. He was really a rare man. He struggled hard not to write because he said what he wanted to write could not be written. So he struggled hard, but he could not control the temptation to write, so he wrote. And he wrote in one of his diaries, “I am writing because it is difficult not to write, and knowing well that it is difficult also to write. Seeing no way out of it, I am writing.” And when he died, he left a will in the name of one of his friends to say, “Please burn everything that I have written, my diaries, my stories, my parables, my sketches, my notes. And burn them without reading them because this is the only way that I can get rid of that constant anxiety that I have been trying to say something which cannot be said. And I could not resist, so I have written. Now this is the only way. I have written it because I could not control myself. I had to write knowing well that it could not be written, so now, without reading it, destroy, burn everything utterly. Nothing should be left.” But the friend could not do it, and it is good that he did not.
This is one of Kafka’s parables. Listen to it, meditate over it.

I gave an order for my horse to be brought from the stable. The servant did not understand me. I myself went to the stable, saddled my horse and mounted. In the distance I heard a bugle call. I asked him what this meant. He knew nothing and had heard nothing.
At the gate he stopped me, asking, “Where are you riding to, Master?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “only away from here. Away from here, always away from here. Only by doing so can I reach my destination.”
“And so you know your destination?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Did not I say so? Away from here, that’s my destination.”
“You have no provisions with you,” he said.
“I need none,” I said. “The journey is so long that I must die of hunger if I don’t get anything along the way. No provisions can save me because the journey is so long, I cannot carry enough provisions for it. No provisions can save me, for it is, fortunately, a truly immense journey.”

Now this is the parable. “The destination,” he says, “is away from here. Away from here is my destination.” That’s how the whole world is moving: away from here, away from now. You don’t know where you are going; only one thing is certain – you are going away from here, away from now.
The parable says it is an immense journey. It is really endless because you can never reach away from here. How can you reach “away from here”? Wherever you will reach, it will be here. And again you will be trying to go away from here. There is no way to reach this destination. If away from here is the destination, then there is no way to reach it. And we are all escaping away from here.
Watch. Don’t allow this parable to become your life. Ordinarily everybody is doing this – knowingly, unknowingly. Start moving into the here, start moving into the now. And then there is tremendous happiness, so much so that it starts overflowing. Not only you delight in it, it starts overflowing, it starts becoming your climate, it becomes like a cloud around you. So whoever comes close to you becomes full of it. Even others will start partaking of it, participating in it.
And the more you have, the more you will be drowning into the herenow. Then a moment comes when you don’t have any space left for yourself; only happiness exists, you disappear.
But be alert of two things, the past and the future.
And now you have something to lose; you are fortunate because you have something to lose. And you have a tremendous responsibility not to lose it. The mind will go on trying its ways for a time being. When you become so alert that the mind cannot penetrate you and cannot disturb and distract you, then by and by the mind starts dropping. One day it understands well that now there is no way with you, so it leaves you. Then it stops haunting you.
That day will also come. As you could not believe before that this happiness was possible, you may not be able to believe what I am saying now. That day will also come when there will be no distraction.
Then again you will have to be even more alert because you will start crying, “Why did I waste so many years with distraction?” And then you will become again concerned with the future. Many times you will come to face this past and future in many, many different ways. It is like a person going to the peak of a hill. He moves round and round the hill, the path moves round and round, and many times he comes to the same view, to the same place. A little higher, but the same place, the same trees, the same sky. Again and again, many times before he reaches to the peak, he comes to the same point, a little higher of course, but the same point, again and again. Many times he will come again and again to this same distraction of past and future. This is just the beginning.
But one day, one reaches the peak, and when one reaches the peak, all becomes available simultaneously: the valley, the sky, the clouds, the height, the depth. Everything becomes available. That’s what enlightenment is.

The third question:
Osho,
The other day I took a piece of paper and did a little doodling or free writing, and I was pained to find that I was full of self-condemnation and self-pity. I had not a nice word for myself in that long note. Is it that I am too idealistic and self-centered, and is there a way out of this darkness?
Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody has become idealistic. Nobody is realistic. The ideal is the common disease of humanity.
Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody goes on thinking that they have to be something, somebody, somewhere in the future. An image has been given that you have to be like it. That gives you a tension because you are not it, you are something else, yet you have to be it. So one goes on condemning the real for the unreal; the unreal is unreal. And the ideal goes on pulling you toward the future, out of the present.
The ideal becomes a constant nightmare because it goes on condemning. Whatsoever you do is imperfect because you have an ideal of perfection. Whatsoever you attain is still not fulfilling because you have a mad expectation which can never be satisfied.
You are human in a certain time, in a certain space, with certain limitations. Accept those limitations. Perfectionists are always on the brink of madness. They are obsessed people then whatsoever they do is not good enough. And there is no way to do something perfectly; perfection is not humanly possible. In fact, imperfect is the only way to be.
So what do I teach you here? I don’t teach you perfection, I teach you wholeness. That is a totally different thing. Be whole. Don’t bother about perfection. When I say be whole, I mean be real, be here; whatsoever you can do, do it totally. You will be imperfect, but your imperfection will be full of beauty because it will be full of your totality.
Never try to be perfect otherwise you will create such anxiety. So many troubles are there already; don’t create more troubles for yourself.
I have heard…

It happened that bedraggled, worried Garfinkel sat in a train holding a three-year-old boy. Every few minutes Garfinkel spanked the child.
“If you strike that baby one more time,” said a woman sitting across from him, “I’ll give you so much trouble you won’t forget it!”
“Trouble?” said Garfinkel. “You’re gonna give me trouble? Lady, my partner stole all my money and ran off with my wife and car. My daughter is in the parlor car, six months pregnant, and she ain’t got no husband. My baggage is lost, I’m on the wrong train, and this little stinker just ate the tickets and threw up all over me. And lady, you’re gonna give me trouble?”

Now what more trouble can there be? Don’t you think enough is enough?
Life itself is so complicated. Please, be a little more kind toward yourself. Don’t create ideals. Life is creating enough problems, but those problems can be solved. If you are in a wrong train, you can change the train; if the tickets are lost, they can be purchased again; if your wife has run away, you can find another woman. The problems that life gives to you can be solved, but the problems that idealism gives to you can never be solved; they are impossible.
Somebody is trying to become Jesus. Now there is no way; it does not happen that way, nature does not allow it. Jesus happens once, and only once; nature does not tolerate any repetition. Somebody is trying to become a Buddha; now he is trying to do the impossible. It simply does not happen, cannot happen; it is against nature. You can be only yourself. So be total. Wherever you are, and whatsoever you are doing, do it totally. Move into it, let it become your meditation. Don’t be worried whether it will be perfect or not; it is not going to be perfect. If it is total, it is enough. If it were total, you enjoyed doing it; you felt a fulfillment through it, you moved into it, you were absorbed into it, you came out of it new, fresh, young, rejuvenated.
Each act that is done totally rejuvenates, and each act that is done totally never brings any bondage. Love totally and attachment does not arise; love partially and attachment arises. Live totally and you are not afraid of death; live partially and you are afraid of death.
But forget the word perfection. It is one of the most criminal words. This word should be dropped from all languages of the world, it should be dropped from the human mind. Nobody has ever been perfect, and nobody can ever be. Can’t you see it? Even if God is there and you come to meet him, can’t you find faults with his creation? So many, that’s why he is hiding. He is almost afraid of you. Faults and faults and faults. Can you count them? You will find infinite faults. In fact, if you are a fault-finder you cannot find anything right, in the right time, in the right place. Everything seems to be just a mess. Even God is not perfect; God is total. He enjoyed doing it, he is still enjoying doing it. But he is not perfect. If he were perfect, then the creation could not be imperfect. Out of perfection, perfection will come.
All the religions of the world say that God is perfect. I don’t say that. I say God is whole, God is holy, God is total, but not perfect. He is still trying. How can he be perfect? If he were, the world would be dead by now. Once something is perfect, death happens because then there is no future, then there is no way. Trees are still growing, babies are still born, things continue. And he goes on improving. Can’t you see the improvement? He goes on improving on everything. That’s the meaning of evolution: things are being improved. Monkeys have become man; that’s an improvement. Then man will become divine and gods; that is evolution.
Teilhard de Chardin says that there is an omega point where everything will become perfect. There is none. There is no omega point, there cannot be. The world is always in the process; evolution is there; we are approaching and approaching, but we never reach because once we reach – finished. God still goes on trying in different ways, improving.
One thing is certain: he is happy with his work otherwise he would have abandoned it. He is still pouring his energy into it. When God is happy with you, it is sheer nonsense to be unhappy with yourself. Be happy with yourself. Let happiness be the ultimate value. I am a hedonist. Always remember that happiness is the criterion. Whatsoever you do, be happy, that’s all. Don’t be bothered whether it is perfect or not.
Why this obsession with perfection? Then you will be tense, anxious, nervous, always uneasy, troubled, in conflict. The English word agony comes from a root which means: to be in conflict. To be constantly wrestling with oneself, that is the meaning of agony. You will be in agony if you are not at ease with yourself. Don’t demand the impossible, be natural, at ease, loving yourself, loving others.
And remember, a person who cannot love himself because he goes on condemning, cannot love anybody else either. A perfectionist is not only a perfectionist about himself, he is about others also. A man who is hard on himself is bound to be hard on others. His demands are impossible.
In India just a few years before, there was Mahatma Gandhi, a perfectionist, almost a neurotic. And he was very hard with his disciples; even tea was not allowed. Tea! Because it has caffeine. If somebody was found drinking tea in his ashram, it was a great sin. Love was not allowed. If somebody fell in love with somebody, it was such a great sin that it was as if the whole world was going to be drowned because of it. He was continuously spying on his disciples, always sitting at the keyhole. But he was that way with himself. You can be with others only as you are with yourself.
But this type of person becomes a great leader by creating much guilt in others. The more guilt you can create in people, the greater the leader you can become. Because more and more people feel that, yes, you can help them to become perfect. They are imperfect, so you can help them to become perfect.
I am not here to help you to become perfect; I am not concerned with any sort of nonsense. I am just here to help you to be yourself. If you are imperfect, beautiful; if you are perfect, that too is beautiful. Don’t try to become imperfect because that can become an ideal! You may be perfect already; then listening to me you can create a trouble for yourself. This man says be imperfect! There is no need. If you are perfect, accept that too.
Try to love yourself. Don’t condemn. Once humanity starts a deep acceptance, all churches will disappear, and all politicians and priests will disappear.
I have heard…

A man was fishing in the north woods, and one night around the campfire his guide was telling him of the time he had guided Harry Emerson Fosdick on a fishing trip. Fosdick was a Christian missionary, a teacher, and a thinker.
“Yes,” said the guide, “he was a good man except for his swearing.”
“But look,” said the fisherman, “surely you don’t mean to say that Dr. Fosdick was profane?”
“Oh, but he was, Sir,” protested the guide. “Once he caught a fine bass. Just as he was about to land him in the boat, the fish wiggled off the hook. So I say to the Doctor, ‘That’s a damned shame!’ and the Doc comes right back and says, ‘Yes, it is!’ But that’s the only time I ever heard him use such language.”

Now this is the mind of a perfectionist. The Doctor has not said anything. He simply says, “Yes, it is.” But that too is enough for a perfectionist to find fault with.
A perfectionist is neurotic. And not only is he neurotic, he creates neurotic friends around him. So don’t be a perfectionist, and if somebody is a perfectionist around you, escape away from him as fast as you can before he pollutes your mind.
All perfectionism is a sort of deep ego trip. Just to think of yourself in terms of ideals and perfection is nothing but to decorate your ego to its uttermost. A humble person accepts that life is not perfect. A humble person, a really religious person, accepts that we are limited, that there are limitations.
That is my definition of humbleness. Not to try to be perfect is to be humble, and a humble person becomes more and more total because he has nothing to deny, nothing to reject. He accepts whatsoever he is, good or bad. And a humble person is very rich because he accepts his wholeness; his anger, his sex, his greed. Everything is accepted, and in that deep acceptance a great alchemical change happens. All that is ugly by and by disappears on its own accord. He becomes more and more harmonious, more and more whole.
I am not in favor of a saint, but I am in favor of a holy man. A saint is a perfectionist; a holy man is totally different. Zen masters are holy men; Catholic saints are saints. The very word saint is ugly. It comes from sanctus – one who has been given sanction by the authority that he is a saint. Now who can authorize anybody to be a saint? Is it a sort of degree? But the Christian Church goes on doing that foolish thing.
Even posthumous degrees are awarded. And a saint may have died three hundred years before, then the Church revises its own ideas, or the world has changed, and after three hundred years the Church gives a posthumous degree – a sanction: “That man was really a saint. We could not understand it at the time.” And the Church may have killed the man; that’s how Joan of Arc became a saint. They killed her, but later on they changed their idea. People by and by came closer and closer to Joan of Arc, and it became difficult not to accept her. First they killed her, then they worshipped her. After hundreds of years her bones were found and worshipped. She was burned by the same people, by the same Church.
No, the word saint is not good. A holy man is a holy man because of himself, not because some church decides to award him sainthood.
I have heard…

Jacobson, aged ninety, had lived through beatings in Polish pogroms, concentration camps in Germany, and dozens of other anti-Semitic experiences.
“Oh, Lord!” he prayed, sitting in a synagogue. “Isn’t it true that we are your chosen people?”
And from the heavens boomed a voice: “Yes, Jacobson, the Jews are my chosen people!”
“Well, then,” wailed the old man, “isn’t it time you chose somebody else?”

Perfectionists are the chosen people of God, remember. In fact, the day you understand that you are creating your own misery because of your ideas, you break all ideas. Then you simply live out of your reality whatsoever it is. That is a great transformation.
So don’t try to be chosen people of God, just be human. For God’s sake, just be human!

The fourth question:
Osho,
The other day you said that effort is dangerous, but hard work is needed in the meditations. For my German mind, effort equals hard work. Is there hard work without effort?
The point is delicate. Effort is always half-hearted, effort is always partial. You are doing it because you don’t see any way without doing it that you can attain the result that you desire. If there was any way you would drop the effort and jump to the conclusion… One is never totally in his effort, cannot be because the idea is of the future, the end result. Effort is future-oriented, result-oriented. One is doing it only for the sake of some future result, some profit, some greed, some good pay-off.
That’s why Zen masters say effortless effort is needed. What do they mean by effortless effort? They say hard work is needed, but it should not be future-oriented. You should enjoy it not for some other goal; even if nothing is attained through it, it is beautiful in itself. And that is the hardest thing for the human mind to do. That’s why I call it hard work. The hardest thing is to do something for its own sake, to sing a song for its own sake, to meditate for its own sake, to love for its own sake. That is the hardest thing for the human mind because mind is future-oriented. It says, “For its own sake? Then why? What is going to happen out of it?”
People come to me, and they ask, “We can meditate, but what will we attain? We can become sannyasins, but what are we going to gain out of it?” This is what mind is, always greedy.
Let me tell you…

One day Mulla Nasruddin was watching the street through the window when he saw his creditor approaching the house. Knowing what the fellow was up to, Mulla called his wife and told her to handle the visitor.
Accordingly the wife opened the door and said, “Yes, sir, I know we haven’t yet been able to pay you. And although Mulla himself is not home at this moment, he thinks day and night about ways to get some money and pay you back. He has even asked me to watch the street, and whenever a flock of sheep passes, to go out and pick up any pieces of wool that might have been caught on the bushes. This way, when we get enough wool, we can spin it, make a couple of shawls, sell them and with the money pay you back.”
When she got to this point, the man started to laugh, whereupon Mulla came out of his hiding and said, “You rascal, now that you smell money, you start to grin.”

The mind is that rascal. Once it gets any hint of any sort of future, it starts to grin. It immediately jumps on it, catches hold of it; you are no longer herenow. Meditation is for its own sake as love is for its own sake.
Ask a rose why he flowers. He simply flowers. It is so beautiful to flower. There is no motive in it. Ask the birds why they are singing. They are simply singing. They enjoy, they delight in it, there is no motive in it.
Drop the motive, and mind disappears. At least for a few hours in a day go on doing things for their own sake: dance, sing, play on the guitar, sit with friends, or just watch the sky. At least for a few hours go on devoting your time to intrinsic activities. These activities are the hard work. And I know, mind is very lazy. It likes to dream, it doesn’t like to work, that’s why it continuously thinks of the future. But mind is very lazy. It only thinks of the future so that the present can be avoided and the challenge of the present can be avoided.
I have heard an anecdote…

While walking along a creek bank, a man came across a young fellow lying lazily under a tree with a fishing line in the water, on which the cork was bobbling frantically.
“Hey, you’ve got a bite!” he said.
“Yeah.” drawled the fisherman. “Would you mind pulling it out?”
The walker did so, only to have the recumbent one ask, “Would, you mind taking the fish off, rebaiting the hook, and tossing it back into the creek?”
This was done, and the man commented jokingly, “As lazy as you are, you ought to have some kids to do these things for you.”
“Not a bad idea,” yawned the fisherman. “Got any idea where I could find a pregnant woman?”

That’s how the mind is; it does not want to do anything. It simply hopes, desires, postpones. The future is a trick to postpone the present; the future is a trick to avoid the present. Not that you are going to do anything in the future, no, because again the same mind will be there and it will say tomorrow, tomorrow. You will die, and you will not do anything, you will only think. And that thinking helps you to keep face; you don’t feel lazy because you think so much of doing, doing great things always, dreaming about great things, and not doing the small things that are really to be done right now.
Hard work means to be in the present, and to do that which the present has brought you as a challenge.
“The other day you said that effort is dangerous, but hard work was needed in the meditations.” Yes, hard work because you will have to go against the mind. The hardness is not in the work; the work is beautifully simple, the work is very easy. The hardness comes from the fact that because you are so much fogged by the mind, you will have to come out of it.
“For my German mind, effort equals hard work.” That I understand, but all minds are German. That’s why everybody is in such trouble, that’s why everybody finds his own fascism, his own nazism, his own Adolf Hitler. Everybody does find. Mind is fascist, and mind looks continuously for leaders, watching for somebody to lead. It was a surprise to the whole world when Germany fell into the trap of Adolf Hitler.
Nobody could believe it, it was almost illogical. Such a beautiful race with such a great tradition of learning, of learned men, of great philosophy, of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx… Such a great culture with very refined intellect; a culture of great scientists, of great musicians, of great novelists and poets; the country of the philosophers and professors… Professor has never been such a respectable word in any other country as in Germany. What happened to such an intelligent race that it fell into the hands of a stupid, almost idiotic person like Adolf Hitler?
But this has to be understood: that all learning, if it is superficial, if it is of the mind, is not going to help. The learning only remains at the surface; deep down you remain childish. Those professors, even a man like Martin Heidegger, a great philosopher – you could say the greatest that this century has produced – also became a follower of Adolf Hitler. What happened to these giants following this man who was almost mad?
It has to be understood; it can happen, it has always happened because these great minds are just great on the surface. Deep down their existence is very childish. Only their intellect, their minds have grown; they have not grown.
Martin Heidegger’s mind is very grown-up, his being is childish. His being is as childish as if it is waiting for somebody to lead it. A really mature person does not throw his responsibility onto anybody else; he becomes responsible for his own being.
Now this whole country of scientists, philosophers, professors, poets, giant intellectuals fell victim to a very ordinary, mediocre man, and that man ruled over it.
This must help everybody to understand the foolishness of intellect. Intellect is superficial. One should grow in being, otherwise one is always prone, one always tends to become a victim of such people. They always happen.
Mind is conditioned from the outside; it can be ruled from the outside. You have to grow into no-mind, only then can you not be ruled from the outside. Only a man of no-mind is a free man, independent. He is neither German, nor Indian, nor English, nor American; he is simply free. American, Indian, German are the names of your prisons, they are not your freedom skies. These are not skies to fly in, these are the prisons to live in.
A free man belongs to himself and nobody else. A free man is simply free energy with no name, no form, no race, no nation. The days of nations and races are past, the days of the individual are coming. In a better world there will be no Germans, no Indians, no Hindus, no Christians; there will be pure individuals, in total freedom, living their life in their own way, not disturbing anybody’s life and not allowing anybody to disturb their lives.
Otherwise mind is childish and yet cunning. It can fall victim to any Adolf Hitler, to any chauvinist, to any mad person who is bold enough. And mad people are bold, they never hesitate. That was the appeal of Adolf Hitler. He was so mad that he was absolutely bold. He would never hesitate, he was absolutely certain, and people who are uncertain in their being immediately have a deep appeal for such a person. This is a man who is so certain about truth that he must have attained to truth. They start falling in line with him. Because of your uncertainty you become a victim to somebody who is mad. But mad people are always certain, and only very, very alert and aware people hesitate. Their hesitation shows their awareness and the complexity of life.
And mind is very cunning. It can rationalize everything.
I have heard…

Berger, hiding with his wife from the Nazis in a secluded Berlin attic, decided to get a breath of fresh air. While out walking he came face-to-face with Adolf Hitler.
The German leader pulled out a gun and pointed to a pile of horse manure in the street. “All right, Jew!” he shouted. “Eat that, or I’ll kill you!” Trembling, Berger did as he was ordered.
Hitler began laughing so hard he dropped the weapon. Berger picked it up and said, “Now, you eat the manure, or I’ll shoot!” The Fuhrer got down on his hands and knees and began eating.
While he was occupied, Berger sneaked away, ran through an alley, climbed over a fence, and dashed up the stairs to the attic. He slammed the door shut, bolted and locked it securely. “Hilda! Hilda!” he exclaimed to his wife. “Guess who I had lunch with today.”

Mind goes on rationalizing. Even if you eat horse manure, it can make it a lunch, and “Hilda, Hilda, guess who I had lunch with today!” Beware of the traps of the mind, and the more you become alert, the more you will be able to live in the moment, in the act totally. Then there is no motivation; you do it because you delight in it.
And that’s why I call it the hardest work. To get out of the mind is the hardest work. But it is not effort, it is awareness; it is not effort, it is intense alertness.

The last question:
Osho,
For enlightenment does one need a human body? Can’t a dog or a tree which is flowering get enlightened?
Dang, dang, doko dang, doko dang.
Enough for today.