Osho on Solomon

Solomon was the affluent and wise monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel, succeeding his father and king David. All knowledge about Solomon comes from the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament and accordingly his reign is said to be from 970–931 BCE. Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem, dedicating it to Yahweh (God of Israel). His influence is spread across religions and timelines and he is regarded as the greatest king of Israel.

Solomon is considered a major Islamic prophet in the Quran and a wise Jewish messenger in the Talmud. In the New Testament of Christianity, he is portrayed as a well-framed and insightful intellectual and teacher addressed by Jesus and excelled by “the lilies in the field”. His empire was the last of consolidated Israel – Solomon made his reign unique and revered by establishing Israelite colonies, collaborating with rulers such as Queen of Sheba to increase commerce, and attending to his subjects with wisdom and help.

Osho talks about Solomon, “Solomon is the greatest king in the mythology of Jews — the richest man ever on earth, and the wisest man also. The wisest, the richest, the greatest emperor in the world was not so beautiful as these ordinary lilies in the field. “Look!” said Jesus to his disciples. “These lilies must be carrying a secret within their hearts.” What is the secret? The secret is, lilies are here and now. Solomon may have been very very wise but he was not here and now.

All beauty is here, and all life is now.

Tomorrow is death, tomorrow is no life. But why do we live in the tomorrow? It looks absurd: How can you live in the tomorrow? — but you live there. You never live here; that’s why you look so dead. How can one live in the tomorrow? Jesus said to his disciples, “Take care of this moment. Live today, and tomorrow will take care of itself. Don’t worry for the morrow because the moment you are losing in worrying about tomorrow is the real moment. And tomorrow is never going to be there.”

For dreams you are losing life. Needs don’t need them, but desires need them. For example, you are hungry, you can eat; if you are thirsty, you can drink. There is not much trouble about it. There would have been no trouble and there would have been nothing like poverty in the world if man remained true to his needs. Then everybody has more than enough. The Earth has plenty. The sky is not poor, the rivers are rich, the oceans vast — life has tremendous treasures. Not a single bird sleeps without food, not a single tree remains thirsty. Everything is more than is needed. Life is affluent, very luxuriant — if you stick to the needs. But if you start desiring, then life becomes poor.”

Osho Says…..

BELOVED MASTER,

I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM AND I NEVER COULD KNOW WHO YOU ARE. ALL I KNOW IS THAT THIS SOMEONE-OR-OTHER LOVES YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE.

OH, BELOVED MASTER — YOU ARE SUCH A SWEET APPLE TO EAT IN THE DARK.

Prem Anuradha, one never comes to know who one is. If one comes to know who one is, then he must be wrong — because this infinite that resides in you is UNKNOWABLE, not unknown. You can go searching into it…. To send you into that adventure, the buddhas have been telling you again and again: Know thyself. Don’t misunderstand them — they have been misunderstood. Because Socrates says: Know thyself, people think they can know; otherwise, why should Socrates say: Know thyself? Socrates is not saying that you CAN know yourself; he is saying try to know thyself. In knowing yourself you will come across the unknowable. The very endeavour to know yourself will bring you to the infinite ocean of life.

You will never know who you are, you will not be able to answer. You will not be able to say that, “I am A or B or C.” Whatever answer you bring is going to be wrong. When you become silent, utterly silent — no answer, all answers that you had before have been dissolved and no new answer has come up; not only the answer has not come up, even the question is no longer remembered…. When the question and answer both are not there, in that deep silence, in that stillness, there is a kind of knowing that never becomes knowledge — a kind of awareness, a kind of light, that enlightens you, yet you cannot inform anybody about it. You cannot even make a theory out of it for yourself. You will be utterly dumb.

Anuradha, this is a beautiful experience. This is how it should be. This is how it feels as you come closer and closer to satori, to samadhi. You say, “I don’t know who I am.” This is the beginning of real knowing. This state of a recognized ignorance is the first step into the temple of God. You say, “I don’t know who I am and I never could know who you are.” That too is true. If you cannot know who you are, how can you know who I am? — because we are the same, we are one. You are unknowable, I am unknowable; we belong to the same mystery, we are part of the same orgasmic whole. It is an ecstasy, a bliss. It is a benediction. You can dance in it, you can sing in it, you can overflow with love through it, but it never becomes knowledge. Yes, sometimes it can become a song, a Song of Solomon….

Meditate over the Song of Solomon. It is one of the most beautiful songs ever sung — and it has not been understood by the Jews and the Christians. In fact, they feel a little embarrassed because it looks so sexual. It certainly looks sexual, because sex is the only possible language that comes closest to the spiritual. It is the sex energy that becomes spiritual energy. So it is perfectly right that the Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, has such sensuality around it. It is so sensuous, it is incomparably sensuous! Nothing else has ever been written, sung, with such profound sensuality.

But the so-called religious person thinks a religious person has to be absolutely antisense, antisex; he can’t be sensate and he can’t be sensuous. That is utterly wrong.

The religious person is more sensuous than anybody else, because he is more alive. And when you want to express the ultimate, the only possible way is to express it through the deepest human experience — of sexual orgasm. Ecstasy cannot be expressed in any other way. We are part of one organic, orgasmic whole. This whole existence is in a deep, sensuous play. Yes, you can feel it, you can taste it, but you cannot know it. Forget all about knowing it! The whole effort is an exercise in utter futility.

It is good, Anuradha, that you understand that you cannot know yourself and you understand that you cannot know me either. You say, “All I know is that this someone-or-other loves you, whoever you are.” It is a tremendously beautiful experience. Anuradha is simply stating something inexpressible. Difficult it is to express, but she has come very close; she has almost hit the target. Yes, this is how it is felt between a master and a disciple, because it is the greatest love affair there is. Exactly like this it is felt: “All I know is that this someone-or-other loves you, whoever you are.”

Only a great love is felt — love pulsating between the master and the disciple. Slowly slowly, there is neither master nor disciple; only love remains. And you say, “Oh, Beloved Master — you are such a sweet apple to eat in the dark.” Yes, love is a taste — the taste of tao. But Anuradha, why in the dark?…Let me also have a good time! Let me also see it and experience it. But I can understand why she is saying it. Yes, in the dark you taste more. Because our eyes cannot function, the energy that moves through the eyes becomes available to other senses. In the dark you hear better. If you want to hear music, it is good to listen in the dark; you will hear better. Because the eyes are no longer functioning, the energy becomes available to the ears.

In the dark you will taste better because the energy will move to the tongue, and the eyes are using eighty percent of your energy. When you are eating, if you are seeing, then eighty percent is involved in seeing and only twenty percent is available to the other four senses — so to each sense near about five percent. That’s why our other senses have become retarded. We don’t taste, we don’t hear, we don’t touch. If you touch in darkness you will feel more, you will know the texture. And if you hear in darkness, the music will penetrate to the very heart.

Eyes have become very oppressive, very exploitative — they have become dictatorial. They have absorbed all the energy, which is not their right; it has to be distributed back. Each sense should have at least twenty percent of the energy. Yes, sometimes, when you want to go into one sense very deeply, you can make the whole energy available for it. Close your ears, plug them; close your eyes, blindfold them; close your nose — and then eat. And you will be surprised: such subtle nuances of taste you have never known before, because the whole hundred percent of your energy is moving through the tongue.

So I understand why Anuradha says, “Oh, Beloved Master — you are such a sweet apple to eat in the dark.” But, Anuradha, an apple is a dangerous thing! You know what happened to Adam and Eve…. But I am making available to you the same apples, because to me the serpent who seduced Eve to eat the apple was the greatest benefactor of humanity. Without him there would have been no humanity at all. You would not have been here; no Buddha, no Jesus, no Mohammed, no Bahauddin, no Mansoor…. It is all because of the serpent. The serpent is the real founding father of humanity — the whole credit goes to him. That apple proved of great significance.

I am not prohibiting you from anything — no prohibition. I am making available to you all the joys of life. Eat them, be nourished by them. I am against the biblical idea of creating inhibitions, repressions, taboos. I am against the very idea of God telling Adam and Eve not to eat from a certain tree. It is against freedom and it is against growth and it is against maturity.

But that’s how religions have functioned in the past. These stories are created by the so-called priests. Their whole idea of religion is that of repression, because it is only through repression that man can be reduced to a slave. It is only through repression that man can be exploited, oppressed. It is only through repression that man’s intelligence can be destroyed.

Eat all the apples that life makes available to you. Nothing is prohibited — because it is only through experiences of all kinds that one becomes enriched. And if you are not really rich in experiences — of good and bad — you will never become enlightened. Enlightenment is not possible for those who have lived only a poor, saintly life. It is not for those who have lived only the poor life of a sinner. It is for those who have lived life in its totality, who have known all that is dark and who have known all that is light, who have moved into all the polarities.

A real maturity happens only when you learn how one walks on a tightrope: sometimes leaning to the left just to keep balance, and sometimes leaning to the right just to keep balance. When he feels that he may fall towards the left, he immediately leans towards the right. If he leans too much to the right, to balance it he starts leaning towards the left. Leaning right and left, he keeps himself in the middle. Don’t be a leftist, otherwise you will fall; and don’t be a rightist, otherwise you will fall. Be both, and both in such a balance, in such a synthesis, that you can remain walking on the tightrope.

Life is a tightrope stretched between two hilltops. Unless you walk with full awareness, sensitivity, intelligence, you will not reach to the other shore.

The Buddha is talking of the other shore. The other shore is available only to those who grow in intelligence. Priests want you to remain stupid and Buddhas want you to become more and more intelligent. Hence there is a conflict between the priests and the Buddhas…

I am also condemned as a corrupter of youth. It seems humanity has not grown at all; we are moving in circles. If Socrates comes back he will not find it difficult to understand man. He will find it very difficult to understand a car or a radio or a television; it may be really inconceivable for him what these things are, how they function. Ordinary things that you never think about — electricity — he will not be able to understand. But he will be absolutely able to understand man, because man has not grown at all. Man is the same — is doing the same, is behaving in the same foolish way.

People are against me because I am making all the apples available to you. Eat them. Live life in its totality. And, Anuradha, soon — the day is not far off — many of you are going to become enlightened in this life…

And the ego is disappearing. Anuradha has become almost empty. I say “almost” — just a little bit is left. Once that little bit is gone, the beyond will start showering on her. The first flowers have started opening, the spring is close by. Anuradha, feel blessed. The spring is very close by, and I am immensely pleased with you..

Source:

This is an excerpt from the transcript of a public discourse by Osho in Gautam Buddha Hall, Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Pune, India.

Discourse series: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 4

Chapter #8

Chapter title: Meditate a Little Bit

29 August 1979 am in Buddha Hall

References:

Osho has spoken on notable Psychologists and philosophers like Adler, Jung, Sigmund Freud, Assaguoli, Aristotle, Berkeley, Confucius, Descartes, Feuerbach, Hegel, Heidegger, Heraclitus, Huxley, Jaspers, Kant, Kierkegaard, Laing, Marx, Moore, Nietzsche, Plato, Pythagoras, Russell, Sartre, Socrates, Wittgenstein and many others in His discourses. Some of these can be referred to in the following books/discourses:

1. The Hidden Splendor
2. The New Dawn
3. This, This, A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen
4. Nirvana: The Last Nightmare
5. Beyond Enlightenment
6. Beyond Psychology
7. Light on The Path
8. The Discipline of Transcendence
9. The Dhammapada
10. From Bondage to Freedom
11. From Darkness to Light
12. From Ignorance to Innocence
13. The Secret of Secrets, Vol 1
14. From Personality to Individuality
15. I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Her