the-golden-future-39

Osho,
The other day, I found myself upset, impatient, and irritable. When will I grow up? When will we all come to the responsibility of just being the you in us: that gracefulness that we all know ourselves to be? I feel that the time is ripe to stop whining about misery, and misunderstandings, pain, and discomforts. Could it be that as a disciple, I simply take you, your presence, your answers, your insights, and your grace for granted, as a way to avoid just stepping into myself, into the devotee?
It is natural to be impatient. And a great understanding and awareness is needed not to be impatient, because impatience is not going to help; on the contrary, it is one of the great hindrances. You have to understand impatience as your enemy. You want the vast and the mysterious to open its doors, without much effort on your part. It is not possible. There are a thousand and one doors, and only one is right; you will have to knock on all the wrong doors to find the right one. Either in scientific research, or in a spiritual seeking, patience is absolutely necessary.

I am reminded of Edison who invented the first electric bulb. He worked on it for three years. All his colleagues and his disciples slowly, slowly left. They were impatient, they wanted it to happen immediately, and they could not believe the patience of Edison.
Every day, Edison would come fresh, young, excited, and they would say to him, “We have experimented in so many ways, and we have failed in every experiment. Why not change the subject? We should work on something else.”
Edison would say, “Who told you that we have been failures? Each failure brings us nearer to success because there must be only a limited number of doors. We knock on one door, and it is not the right door – but it is not a failure. One door, a wrong door, is eliminated; success is closer. We knock on another door; it is not the right door. But we are even closer to success – two doors are eliminated. Soon we will be knocking on the right door.
But the patience that he had is part of a very intelligent and very genuine seeker. After three years, in the middle of the night, he knocked on the right door. For the first time, the human eyes….
He was alone, all his colleagues had left; he was tired, utterly exhausted, and thinking himself almost mad. He was alone when he discovered the electric bulb. It had taken three years. Day and night he had been thinking only of one thing – from where to approach this? And when the room was lighted up with electricity, he was sitting there in utter wonder. He was the first man to see something which had never existed before. He could not take his eyes off the electric bulb.
It was getting late, and finally his wife shouted from the other room, “Put that stupid light off!” She was not aware that it was electricity. She said “Come back, and go to sleep.”
He said, “It is not the stupid light that you are acquainted with; it is what my three years of patience has created. You should come here and see!”

Because of his patience – he has a uniqueness in the whole history of man – he discovered one thousand inventions. Anybody else could have done it, but nobody had that quality of patience. There were many intelligent researchers, but they would go a little way and have a few failures…and start moving into another direction.

Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the most important Sufi mystics, one day took his disciples to a nearby farm where the farmers were trying to dig a well. They had made eight holes, and now they were working on the ninth; on each one they had gone only so far, and then seeing that there was no water, they dropped that project and started in another place. They had destroyed the whole farm.
Jalaluddin Rumi had taken his disciples for a specific purpose – to see how impatience is idiotic. If these people had put all the energy that they had used in destroying the whole field with several holes into digging a single hole, they would be bound to find water. But these are not the kind of people who are going to find water.
He was telling his disciples, “You should not be impatient. Put your total energy, your total trust, one pointedly, arrowed toward one goal. When the master is with you – who has traveled the path, up and down many times, and who knows that the path is going to lead you to your cherished dream – don’t feel dejected, don’t feel impatient, don’t start new projects again and again. That way nobody has ever been able to find anything.”

You say, “The other day I found myself upset, impatient, and irritable!”
You cannot suddenly find yourself upset, impatient, and irritable. You must have been always impatient, upset, and irritable. Perhaps the other day you came to a peak of realization; you realized that these great qualities are in you. But they must have always been there; they cannot come suddenly. You must have become accustomed to them.
“When will I grow up?” What is the hurry? And what are you doing by growing up? Even if you grow up today, what will you do? You will get even more upset and impatient and irritable, thinking, “My God, there was a goal, now even that is finished. Now my life is absolutely meaningless.”
Growing up comes by itself. You have to work, but not directly on how to grow up soon; you have to work more on meditation, more on silence, more on love. And the total result is growth. The growth itself is not something separate; it is the whole synthesis of all great qualities. You have to work on those qualities.
In my childhood – and perhaps in India in everybody’s childhood – it must have happened…I used to plant mango seeds. My impatience was so much that I could not even sleep the whole night – I wanted to see what had happened in the night. In the morning, I would dig them up again, and see whether anything had happened or not. Nothing had happened!
The mango seed, when two leaves start growing in it, can be taken out, and it makes a very good whistle. My interest was not in the mangoes, my interest was in getting more whistles. But even that needs patience – just those two leaves. But impatience was such that it was even impossible to get those two leaves to grow. Every morning I would dig up the seed to see what was happening, and that would destroy the whole thing.
Growth is something that happens by the side. You meditate, you sing, you dance, you rejoice, and suddenly, one day you will find those two leaves of the mango are growing above the ground – so fresh, so beautiful. Growth is a finding on the margin; you cannot make it a goal. That’s what is making you so upset, impatient, and irritable! You have made growing up your goal. Now what can you do? Get stretched on a traction machine?
“When will we all come to the responsibility of just being the You in us: that gracefulness that we all know ourselves to be?” Any question about when shows that you have not understood my emphasis on the present moment; you have not understood my approach of here and now. Enjoy this moment, and forget the lot! And growth will come suddenly one day, not as a reward, but as a shadow of your living moment-to-moment, joyously.
“When” always takes you into the future, it always thinks of tomorrows. And the basic spiritual insight of thousands of years is that tomorrow never comes. This very moment will become another moment, your today will continue to remain today, the tomorrow will come in the form of today. But our whole system of thought is goal-oriented. We are always living in the future, and nobody can live in the future; or we are living in the past, and nobody can live in the past either.
The only way to live is to enjoy this moment, to cherish this moment, to make it as beautiful as possible. And out of this moment will come the next moment, out of this moment will come your whole future. This moment contains the whole eternity – past and future.
You are saying, “I feel that the time is ripe to stop whining about misery, and misunderstandings, pain, and discomforts. Could it be that as a disciple, I simply take You, Your presence, Your answers, Your insights, and Your grace for granted?”
Do you really feel, that “the time is ripe to stop whining about misery, and misunderstandings”? And what are you doing in your question? What is this about being “upset, impatient, and irritable,” and “when will I grow up”? If it is not whining about misery, and pain, and discomforts, then what is it? You have not felt that the time is ripe – you have only thought. Thinking is of no help. Thinking is a cheat. It talks great things, it gives you big promises, but the goods are never delivered.
Remember a clear-cut distinction between thinking and feeling: those who are feeling “the time is ripe” are not whining about any misery. They are enjoying the ripe time, and by enjoying, they are making it riper.
Of course, it is true – at least about you – that you have started taking my presence for granted. That is the natural habit of the mind. It starts taking for granted things which it will repent only when it has lost them.

There is a beautiful Sufi story…. A very rich man, super-rich, became bored with life because he had known all the pleasures, all the joys that money can purchase, but they were not truly satisfying. He was still thirsty, he was still hungry for something authentic. He was inquiring from sages and saints, and all that they could say…he had tried their rituals, worship, prayer and nothing worked.
One saint out of desperation…because this man was torturing him continually again and again about his misery – “Time is passing, life is limited, and what kind of saint are you? You cannot show me the right path. And I have twenty-four hours to devote to it; I don’t have to work to earn money or anything, I don’t have children, and I have earned so much money that it is enough for ten lives at least.” The saint sent him to a Sufi master who was thought to be a little bit insane, and to whom many sages were sending their disciples when they wanted to get rid of them. But that insane Sufi master only looked insane; he had a super-sanity.
The rich man took a big bag, filled it with diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires; and went to the Sufi who was sitting under a tree. He told the Sufi his whole story…that he was very miserable, he had everything that the world can afford. “I have brought, just to give you a proof, this whole bag worth millions. All I need is peace of mind.” The Sufi said, “I will give it to you. Get ready!”
The rich man thought, “This man seems to be strange. I have been to so many saints – nobody was so quick, and nobody promised to give it to me. They all said, ‘Go through this ritual, this worship, this prayer, this meditation. Work it out yourself.’ This is the only man…perhaps, they are right that he is insane. He is saying, ‘Get ready. Don’t waste my time!’ “So hesitatingly he said, “Okay, I’m ready.” But he was very afraid – although he had come to get peace of mind. And when the man said he was ready, the Sufi master took hold of his bag, and ran.
It was a small village with small streets with which the Sufi was perfectly acquainted. And the rich man had never run. He ran behind the Sufi master shouting, “I have been cheated! This man is not a sage. He’s not insane, he’s very cunning.” But he could not get hold of the Sufi because he was going so fast and taking so many turns in the village. The old man was fat – huffing, puffing, perspiring, crying – and the whole crowd was laughing. He could not understand why these people were laughing, and nobody was helping! But the village knew that that man was not insane – he was super-sane. He had his own methods.
Finally, the rich man reached to the same tree. The Sufi had reached far ahead; he was sitting with the bag there. And the rich man was shouting, abusing.
The Sufi said, “Stop all this nonsense! Take this bag.” The man took the bag immediately, and the Sufi asked, “How are you feeling?”
He said, “I’m feeling great peace.”
The Sufi said, “That’s what I was telling you. If you are ready, I can give you peace immediately. Have you got it?”
He said, “I have got it!”

“Never again ask anybody about it!” You have started taking for granted all your riches. I gave you a chance to lose them, and suddenly you became what you really are – a beggar. And these very precious stones which have lost their value to you are again precious.” But it happens. The people who live in palaces start taking those palaces for granted; the people who are rich never think about the miseries of poverty. The people who have got a master start taking him for granted – that there is nothing to be done; you only have to ask the question and your master is there to answer it.
But my answers cannot be of any help.
My answers are only a provocation and an invitation, a challenge to work through the misery and the darkness toward the dawn, toward light.
I can show you the way, but I cannot walk for you.
And if you start taking me for granted, then don’t be miserable; take your misery also for granted. Accept that you are a miserable person, that it is your destiny. You don’t take your misery for granted, but you can take your master for granted. You don’t take your problems for granted, but you take my answers for granted.
So you have to be clear, very clear. In your whole question, only your last line is true, and authentic: “As a way to avoid stepping into myself, I have started taking you for granted.”
It is a very easy way to ask a question, to get an answer, and out of the answer, make a few more questions for tomorrow…and you remain the same. My answers are remedies; they are medicinal. You have not just to create more questions out of them; you have to make an effort to live those answers. Out of living those answers, your questions will disappear.
And my answers are simple. I am not requiring you to grow into some self-torturing saint; I am not asking you for any ascetic disciplines. I am simply asking you to relax, to trust existence, to find a few moments of silence and peace which are absolutely available to everybody – whoever closes his eyes, relaxes his body, sits silently.
The silence I’m talking about is not some acquirement or achievement. It is a discovery. It is already within you – just the mind has to be quiet so that you can hear the music of silence that surrounds your whole being, so that you can smell the fragrance of your being itself. And once you have known it, then you can repeat it as many times in the day as you like, whenever you have time. Even sitting in a train or in a bus, you can just close your eyes and move inward. It is only a question of taking the first step, then everything else becomes easy. But remember to be patient.

A Polack air cadet is taking his first sky diving jump. “What happens if the parachute does not open?” he asked his instructor. “Don’t worry,” replies the instructor. “There is only one chance in a thousand that it will happen, and you have a spare parachute too.”
“But,” replies the anxious student, “what if that one does not open either?”
“There is only one chance in a million that that will happen,” the instructor assures him and adds, “and then the ambulance is there on the field to pick up the pieces.”
The nervous cadet boards the plane which takes off. At ten thousand feet he jumps out of the plane, and pulls the cord of his main parachute. It does not open.
“Shit!” he says, and then pulls the cord of his reserve chute which also refuses to open. “I knew it,” he says to himself. “And I bet with my luck, the ambulance won’t be there to pick up the pieces either.”

Just don’t be so miserable! Most probably, the first parachute will do. If everything goes wrong, then even with your luck, you will find the ambulance to collect the pieces.

Osho,
Michael was helping Patrick check to see that his car indicators were working. He put his head out of the window, and yelled, “Yes, Patrick, they are…No, they’re not…Yes, they are…No, they’re not. “ Osho, no I’m not…Yes I am…No I’m not…Yes I am. Recently I’ve noticed those spaces in between, and now they seem to be coming more and more in every way.
One advertisement for beer claims to “Reach the parts that other beers can’t.” Parts of me that just a few weeks ago I didn’t know existed are beginning to feel spacious, light, and grateful. I am beginning to feel the flow and the pace of existence, to relax into it, and to trust it. Will you please comment?
The workings of the mind are just like that – split between yes and no, between to be or not to be. The mind cannot have one voice; it is always balanced by its “against” voice. That is simply the nature of the mind: it is split, it is schizophrenic. In a more philosophical way, they call it dialectical.
But my whole teaching is to go beyond the mind, not to be bothered with it. Neither its “no” is of any meaning, nor even its “yes.” The only use of the mind is to use it as a stepping-stone, to go beyond it. Don’t try to solve problems of the mind, they are insoluble. You will get into a thick forest, and find it almost impossible to find the way back home.
The mind is a Polack

How do you make a one armed Polack fall off a flagpole?
Answer: You wave to him.
Why did the Polish Government import five hundred million tons of sand from Saudi Arabia?
Answer: They wanted to drill for their own oil.
Did you hear about the Polish lesbian?
Answer: She likes men.

The mind is certainly part of Poland.
One contemporary logician has invented a word, po. And my suspicions are that he has taken that word po from Poland; otherwise, there is no way he could manage this word po. He has invented it because his philosophy needed it. He says that Aristotle has given us a philosophy of yes and no; either something is right or something is wrong, either something is black or white – a very simple duality. Either you believe in God or you don’t.
But what about things when the real answer is neither yes nor no? For example, God. To say “yes” is wrong because you have not experienced it; to say “no” is wrong because you have not explored it. So neither yes is applicable, nor no.
According to this man’s logic, when somebody asks you, “What about God?” you have to say po. Po is noncommittal; it does not mean yes, it does not mean no. It simply means, “I don’t know.” But rather than accepting the ignorance, it gives you a good feeling to say po. You put, in fact, the other person in a state of ignorance because he cannot understand – “What is po?” He has never heard the word.
My suspicion is that he has got this po from Poland. There is no other way to get it. But even with po, mind will not be the solution. You can go on repeating po but you will remain as poor, as ignorant, as miserable as before. This po is not going to transform anything in you.
Only one thing can transform, and that is going beyond the mind, going beyond thinking, and coming to a space where the sky is absolutely without clouds. And then no question arises, and no answer is needed.
People think that Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathustra, or Lao Tzu have found the answer. They are wrong. They have lost both – the question and the answer. They have found a silence, undisturbed either by questions or by answers.
When I said this to Tibetan Buddhist lamas, they were shocked because they were thinking Gautam Buddha had found the answer. I said, “If you find the answer, you are still inside the mind, you are still very close to the question.” Gautam Buddha has gone beyond the question and the answer. He has found silence – indestructible.
Philosophy finds answers, religion finds a state which is far beyond questions and answers. Questions and answers look childish, look like toys to play with.

Ten years ago an anthropology student spent some time studying rural regions of Kashmir. One day he was driving down the road when he saw a man on a donkey, while his wife walked ten yards behind him. “Why do you do that?” he asked. “It is our age-old tradition,” the man replied.
Recently, the student, now a reporter, was sent back to Kashmir by his newspaper. By a strange coincidence he found himself on the same road, with the same man he had seen ten years before. But this time the man’s wife was walking ten yards ahead of him. The man on the donkey was exactly ten yards behind the wife.
“What happened to the traditional custom?” asked the reporter. “Has the tradition changed?”
“No, “ said the man. “The tradition has not changed, but now, you see, there are land mines.”

Mind is very cunning. It will use traditions, it will use religions, it will use philosophies – just to survive. It will give you all kinds of questions, and all kinds of answers – just to survive. But any question raised by the mind is as futile as any answer found by the mind.
Mind is an exercise in utter futility.
Only very few people in the world have been able to find the truth that the mind is our only problem.
If we can go beyond mind into silence, into utter and profound silence – undisturbed by anything, not even a ripple of thought – then we have found it…not the answer, but something existential, a transformation, a mutation, a revolution in ourselves which destroys all questions and all answers, and leaves us in utter serenity, in a tremendous beatitude.
Meditation is nothing but annihilation of the mind.
Meditation is not the training of the mind: Meditation is simply cessation of the mind.
Just cease to be a mind, and you will find a pure being, unpolluted and pure from eternity to eternity.

Little Ernie was always saying things that got him into trouble. One day his mother was having a friend to lunch who was bringing her new baby who had no ears.
Ernie’s mother called him and said, “Ernie, don’t you say anything about the baby. In fact, don’t even speak at all.”
“Okay,” said Ernie.
The friend arrived with her baby. Ernie looked at him, took his hand, and said, “What beautiful little hands he has.”
“Ernie,” warned his mother.
“And what beautiful brown hair he has.”
“Yes,” said the proud friend.
“Has he got good eyesight?” asked Ernie.
“Ernie!” yells his mother.
“Why?” asked the baby’s mother.
“Because,” says Ernie, “he will never be able to wear glasses.”

The mind is so cunning; it goes on round about, but comes finally to some trouble, to some problem. You can repress its one question by one answer, but it will create new questions which will be nothing but echoes of the repressed question.
A seeker of truth is a seeker of the beyond. The beyond is our home.
The mind can be Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan; the beyond is just pure, without any objective. To me, the future man, the new man will live in the beyond.
Living in the beyond does not mean that you cannot use your mind; in fact, on the contrary, only those who live in the beyond are capable of using their mind as an instrument. Mind goes on torturing those who have not moved into the beyond; it is a nightmare. And they cannot use the mind because they are not above it.
Be a witness to the mind.
In your witnessing, the beyond will open its doors.