Q: Cannot the teaching of being herenow be sometimes dangerous in the hands of fools of course?
In the hands of the fools anything can be dangerous, anything whatever! The Koran is dangerous, the Bible is dangerous, the Gita is dangerous – and you know it. The whole history is full of proofs. Such beautiful statements, so crystal-clear, but in the hands of the fools something goes wrong – nectar becomes poison.
And just the reverse is the case: if you are intelligent, wise, even poison becomes medicine.
One day a man came to me. He was very worried because he had been following J. Krishnamurti for almost twenty years. Then he had a chance, accidentally, to fly with Krishnamurti from Delhi to Bombay.
And then he saw… and what he saw shocked him, shook him completely. He could not sleep. Why had he wasted time with this man for twenty years?
So he came to me and said, “What should I do now? My twenty years wasted!…”
I said, “What actually has happened?”
He said, “I saw him reading a detective novel!”
I said, “In the hands of J. Krishnamurti a detective novel becomes a Koran. And in your hands, a Koran becomes just a detective novel.”
It depends. It all depends on you.
I have heard…
A man asked his psychoanalyst after many days of psychoanalysis… nothing was happening. The psychoanalyst was getting worried, the man was also getting worried. He was paying so much and nothing was coming out of it.
Finally he blurted out. He said, “I think the real problem is not my mind, the real problem is the people with whom I work – my manager, my treasurer, the clerks. The people with whom I work are the real problem. So just psychoanalyzing my mind is not going to help.”
The psychoanalyst asked, “What exactly is the problem with the people you work with?”
He said, “They are all utterly lazy. Nobody wants to work, they all go on postponing.”
The psychoanalyst said, “You do one thing: you make beautiful boards. Write on the boards in capital letters, ‘Do it now! Tomorrow never comes! Tomorrow is death, life is today.’ And put this board everywhere in your office, so wherever they look they will find it. This will have some impact on them.”
After the third day the psychiatrist phoned his patient. His wife was on the phone and she said, “He is in the hospital because he has been beaten badly by his people.”
He said, “Why?”
The woman said, “I think it is because of your advice.”
So he rushed to the hospital. The man was really in pain, fractured all over the body.
He asked, “What happened?”
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The man said, “It is you and your stupid advice. The treasurer immediately escaped with all the cash – ‘Do it now! Tomorrow never comes! Tomorrow is death!’ He simply wrote a note: ‘I have been thinking of escaping with the cash for many years, but if it is so – tomorrow is death – then this is the time.’ My manager has escaped, eloped with my typist. And the other workers just jumped upon me and started beating me. They said, ‘We had always wanted to beat you, and we were postponing.”‘
You ask me, “Cannot the teaching of being herenow sometimes be dangerous?”
It can be if you work in such an office, or if you have such people inside your head.
I have heard…
At the time of the Wilson government in England, George Brown – always drunk – is Foreign Secretary. A reception is held on the visit of the French President, Pompidou.
Madame Pompidou is seated next to Brown, who starts the conversation drunkenly. “What do you want out of life, Madame?”
Madame Pompidou replies, “All I want is ‘a… ppin… ess.” She added as she felt Brown’s hand travelling up her thigh, “But not before the soup.”
I teach you to be herenow, but you will have to take care of many things – ‘not before the soup’!
To be herenow needs great intelligence. It is not the message for the stupid, for the mediocre. When I say to you to be herenow I am giving great respect to your intelligence. This is my way of showing respect towards you. You have to be worthy of it.
To be herenow means to be very alert, aware, conscious, so that this moment is no more burdened with past, no more burdened with future; so this moment is unburdened of all garbage and is clear, pure, innocent. And in that innocence you will find the door into God.
But remember always: you can turn, change the meaning, impose your own ideas on the greatest of teachings and destroy them. All depends on you.
Osho, The Secret of Secrets, Vol 2, Ch 14, Q 4
