ባህልና ኑሮ
በካሌብ አለማየሁ
ብዙ ዘመናትን የተሻገረ ሀሳብ ሊኖር ይችላል ነገር ግን ሁሌም ሲሻገር ኑሮአልና ዛሬም ስህተት
እያየንበት እናሳልፈው የሚባል ከሆነ በራሳችን የስህተቱ ጠባሳ ተጠቂዎች ልንሆን እንችላለን፡፡ ሀሳብን በመጀመሪያ የሚወልደው እራሱ
የሰው ልጅ ነው፡፡ የሰው ልጅ ደግሞ ስለ እምነቱ ጨምሮ ዛሬ ያመነበትን ሀሰብ ነገ ሲሽረው ይታያል፣ትላንት የኖረበትን ዛሬ ሲንቅ
ይስተዋላል፡፡ እናም እኛ ኑሮአችን አልለወጥ ሲል መንግስት፣ ተፈጥሮና አምላክ ነው እያልን ምክንያት እንደረድራለን ነገር ግን ለራሳችን
ውድቀትም ይሁን ስኬት ከኛ ውጭ ያሉ አካላት ወይንም በዙሪያችን ያሉ የጠቀስናቸው ነገሮች አስተዋፅኦ ቢኖራቸውም የመጀመሪያው ተጠያቂና
ምክኒያት ግን እኛው እራሳችን ነን፡፡
በተለይ በዚህች በሀበሻ ምድር ዘመን ያነጠፋቸው አጓጉል ባህሎች አሉ ይጠቅማሉም ይጎዳሉም እማይባሉ
የአኗኗር ዘይቤዎች አሉን፡፡ ለምሳሌ የአከሌ ዘር እንዳይሰደብ በሚል ዝቅተኛ ስራዎችን ያለመስራት፣ የመናቅ ስሜት፣ የኖሩበትን ቦታ
እስካልቀየሩ ድረስ ባደጉበት በተወለዱበት ቦታ የምን ይሉኛልን ስሜት አንግቶ በትወልዱ ፊት አለመስራት፡፡ ሌላኛው መጥፎ ገፅ ደግሞ
የልጅ አስተዳደግ መሰረታችን ነው፡፡ አብዛኛውን ጊዜ ከድሮ ጀምሮ ልጅን ጨዋ ለማድረግ ሲባል ንግግሮችን እንዳይችል፣ ሰው ፊት አይናፋር
እንዲሆን፣ በራስ እንዳይተማመን፣ ታላቅ ተጽእኖ የሚያሳድር ሰው ፊት አታውራ የእኔ ብቻ አውቅልህ ልጅ አስተዳደግ፣ ይህ ነዉ የማይባል
በትውልድም ላይ መጥፎ ጥላ የሚጥል ባህል ነው፡፡ ለምሳሌ አንድ ህጻን እያወራ ከላደገ፣ ሀሳቡን ከመግለፅ ይልቅ ዝም በል እየተባለ
ካደገ ትምህርት ቤትም ሔዶ በነፃነት ካደገው እኩል ተሳትፎ አይኖረውም፣ ሀሳቡን በደንብ አይገልፅም፣ አስተማሪን ከሚገባው በላይ
ይፈራል፣ ጓደኞቹን ያፍራል፣ ይህ እድገቱ እስከ ህብረተሰባዊ ጫና ያደርሰውና አድጎ ትልቅ ሆኖም ትምህርታዊ ውጤቱ ጥሩ ቢሆንም በሰው
ፊት የማሳመን ችሎታው፣ ቀርቦ የመነጋገሩና ውሳኔ የመስጠት አቅሙ ላይ መጥፎ ተፅእኖ ያሳድራል፡፡ አንድ የፈረንጅ ልጅን ግን ስናይ
የሆነ ካፍቴሪያ ሲሄድ ለምሳሌ፡- እናት አባቶቹ ለራሳቸው የሚፈልጉትን ሲያዙ ልጁም ወይም ህፃኑም የእራሱን ምርጫ እንዲናገር ነው
እሚፈቅዱለት፣ የኛን ባህል ስናይ ግን አረ
ይሔ ያቃጥለዋል፣ እፉ ይበላሀል፣ ይህ አይስማማውም ይሄ ይሻለዋል እያልን ስለምናሳድገው፣ ዛሬ እንደቀላል በበጎ እምናየው ይህ ተግባር
ነገ ጥገኝነትን ለምዶ ያድግና ሁሉንም ነገር ቤቴሰብ ካላማከረ ሌላ ተጨማሪ ሰው እንዲህ አርገው ካላላው ጥሩነቱን አያየው እንኳ
የራሱን ምርጫ አሳንሶ እሚያይ ትውልድ ይፈጠራል፣ እምነት ያጣል፣ አልፎ ተርፎም በስራ ላይ እራሱን ቤተሰቡንና ሀገሩን አያኮራም፡፡
ለዛም ነው እኛ ሀገር ላይ ገንዘብ ቢኖረንም፤ ከ18 ዓመት በላይ፤ እንደፈረንጅ ልጅ ከቤተሰብ ተለይተን መኖር አንችልም፡፡
ሌላው አሳሳቢ ጉዳይ ደግሞ የስራ ሰዐት ባህላችን ነው፡፡ ሀበሻ የለመደው ትንሽ ሰርቶ ቡዙ
ማረፍ ነው፣ የቀጠሮ ሰዓት መሸራረፍ ነው፣ ብዙውን ጊዜ 2፡30 መግቢያ ሰዓት ነው ተብሎ ተነግሮን ሳለ ት/ቤት፣ ስራ ቦታ እና
ሌሎችም ቦታዎች ላይ ቢያንስ ከ30 ደቂቃ እስከ አንድ ሰዓት ሳናቃጥል አንሄድም፣ በቃ እየዋለ እያደረ መጥፎ ባህል ሆኗል፡፡ ይህን
ሁሉ ስጠቅስ ግን እኔ ዳር ይዤ የታሪክና የባህል ብሎም የኑሮ አቃቂር አውጪ ሆኘ አይደለም፡ ነገር ግን የስህተቱ አካል መሆኔን
ባውቅም ስህተቱን ግን ተባብረን ብናጠፋው ምኞቴ ስለሆነ እንዲሁም የእድገትና የበጎ ባህል መንፈሳዊ ቀናኢ ስለሆንኩ ነው፡፡ መቀየር
እንችልም ብየ አላምንም ምክንያቱም እግዜሩ ለሌሎች አለም የሰጠውን ብቃት ሁሉ በኛም ውስጥ እንደቀበረብን አምናለሁ፡፡
ማንኛውም የሰው ልጅ ፍጡር የሆነ ሁሉ አንዳች እውቀት ተቀብሮበታል፣ አንዳች ችሎታና ተሰጥኦም
በእያንዳነዳችን ውስጠት ስር አለ፡፡ እናም ዛሬ ላይ ሲማርና ሲለፋ ስናየው ታምር ለማምጣት ምትሀት ለመፍጠር አይደለም፣ ቀድሞውኑ
የተሰጠንን ፍለጋ ነው እንጂ፡፡ የጠፋብንን ፍልቀቃ ነው፣ ለዛም ነው የሰው ልጅ ግኝት አገኘ እንጂ ፈጠረ የማይባለው፣ ፈጣሪ አንድ
አምላክ ብቻ ነውና፡፡ በተጨማሪም የሰው ልጅ የጥሩ አስተሳስብና የበጎ ህሊናም ባለቤት ነው፡፡ “man is naturally
positive thinker” ብሏል ታዋቂው የስነ ልቦና ተመራማሪ አብርሀም ማስሎው፡ ይህንኑ ሀሳብ ሲደግፍ፡፡ የሰው ልጅ አምላኩን
ህያው ነው እያለ፣ ታምር ሰሪ ነው ካለ፣ የመጨረሻው ትክክለኛ ቸር ሩህሩህ ታጋሽ አዛኝና አጋዥ ነው ካለ፣ በዚህ ጥሩ ነገር የተፈጠረው
እራሱ የሰው ልጅ ታዲያ እንዴት መጥፎና ክፉ ሀሳቢ ሊሆን ይችላል? ይልቁንም እሱም የመሆን ብቃት ነው ሊኖረን የሚችለው፡፡ በመጽሀፍ
ቅዱስ ታሪክ እንኳ የሚያስረዳን ይህንኑ ነው፣ ሙሴ ፈጣሪውን የመቀበልና እሱን የመምሰል ብቃት ነበረው ፣ እናም ባህር ከፍሎ እስከማሻገር
ደረሰ፡፡ እናም እንችላለን ካልን ለማንኛውም የዕለት ተዕለት ኑሮአችን ማሸነፍ እንችላለን፣ መሆን የምንፈልገውን መሆን እንችላለን፣ ይህን ሁሉ በራስ መተማመንና
ቅንነትን የተላበሰ ኑሮን ለመኖር ደግሞ ጠቃሚ እሚባሉ መጽሐፍቶችን ማንበብ አስፈላጊ ነው፡፡ የሰው ልጅ ከእንሰሳ የሚለየው በማሰቡ
ብቻ ሳይሆን በመብላት በመጠጣት ብቻ መኖር አለመቻሉ ነው ወይንም ከዚህም ያለፈ ጥያቄ ስላለው ነው፡፡ ሆዳችንን እንደሚርበን ውስጣችንን፣
መንፈሳችንንና ህሊናችንን ይርበዋል፣ ይበርደዋል፣ የእነዚህ ነገሮች ጥጋብም በእውቀትና በጥበብ ሊሞላ ይችላል፡ እውቀትና ጥበብን
ደግሞ በመፅሀፍ ተጠቅልለው በወረቀት ላይ ተሸሽገው እናገኛቸዋለን፡፡
ነገር ግን አሁንም ልክ እንደሌላው ባህል ሁሉ ልናሻሽለው እና ልናሳድገው የሚገባን ባህል ነው
የማንበብና የመፃፍ ባህል፡፡ ማንበብ ውስጣችንን ይሞላል፣ ከኛ ተርፎ ለሌሎችም የሚጠቅም በራስ መተማመንን ያሳድጋል፣ እውቀትና ብሒል
ስለሚያስጨብጥ ችግር ፈቺ ያደርጋል፣ ጥሩ አስተሳሰብን ያሳድጋል፣ በዙሪያችን ያለውን አንቅስቃሴዎች ሁሉ ያለፉትን ያሉትንና የሚመጡትን
ሁሉ ቀድመን እንድናውቅ ያስችለናል፡፡ ሰው ውስጡ ሲሞላ እሚተነፍሰው፣ እሚያወራው፣ ከአፉ የሚወጣው ሁሉ፣ ያኑ ይሆናል፣ እውቀት
ይሆናል፣ ቀልድ ይችላል፣ ቁም ነገር ይችላል፣ ከሰው ጋር የመኖር ሚስጥርን ያውቃል፣ ከዛም ለሚሰማን ሁሉ የምንናገረው ሁሉ እውቀት
ይሆናል፣ በሰው ዘንድ መወደድን ይጨምራል፣ ስለሀይማኖታችን ያለን ዕውቀት ሁሉ በእርግጠኝነት የተሞላ ይሆናል፣ ከዛም እምንፅፈው
ነገር፣ እውቀትና የመኖር ጥበብ፣ ለትውልድ የምናስተላልፈው ነገር ይኖረናል፡፡ እናም በቃ ዝም ብሎ ጭጭ ብሎ በዝምታ፣ በድብታ እንዳላዋቂነት
በሞኝነት መኖር፣ በአጉል ባህል መጠፍነግ ይብቃን፤ መንግስትም እራሱ ለሚሰራው ግዙፍ ስህተት የመሀይማን ጥርቅም ውጤት ነው፣ እኛ
ግን እራሳችንን በአስተሳሰብ ቀድመን እናድስ አበቃሁ፡፡
The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran
Almustafa, the
chosen and the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve
years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him
back to the isle of his birth.
And in the twelfth year, on the seventh day of Ielool, the
month of reaping, he climbed the hill without the city walls and looked
seaward; and he beheld the ship coming with the mist.
Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy
flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his
soul.
But he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he
thought in his heart: How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not
without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls,
and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his
aloneness without regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these
streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among
these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I
tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made
sweet with hunger and with thirst.
Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things
unto her calls me, and I must embark. For to stay, though the hours burn in the
night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.
Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall
I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that give it
wings. Alone must it seek the ether.
And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across
the sun.
Now when he reached the foot of the hill, he turned again
towards the sea, and he saw his ship approaching the harbour, and upon her prow
the mariners, the men of his own land.
And his soul cried out to them, and he said:
Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides,
How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come
in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set
awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only
another loving look cast backward,
Then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers.
And you, vast sea, sleepless mother, Who alone are peace
and freedom to the river and the stream,
Only another winding will this stream make, only another
murmur in this glade, And then shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a
boundless ocean.
And as he walked he saw from afar men and women leaving
their fields and their vineyards and hastening towards the city gates.
And he heard their voices calling his name, and shouting
from the field to field telling one another of the coming of the ship.
And he said to himself:
Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering?
And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn?
And what shall I give unto him who has left his plough in
midfurrow, or to him who has stopped the wheel of his winepress?
Shall my heart become a tree heavy-laden with fruit that I
may gather and give unto them?
And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill
their cups?
Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a
flute that his breath may pass through me?
A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found
in silences that I may dispense with confidence?
If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed
the seed, and in what unrembered seasons?
If this indeed be the our in which I lift up my lantern,
it is not my flame that shall burn therein.
Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern,
And the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and
he shall light it also.
These things he said in words. But much in his heart
remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak his deeper secret.
And when he entered into the city all the people came to
meet him, and they were crying out to him as with one voice.
And the elders of the city stood forth and said:
Go not yet away from us.
A noontide have you been in our twilight, and your youth
has given us dreams to dream.
No stranger are you among us, nor a guest, but our son and
our dearly beloved. Suffer not yet our eyes to hunger for your face.
And the priests and the priestesses said unto him:
Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the
years you have spent in our midst become a memory.
You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has
been a light upon our faces.
Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and
with veils has it been veiled. Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand
revealed before you.
And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth
until the hour of separation.
And others came also and entreated him.
But he answered them not. He only bent his head; and those
who stood near saw his tears falling upon his breast.
And he and the people proceeded towards the great square
before the temple. And there came out of the sanctuary a woman whose name was
Almitra. And she was a seeress.
And he looked upon her with exceeding tenderness, for it
was she who had first sought and believed in him when he had been but a day in
their city.
And she hailed him, saying: Prophet of God, in quest for
the uttermost, long have you searched the distances for your ship.
And now your ship has come, and you must needs go.
Deep is your longing for the land of your memories and the
dwelling place of your greater desires; and our love would not bind you nor our
needs hold you.
Yet this we ask ere you leave us, that you speak to us and
give us of your truth. And we will give it unto our children, and they unto
their children, and it shall not perish.
In your aloneness you have watched with our days, and in
your wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our
sleep.
Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all
that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death.
And he answered,
People of Orphalese, of what can I speak save of that
which is even now moving your souls?
Then said
Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and
there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind
lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even
as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your
tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their
clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may
become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know
the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's
heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and
love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness
and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not
all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from
itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is
sufficient unto love. When you love you should not say, "God is in my
heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it
finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be
your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody
to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for
another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your
heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Then Almitra
spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be
forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter
your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of
God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your
souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same
loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of
you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver
with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's
shadow.
And a woman who
held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children." And he
said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for
itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them
like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows
are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves
also the bow that is stable.
Then said a
rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."
And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and
guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent
dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy
city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that
is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they
have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their
gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life,
and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their
reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is
their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving,
nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its
fragrance into space.
Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from
behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give
unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive
is joy greater than giving
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours
and not your inheritors'.
You often say, "I would give, but only to the
deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in
your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to
perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights
is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life
deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be than that which
lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and
unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride
unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an
instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you,
who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no
weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on
wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his
generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
Then an old
man, a keeper of an inn, said, "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking."
And he said:
Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth,
and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its
mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship,
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and
the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and
still more innocent in many.
When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
"By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and
I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver
me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds
the tree of heaven." And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to
it in your heart,
"Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we
shall rejoice through all the seasons."
And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your
vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart, "I to am a vineyard, and my
fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,
And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal
vessels."
And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in
your heart a song for each cup;
And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn
days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.
Then a
ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the
soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud
submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the
whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all
else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour
a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of
earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth
loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with
life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the
support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught
but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your
weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is
urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your
heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your
beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest
with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of
your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about
you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep,
"he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone,
is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the
likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of
noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the
least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into
a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple
and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter
bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge
distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the
singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the
night.
Then a woman
said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was
oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more
joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was
burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very
wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you
shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you
shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow,"
and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at
your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow
and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and
balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and
his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Then a mason
came forth and said, "Speak to us of Houses."
And he answered and said:
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you
build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has
the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the
night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave
the city for grove or hilltop?
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and
like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths
your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with
the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near
together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall
your city walls separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these
houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the
summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things
fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that
stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and becomes a host, and then a
master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge
makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer
at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them
in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the
soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you
shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but
an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through
doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to
breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the
living.
And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall
not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion
of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and
the silences of night.
And the weaver
said, "Speak to us of Clothes."
And he answered:
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide
not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you
may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more
of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of
life is in the wind.
Some of you say, "It is the north wind who has woven
the clothes to wear."
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews
was his thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of
the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty
but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare
feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
And a merchant
said, "Speak to us of Buying and Selling."
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want
if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall
find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it
will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields
and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices,
- Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into
your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against
value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your
transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
"Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers
to the sea and cast your net; For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to
you even as to us."
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the
flute players, - buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and
that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your
soul.
And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has
gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep
peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
Then one of the
judges of the city stood forth and said, "Speak to us of Crime and
Punishment."
And he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others
and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a
while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes
of the serpent.
But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist
searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the
mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a
wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder
upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot
rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the
lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent
knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will
of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind
him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster
and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the
felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer
for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good
from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as
the black thread and the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look
into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.
If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales,
and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender look unto the
spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of
righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad,
the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of
the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in
the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet
is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and
an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already
greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that
very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it
from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and
gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless
you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are
but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the
day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than
the lowest stone in its foundation.
Then a lawyer
said, "But what of our Laws, master?"
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers
with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more
sand to the shore,
And when you destroy them, the ocean laughs with you.
Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.
But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and
man-made laws are not sand-towers,
But to whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with
which they would carve it in their own likeness?
What of the cripple who hates dancers?
What of the ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and
deer of the forest stray and vagrant things?
What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and
calls all others naked and shameless?
And of him who comes early to the wedding-feast, and when
over-fed and tired goes his way saying that all feasts are violation and all
feasters law-breakers?
What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the
sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?
They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their
laws.
And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?
And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down
and trace their shadows upon the earth?
But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the
earth can hold you?
You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall
direct your course?
What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but
upon no man's prison door?
What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against
no man's iron chains?
And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear
off your garment yet leave it in no man's path?
People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can
loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
And an orator
said, "Speak to us of Freedom."
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you
prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and
praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the
citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a
handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when
even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease
to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a
care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you
rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless
you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened
around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of
these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would
discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was
written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by
washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that
his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for
a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been
chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that
fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half
embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the
pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in
pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that
lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes
itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
And the
priestess spoke again and said:
"Speak to us of Reason and Passion."
And he answered saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your
reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I
might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and
melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the
peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails
of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but
toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and
passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of
passion; that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your
passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise
above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite
even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for
he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the
white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -
then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the
forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let
your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath In God's sphere, and a leaf in
God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
And a woman
spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart
may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily
miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as
you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of
your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you
heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in
silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the
tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been
fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
And a man said,
"Speak to us of Self-Knowledge."
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and
the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's
knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always know in
thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your
dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and
run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed
to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or
sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather,
"I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul."
Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like
a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
Then said a
teacher, "Speak to us of Teaching."
And he said:
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies
half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among
his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his
lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house
of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of
space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all
space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice
that echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of
the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another
man.
And even as each one of you stands alone in God's
knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his
understanding of the earth.
And a youth
said, "Speak to us of Friendship."
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with
thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for
peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the
"nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to
his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all
desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his
absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the
deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own
mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its
flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with
hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter,
and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its
morning and is refreshed.
And then a
scholar said, "Speak of Talking."
And he answered, saying:
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your
heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words
many indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through
fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked
selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or
forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but
they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in
rhythmic silence.
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market
place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his
ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the
taste of the wine is remembered
When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.
And an
astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?"
And he answered:
You would measure time the measureless and the
immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course
of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would
sit and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and
tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still
dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into
space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is
boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though
boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not form love
thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and placeless?
But if in you thought you must measure time into seasons,
let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the
future with longing.
And one of the
elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil."
And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and
thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark
caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a
divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among
perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that
clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me,
ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need
to the root.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue
staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.
You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with
bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward.
But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp
before the lame, deeming it kindness.
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when
you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness:
and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with
might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the
forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in
angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs
little, "Wherefore are you slow and halting?"
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your
garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?"
Then a
priestess said, "Speak to us of Prayer."
And he answered, saying:
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you
might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the
living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into
space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to
prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you
shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are
praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for
naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose
than asking you shall not receive.
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you
shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of
others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words.
God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters
them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the
forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and
the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you
shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in
us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are
thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs
before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou
givest us all."
Then a hermit,
who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of
Pleasure."
And he answered, saying:
Pleasure is a freedom song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart;
yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and
they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone:
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more
beautiful than pleasure.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth
for roots and found a treasure?
And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like
wrongs committed in drunkenness.
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its
chastisement.
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as
they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.
And there are among you those who are neither young to
seek nor old to remember;
And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all
pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for
roots with quivering hands.
But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night,
or the firefly the stars?
And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble
with a staff?
Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store
the desire in the recesses of your being.
Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for
tomorrow?
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need
and will not be deceived. And your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or
confused sounds.
And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we
distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?"
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn
that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its
honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving
of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers
and the bees.
And a poet
said, "Speak to us of Beauty."
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her
unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of
your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind
and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks
among us."
And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of
might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the
sky above us."
The tired and the weary say, "beauty is of soft
whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that
quivers in fear of the shadow."
But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting
among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the
beating of wings and the roaring of lions."
At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall
rise with the dawn from the east."
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say,
"we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the
sunset."
In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with
the spring leaping upon the hills."
And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen
her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her
hair."
All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs
unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched
forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would
hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and
a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing
attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of
angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her
holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and your are the mirror.
And an old
priest said, "Speak to us of Religion."
And he said:
Have I spoken this day of aught else?
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a
wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the
stone or tend the loom?
Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief
from his occupations?
Who can spread his hours before him, saying, "This
for God and this for myself;
This for my soul, and this other for my body?"
All your hours are wings that beat through space from self
to self.
He who wears his morality but as his best garment were
better naked.
The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.
And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his
song-bird in a cage.
The freest song comes not through bars and wires.
And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also
to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn
to dawn.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,
The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.
For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor
fall lower than your failures.
And take with you all men:
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes
nor humble yourself lower than their despair.
And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of
riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with
your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the
cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and
waving His hands in trees.
Than Almitra
spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death."
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart
of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day
cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your
heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea
are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent
knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams
of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to
eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd
when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the sheered not joyful beneath his trembling, that he
shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and
to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath
from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink form the river of silence shall you
indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall
begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you
truly dance.
And now it was
evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day
and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a
listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the
people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day
where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of
the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that
we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words
I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish
in your memory, then I will come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the
spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence
enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal
itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into
emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my
love, then let it be a promise till another day. Know therefore, that from the
greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the
fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
In the stillness of the night I have walked in your
streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was
upon my face, and I knew you all.
Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your
dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and
even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams,
and the longing of your youths in rivers.
And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers
ceased not yet to sing.
But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing
came to me.
It was boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless
throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that
vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can
outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the
vast man in you.
His mind binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you
into space, and in his durability you are deathless.
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as
weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your
strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the
power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the
seasons for their inconsistency.
Ay, you are like an ocean,
And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your
shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides.
And like the seasons you are also,
And though in your winter you deny your spring,
Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness
and is not offended.
Think not I say these things in order that you may say the
one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good in us."
I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves
know in thought.
And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless
knowledge?
Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory
that keeps records of our yesterdays,
And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor
herself,
And of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion,
Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I
came to take of your wisdom:
And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.
It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,
While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering
of your days.
It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.
There are no graves here.
These mountains and plains are a cradle and a
stepping-stone.
Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your
ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children
dancing hand in hand.
Verily you often make merry without knowing.
Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made
unto your faith you have given but riches and power and glory.
Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous
have you been to me.
You have given me deeper thirsting after life.
Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which
turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward, -
That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the
living water itself thirsty; And it drinks me while I drink it.
Some of you have deemed me proud and over-shy to receive
gifts.
To proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.
And though I have eaten berries among the hill when you
would have had me sit at your board,
And slept in the portico of the temple where you would
gladly have sheltered me,
Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my
nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?
For this I bless you most:
You give much and know not that you give at all.
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror
turns to stone,
And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes
the parent to a curse.
And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my
own aloneness,
And you have said, "He holds council with the trees
of the forest, but not with men.
He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our
city."
True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in
remote places.
How could I have seen you save from a great height or a
great distance?
How can one be indeed near unless he be far?
And others among you called unto me, not in words, and
they said,
Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why
dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests?
Why seek you the unattainable?
What storms would you trap in your net,
And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?
Come and be one of us.
Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench
your thirst with our wine."
In the solitude of their souls they said these things;
But were their solitude deeper they would have known that
I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain,
And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.
But the hunter was also the hunted: For many of my arrows
left my bow only to seek my own breast.
And the flier was also the creeper;
For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon
the earth was a turtle.
And I the believer was also the doubter;
For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I
might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.
And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say,
You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to
houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with
the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or
digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and
moves in the ether.
If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not
their end,
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not
in the crystal.
And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?
This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the
strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the
structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having
dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease
to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you
would hear no other sound.
But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the
hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by
those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor
regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all
things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.
After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw
the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and
now at the distance.
And he said:
Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship.
The wind blows, and restless are the sails;
Even the rudder begs direction; Yet quietly my captain
awaits my silence.
And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the
greater sea, they too have heard me patiently.
Now they shall wait no longer.
I am ready.
The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great
mother holds her son against her breast.
Fare you well, people of Orphalese.
This day has ended.
It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own
tomorrow.
What was given us here we shall keep,
And if it suffices not, then again must we come together
and together stretch our hands unto the giver.
Forget not that I shall come back to you.
A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam
for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and
another woman shall bear me.
Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your
longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it
is no longer dawn.
The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to
fuller day, and we must part.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we
shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall
build another tower in the sky.
So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway
they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved
eastward.
And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and
it rose the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it
had vanished into the mist.
And when all the people were dispersed she still stood
alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying,
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and
another woman shall bear me."
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond
CHAPTER 1
Leaving the mind far behind
8 January 1989 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
BANSHO GYOSHU STUDIED MEDITATION FIRST WITH MASTER SHOMOKU. HE TOLD
BANSHO, ”STUDYING THIS PATH IS LIKE REFINING GOLD. WHEN IT IS IMPURE, THE PURE
GOLD DOES NOT SHOW.
”AS I LOOK BETWEEN YOUR EYEBROWS, THERE IS VERY MUCH SOMETHING THERE. IF
YOU DON’T PIERCE THROUGH COLD BONES, ONCE, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO CAST THIS
THING OFF. HEREAFTER, SEE FOR YOURSELF – IT IS NOT A MATTER OF MY SPEAKING
MUCH.”
THEN BANSHO WAS GIVEN THE SAYING OF CHOSHA’S TO CONTEMPLATE ON: ”TURN
YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH.”
FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT,
”I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER.”
FINALLY, AFTER A LONG TIME, BANSHO DID SUDDENLY HAVE AN INSIGHT.
My Friends,
I have been telling my people for almost thirty years, on and off, that psychoanalysis is dead, as
dead as Sigmund Freud. But no psychoanalyst ever answered. The reality is that psychoanalysis
has never been alive, but it was a great method of exploitation of the sick people.
2
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
Nobody has ever been cured by psychoanalysis. There are people who have been under
psychoanalysis for ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, but there is not a single human being
who has gained any insight through psychoanalysis, or any wholeness, any depth, any peak.
People terminate psychoanalysis not because they have succeeded, but because their bank account
is finished. Psychoanalysts are the most highly paid people in the world – for nothing. It was going
to happen sooner or later, because nobody can be cheated forever.
My standpoint was that unless psychoanalysis has a soul… It is digging into dreams – which is an
absolutely futile, meaningless effort, because dreams are just on the surface of the mind. You close
your eyes and they start floating. Analyzing these dreams, you can never come to a conclusion; they
go on and on. Psychoanalysis is just concerned with the dreams and the mind. It does not believe
that there is something beyond the mind that is going to be its suicide, because your real source of
life is beyond the mind.
Mind is just a computer. You can program it, you can reprogram it, deprogram it, you can do anything
with it; it is a mechanism. It is not your being. And unless somebody reaches to his being, he is
wandering and wasting his life, he is simply vegetating. He has no depth, no peak experiences.
From my university days I have been fighting, first, with my professors of psychology and
psychoanalysis. Then, when I became a teacher in the university, I was fighting with my colleagues
who were in the same department. But man’s blindness, deafness, dumbness, seems to be
infinite….
The materialist believes only in the body. The psychoanalyst believes in the mind as a by-product of
the body: when the body dies the mind disappears also. So what are you doing? – torturing people
unnecessarily. Neither the mind is going to be your eternal friend, nor the body. Just use them, but
don’t forget there is a witness within you.
Hence, I have been fighting for meditation. I have been telling people that unless psychoanalysis is
based in meditation, unless it helps people to discover the no-mind, the beyond, it is an absolutely
futile exercise of exploiting people. But no psychoanalyst agreed with me.
Just today I have received a confirmation from one of the most well-known psychoanalysts of
America: Dr. Brian Weiss, Yale Medical School graduate, nationally recognized expert in psychopharmacology,
brain chemistry, substance abuse, and Alzheimer’s Disease, and Chief of Psychiatry
at Mount Sinai Hospital, San Francisco.
He has been for years thinking to tell the world that psychoanalysis is dead, but could not gather
the courage to go against the whole profession. But finally he decided to declare what has been
his experience – his lifelong experience. In his book, MANY LIVES, MANY MASTERS, Weiss wrote
that psychoanalysis is in its death throes, that it is no longer practical, and the reason is that it has
no spirituality in it.
Perhaps now psychoanalysts will pay attention.
I am not a psychoanalyst, but I am a postgraduate in psychoanalysis, in religion, in philosophy. I have
never practiced psychoanalysis because I have never believed that Sigmund Freud had revealed a
new path to man’s intrinsic spirituality.
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 3 Osho
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
I have heard: a man sold his donkey to another farmer, his neighbor, and he said in praise of the
donkey that he was very wise, very intelligent, very hard-working. The neighbor who had purchased
it tried hard, but it wouldn’t move at all. He said, ”Strange…”
He called the man from whom he had purchased it. The man took a big staff and hit the donkey
exactly on his forehead. The donkey moved.
The man who had purchased it asked, ”You were telling me to be kind and be compassionate to this
animal, it is a rare species – and you are hitting it so brutally.”
He said, ”It is not hitting, it is just getting his attention!”
Perhaps Dr. Brian Weiss will have the attention – but I want to remind him that his approach is
negantive. He has found that psychoanalysis is missing something, but he does not know what.
Just the word ‘spirituality’ doesn’t mean anything. He has not yet found the positive element of
meditation, of going inwards and remaining just a witness. Psychoanalysis may be dying, perhaps
is dead; just the people who have invested their whole life in it and are exploiting millions of dollars
out of it, are hiding the fact of its death.
But even Dr. Brian Weiss… although he has come to a right conclusion, his conclusion is still
negative. He does not mention about meditation, he does not mention about witnessing, he does
not mention anything about no-mind – which are the doors of spirituality.
His words, that psychoanalysis is missing spirituality, are bound to be misunderstood. That’s why I
am saying these words. People will think spirituality means to join the Catholic church, become a
Hindu, become a Buddhist, and you have become spiritual.
It is not so cheap.
To become spiritual you have to go into your own depth, leaving mind far behind. Let it dream, let
it think, you simply watch. And just watching is the greatest alchemy for transforming your being.
The more you become rooted in watching and witnessing… the thoughts disappear, the dreams
disappear, the mind is miles away and you are left alone in utter silence, in peace. All the tensions,
anxieties, angst, are completely transformed into bliss, into ecstasy, into blessings.
My emphasis here is on therapies which DON’T go on for years and years: just a few days of therapy
to prepare the ground for meditation. We are running here almost one hundred therapy groups, for
every possible human being. But therapy is not the end; therapy is a preparation, clearing the ground
for meditation. This is the only place in the whole world where therapy is being used as clearing the
ground for a tremendous transformation from mind to no-mind.
Meditation is the only thing that can be called spiritual, because it is rooted in your very spirit. It is
the only thing that is not going to die. Your body will be dying, your mind will be dying; only your
witness has an eternity.
And without having eternity… how can you be joyous when death is coming every day closer?
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 4 Osho
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
Stop calling your birthdays birth days! These are the days when death has come one year closer.
Those are the days of death!
You have been dying since the very moment you were born! Every moment death is taking its
territory. It may take seventy years, or ninety years – it does not matter; death is following you like a
shadow. Wherever you go, whichever direction you choose, you will end up in a grave, remember!
The only thing that will not end up in a grave is the experience of your mirrorlike witnessing being,
your very life source. And just the experience of your own life source heals you immediately; nothing
else needs to be added.
Dr. Brian Weiss writes his book, entitled MANY LIVES, MANY MASTERS. I would like to remind
him that he has not found any master yet – many lives perhaps, but not a single master!
To find a master is to find someone who has already reached to the highest peak of being, who
can show you the path. Of course, you will have to walk it yourself, but just indicating the path is a
tremendous compassion.
The days of therapy plus meditation are going to come. As psychoanalysis dies, there will be a
vacuum. That vacuum can be filled only by therapies which are not an end in themselves, but just a
preparation, a device to indicate to you your innermost being.
The days of meditation are going to come.
I would like Dr. Brian Weiss to know perfectly well that he has come to a right conclusion, but the
conclusion is half. The death of psychoanalysis will leave a vacuum which will create tremendous
anxiety in people, because psychoanalysis – although a futile exercise – keeps people hoping:
”Perhaps one year of analysis more, and I will come back perfectly sane and healthy and joyous.”
Psychoanalysis is exploiting the hope.
By the way, I have to remind you that all the religions have been doing the same: exploiting the hope
that tomorrow will be good, just be patient today. The next life is going to be good, just be patient in
this life. Nobody knows about tomorrow. And we have known many tomorrows turning into todays;
they don’t fulfill the hope and the promise. Then the hope is shifted to another life.
All these religions have done the same.
Psychoanalysis is a modern cult; Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, are ancient cults. None
of them is a religion.
A religion gives you freedom.
A religion gives you yourself.
To me, therapy plus meditation is equal to religion.
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 5 Osho
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
I would invite Dr. Brian Weiss to see this great experiment. Perhaps, because he is now absolutely
disappointed with psychoanalysis, he may be able to see some possibility in therapy and meditation.
And this is not only an invitation to Dr. Brian Weiss, this is an invitation to all psychoanalysts,
because you are going to lose your profession soon. Before you are drowned, we are preparing
here a Noah’s Ark.
Today begins a new series of talks. The title of the new series is: ZEN: THE MYSTERY AND THE
POETRY OF THE BEYOND.
Before I discuss the sutras brought by Maneesha, on behalf of all of you, a few words about the title
of the new series, Zen: The Mystery and the Poetry of the Beyond.
I don’t consider Zen a philosophy or a theology but closer to poetry, to music, to painting, to dancing,
to singing. It is not renunciation of life, it is rejoicing in life with your whole heart. And as you
become deeply involved in creative lifestyles, the beyond opens its doors. I will simply call it ‘beyond’,
because all other words that have been used have become contaminated by the old religions, but
‘the beyond’ is still pure; and because it is a poetry, a creative act, which in its peak transforms you
and brings you to the doors of the mystery.
This whole existence is a mystery; only for blind people there is no mystery. If you have eyes,
then everything is mysterious, and there is no solution for it. The deeper you go into it, the more
mysterious it becomes. And there is no bottom to the depth, it is abyssmal. You can go on and on
and on; the mystery becomes more mysterious, more colorful, more fragrant, but you don’t come to
the end where you can find an explanation for the mystery.
Unless a man settles with existence as mystery, he will not be able to live his life as ecstasy.
The sutras:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
BANSHO GYOSHU STUDIED MEDITATION FIRST WITH MASTER SHOMOKU. HE TOLD
BANSHO, ”STUDYING THIS PATH IS LIKE REFINING GOLD. WHEN IT IS IMPURE, THE PURE
GOLD DOES NOT SHOW.”
Have you ever thought how gold is purified? Only through fire. When the gold passes through fire,
all that was not gold is burnt, and it comes out as pure gold, utterly refined.
Meditation is a fire, a very cool fire. You will not be burnt, but all that is false will disappear. And
when you will come out of those flames, you will not be able even to recognize yourself, because
now you will be having your original face, not the mask that the society has given to you. Now your
personality will be gone – that was the contaminating factor – your individuality will come as sharp
as a sword.
Shomoku also said to Bansho,
”AS I LOOK BETWEEN YOUR EYEBROWS, THERE IS VERY MUCH SOMETHING THERE.”
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 6 Osho
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
It is one of the most important findings of the mystics that just between your eyebrows there opens
a door; in India it has been called the third eye. These two eyes look outside. Just between the
eyebrows, exactly in the middle there is an eye, a perceptivity, a sensitivity. When it opens, your
inner world becomes absolutely clear to you. You know that you are not the body, not the mind.
For the first time you recognize your being as a witness. This takes you to the beyond, and to the
mysterious, and to the miraculous.
Onwards, life is a sheer joy, a sheer dance, a great music. You are overflowing, radiating pure gold.
You have found the treasure of treasures. This has been the search of the whole East, of the whole
Eastern genius.
Shomoku says to Bansho,
”AS I LOOK BETWEEN YOUR EYEBROWS, THERE IS VERY MUCH SOMETHING THERE. IF
YOU DON’T PIERCE THROUGH COLD BONES, ONCE, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO CAST THIS
THING OFF. HEREAFTER, SEE FOR YOURSELF – IT IS NOT A MATTER OF MY SPEAKING
MUCH.”
In such a small passage, Shomoku has said everything that is necessary for a seeker.
THEN BANSHO WAS GIVEN THE SAYING OF CHOSHA’S TO CONTEMPLATE ON: ”TURN
YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH.”
It is a very strange statement of Chosha’s.
”TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH.” What does it mean?
It means, remember you are carrying five elements in your body: the earth, the air, the fire, the
sky, the water. These are the five elements that make your body. Chosha is saying, ”Return these
elements back to their sources, and then see whether something is left behind.”
Yes, something is left behind. That something is your consciousness. It is not a by-product of your
body, it is a totally different phenomenon than the material world. Once you have tasted something
of consciousness, awareness, alertness, you will not be afraid of death; you know it can happen
only to the dead body, it cannot happen to your living sources of consciousness. They are in the
body, but they don’t belong to the body.
Chosha’s statement was given to Bansho to meditate on:
”TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH.”
FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT,
”I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER.”
What went wrong?
He was too much in a hurry, he became too tense about the matter, too serious about the matter,
and realizing your being is not a serious matter at all. It comes to you in utter relaxation, a non-tense
state of being, in a playfulness.
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 7 Osho
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
Never make your meditation a serious affair, otherwise you are going to miss it. Be playful about it.
I am the first person who is saying that.
All the religions have been telling you to be serious. That’s why they have killed millions of people,
destroyed their spirituality, made them tense, anxiety-ridden, sick unto death. And in the effort to
find their innermost being, people have been doing all kinds of unnecessary ascetic practices, which
are nothing but masochistic torture.
I teach you playfulness.
It is your being.
Even if you want to lose it, you cannot lose it.
What is the hurry?
And what is the seriousness?
Just be playful, lightweight.
Bansho missed because of his great effort to find the innermost core of his being. Effort is a barrier.
Effortlessness…
Just sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
That grass you should not misunderstand. Basho is saying: You just sit silently, unworried,
effortlessly, doing nothing. When the time is ripe means when your tensions have all gone… the
spring comes, and your being grows by itself. You don’t have to do anything; it simply explodes into
a tremendous revolution. All that was junk in you is burnt, and all that was truth in you, the pure
twenty-four-karat gold, comes shining with a great splendor.
But it happens only in a relaxed state, in a let-go. This is one of the most difficult problems.
People who are seekers are in a hurry. They want it to happen just now. It can happen just now, but
you are preventing it by desiring it to happen just now.
Forget all about when it happens. Whenever the right time comes, existence will take care. Enjoy
the meditation; don’t bother about any conclusion, about any enlightenment. These things are not
within your hands, you cannot do anything about them!
The spring comes by itself… and suddenly you find your old personality has melted away, and
something absolutely new and fresh is born within you, and it is growing on its own. You are just a
watcher – watcher of the death of the old, and watcher of the birth of the new.
But there is no need to be serious. Any seriousness, any effort, any anxiety about being spiritual is
the greatest barrier. Just be playful.
Zen: The Mystery and The Poetry of the Beyond 8 Osho
CHAPTER 1. LEAVING THE MIND FAR BEHIND
I have found myself without any seriousness. Hence, when I say this, I say it on my own authority.
FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT,
”I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER.”
FINALLY, AFTER A LONG TIME, BANSHO did SUDDENLY HAVE AN INSIGHT.
The anecdote does not say a few things; they have to be understood.
What must have happened that suddenly one day Bansho did have an insight?
Effort has a limitation: you get tired – that is the beauty of effort – otherwise you will never be
enlightened. Any kind of effort, any anxiety has a limitation. A moment comes, you say, ”Fuck it all!”
That very moment is your enlightenment!
Basho wrote:
THE EVENING HAZE.
THINKING OF PAST THINGS –
HOW FAR OFF THEY ARE.
THE EVENING HAZE. THINKING OF PAST THINGS – HOW FAR OFF THEY ARE.
What does Basho mean by this haiku? He is one of the most insightful of Zen masters….
He is saying that what seems to be very important to you today, what is creating so much
seriousness in you, so much anxiety in you, won’t have any relevance after a few years. It will
be far away, miles away, as though perhaps you have seen it in a dream. All the anxiety that it was
giving you is lost.
Understanding this, just look backwards: at every point in the past you will find yourself ridden with
anxiety, anguish, misery, failure. But now all that has become just writing on the sands. A breeze
comes and the whole writing disappears, or a tidal wave comes and takes the whole writing away,
leaves behind a fresh sand without any signature.
Basho’s intention is that looking at the past you should understand that what is present will become
past tomorrow. Don’t be so serious. Tomorrow it will not matter at all. And the same is true about
your future: never be serious, because everything is going to become past, just like a dream you
had seen somewhere. Perhaps you may not even recognize that you were so much troubled.
Basho’s statement is that your whole life is just a prolonged dream. Don’t take it seriously. Be
playful, enjoy it while it lasts. There is no need to renounce it, because those who renounce it take
it seriously.
I have always wondered about so-called great philosophers, for example Adi Shankara, who has
been thought by the Indians to be the greatest mind in the whole history of man. But that ”greatest
mind,” Adi Shankara, looks so stupid on just a small scrutiny.
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He talked about the world being illusory: it is just purely a dream, there is nothing outside, you are
projecting it. Still, he could not touch an untouchable.
One morning he was getting ready for his prayer, taking a bath in the Ganges in Varanasi. It was
still dark and he was coming back up the steps, and a man touched him and told him, ”I am a sudra,
an untouchable.” Shankara was furious, he forgot all about peace, and ”love your enemies.”
I have always thought, Why unnecessarily…? First love yourself, then love your friends – because
these friends will turn someday into your enemies. Continue loving. Nobody becomes an enemy
before becoming a friend, so just go on loving friends and ex-friends, wives and ex-wives. But it is
all a dream, your projection.
Shankara, freaking out, denies his own philosophy. The sudra was a strange fellow. He said, ”Before
you become enraged…”
Shankara said, ”I will have to take another bath! It is a cold winter morning, and knowing perfectly
well that you are a sudra, why did you touch me? There is no crowd” – and Varanasi has vast ghats
with steps. ”Only two men… there was no need to touch me.”
The old man said, ”There was: to make you aware that next time you say the world is illusory,
remember me. It is not. You are freaking out at your own projections. You are going to take a bath
in a dream river. Just think about your philosophy.”
But Shankara is thought to be the greatest philosopher, at least in the Indian heritage. But his
philosophy seems to be just mind-oriented. It has no actual experience of awakening. Otherwise,
nobody is touchable and nobody is untouchable; just as you are made of bones and flesh, everybody
is made of the same stuff. Everybody is made of the same elements.
And for a man like Adi Shankara – who says that everything outside is just a dream – behaving in
such a way exposes him, that all his philosophy is just talk. He is articulate enough to talk about
things, but it is not his life.
And unless something is your life, your very life, it makes no difference.
Another instance is still more idiotic.
Shankara traveled all over India, challenging other philosophers. One can ask, ”Why are you
challenging your own projections?” In this dreamlike world, if somebody thinks he is a philosopher,
what is the harm? There is nobody, just a phantom, the Holy Ghost. But he went around the country
with this philosophy that the world is maya, illusion, hallucination, a mirage.
He reached to Mandla, a small city in central India. It is named after a great thinker, Mandan Mishra.
He was very famous in those parts, and he was the last one to be defeated. Shankara wanted a
victory over all the philosophers of this country.
Strange… his philosophy says everything is illusory – and his victory over illusory phantoms is real?
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He went there. Before entering the city there was a well, and women were drawing water from the
well. He asked them, ”Which way do I have to go to find Mandan Mishra’s house?”
The women started giggling. They said, ”We have heard much about you. You think everything is
illusory; to whom are you asking the question? What do you mean by Mandan Mishra’s house?
”But if you want to meet another mirage, another illusion, a very learned illusion, you will not find any
difficulty. You simply go into the town, and you will find Mandan Mishra’s house without any difficulty,
because just on the fence of his garden there are hanging many parrots, repeating, reciting the
Vedas. They are all great pundits.”
Shankara went, and he could not believe it: parrots were reciting Rigveda with such accuracy. He
said, ”My God! If parrots are doing this, I am getting into a lion’s den.” But he had to; the desire, the
longing, which he was denying in his philosophy, was too heavy on him. He wanted to be victorious
over all the philosophers.
It is the same desire as Alexander the Great had, in a different direction. He wanted to be
the conqueror of the world, and Shankara wanted to be the conqueror of all the thinkers and
philosophers. What is the difference? The desire, the longing is the same. The ego needs the
same nourishment.
He entered into the house, a little nervous. And Mandan Mishra had thousands of disciples – he
was very old. He received Shankara with great love, welcomed him, knowing perfectly well that he
has come to challenge him.
Shankara said, ”Do you understand my purpose in coming so far to meet you? You are the last
person I have to conquer. I want to challenge you for a long discussion.”
Mandan Mishra said, ”It is perfectly okay. But do you have a judge who will decide who is the
winner?”
Shankara had nobody with him, but he had heard much about Mandan Mishra’s wife, Bharti. He had
heard that she was as great a thinker as Mandan Mishra, so he said, ”There is no problem. Your
wife, Bharti, can preside and be the sole judge.”
The discussion lasted for six months, and finally Bharti gave the judgment that Shankara had been
the winner. And this was the tradition of those days: the one who is defeated becomes the disciple
of the one who is the winner. So Mandan Mishra said, ”If Bharti says that you are the winner, then I
am ready to be your disciple.”
But Bharti said, ”Wait.” In India it is a tradition that a man and a woman are only half and half of
one whole – only together are they complete. Bharti said, ”Wait. You have won only half of Mandan
Mishra; half is still to be defeated. Then we will both become your disciples.”
Shankara was amazed. The woman was really courageous: first to declare her husband defeated,
and second to prevent Shankara from being victorious until she was defeated. And she was certainly
a very clever woman.
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Shankara was only thirty-three years of age, and a so-called celibate. I say ”so-called” because
nobody can be a celibate, it is against nature – unless you are impotent.
Bharti was very clever. She started the discussion, and she asked Mandan Mishra to preside and be
the judge. Shankara agreed, but he was not aware what that woman had in her mind. She started
talking about sex. Shankara had no notion… at least he pretended that he knew nothing about sex.
Bharti said, ”I can give you a few months. You can go and learn about sex and come back again.”
Shankara went to his disciples, who were residing in the mountains near Mandla, and he left his
body in the care of his disciples.
A king had just died, and Shankara entered the dead king’s body to know everything about sex,
because the king had many queens. Unless you experience it, it won’t be valid before that clever
woman, Bharti.
My question is: Why could he not go in his own body? He believed in the body too much. He talked
about that the body is just illusory; if it is illusory, then what difference does it make that you enter
into a dead man’s body and have love affairs with many women to understand the whole science
of sex? Why had you not the courage to go in your own body? Why did you make the difference
between two illusions, mine and yours?
But as far as I understand, this seems to be just to protect his celibacy. The whole story has been
created by the disciples, and supported by him, because it took six months for him – too long really.
Even six days are too much! Anybody who has been married knows: just six days – and Sunday is
a holiday! Six months? – it seems he got too much interested!
But this whole story seems to be bogus. And how to protect a dead body, Shankara’s body, for six
months? There is no indication of any science that Shankara or his disciples knew. In six days the
body will start stinking; in six months there will be no Shankara, just a pile of bones, and rotten…
everything rotten … and cockroaches… and rats, and all kinds of illusory things!
All these so-called great philosophers and thinkers are just clever, articulate, logical, but don’t have
an authentic experience of life.
Question 1
Maneesha has asked:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
WHEN YOU SPEAK SO VIGOROUSLY ABOUT THE STUPIDITY OF POLITICIANS AND OTHER
PUBLIC FIGURES, I INWARDLY CHEER YOU ON. BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY I AM AWARE THAT
YOU MAY PROVOKE HOSTILITY AND INTENT TO HARM YOU – FROM WHICH I WANT TO
PROTECT YOU.
IS THERE ANY ANSWER – OR IS THIS SIMPLY A DILEMMA FOR YOUR DISCIPLES TO LIVE
WITH?
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Maneesha, it is my destiny to hit hard every untruth, every lie, every consolation, whatever the
consequences, because, as far as I am concerned, I have arrived home. They can harm my body,
but remember, it is not so easy, for the simple reason… I will remind you.
Ed Meese, attorney general of America, when they deported me illegally, unconstitutionally, without
any evidence against me – he admitted in a press conference that ”There is no evidence at all, but
we could not tolerate the man in our country. He was attracting young Christians.”
They go on sending missionaries all over the world to attract people to Christianity, and if I was
attracting the intelligent… What was the problem? – the fundamentalist mind.
He said, ”We could not jail him; there was no evidence. And we could not kill him, because killing
him will make him a martyr, killing him will make him a founder of a religion.”
That fear is a great protection. Don’t be worried.
Nobody is going to take the risk they took in the case of Jesus. What was the result? Now
Christianity is the biggest religion in the world as far as numbers are concerned – half of the world
belongs to the Christians.
The Jews cannot forgive themselves that such a good boy, Jesus – if they had not killed him, he
would have founded such a great firm, a Jewish firm. They did not do that again.
In the case of Marx, who was a Jew and propagated communism, the Jews did not crucify him or
harass him. They did not do the same with Sigmund Freud; he was a Jew. These three Jews have
created the biggest Jewish firms in the world.
Jews cannot forgive themselves: ”That poor boy was creating such a beautiful exploitation, and you
killed him.” Now, everybody has to think twice to kill a man like me!
So don’t be worried, Maneesha. I have invisible protection in their fear. And I can create fear in them
only if I say the truth with a lion’s roar! The more they are afraid of me, the less is the possibility of
doing any harm to me.
And of course I can understand you and your problem. You have to live this dilemma. Those who
followed Socrates, they had to live it; it purified them. For those who lived with Jesus, it was a
tremendous transfiguration.
If anything happens to me, much will happen to you simultaneously.
You can go on taking me for granted and postponing the urgent, immediate penetration into your
being. But if something is done to me, perhaps that will bring the urgency, because now you cannot
take me for granted.
In fact, a very famous case can be considered….
Gautam Buddha had given initiation to his own cousin-brother, Ananda. Ananda was older than
Gautam Buddha; before taking initiation he told Gautam Buddha, ”Right now, I am your older brother;
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I can dictate anything to you and you will have to follow it” – just the old obedience. ”But I have come
to be initiated by you. After initiation, I will be just a disciple amongst thousands of other disciples.
So before initiation I want you to remember three conditions.
”First, I will always remain with you, you cannot send me away from you on any mission. I will take
care of your body, of your food, of your medicine. Secondly, if I ask any question, you cannot say,
‘Wait for the right time.’ You cannot postpone it, you have to answer immediately. Thirdly, if I want
somebody to meet you – even in the middle of the night – you cannot say no.”
Buddha said, ”There is no difficulty. I will remember your conditions.”
And Ananda remained for forty-two years his disciple, continuously following him like a shadow,
serving him, helping him in every possible way – but he did not become enlightened. Others who
had come later on went on becoming enlightened. He was very much puzzled.
He asked Buddha, ”What is going wrong? People who have come very late have become
enlightened masters, and I have been with you for all these forty-two years, and I don’t know even
the abc of enlightenment.”
Buddha said, ”You will become enlightened the day I die, not before it.”
Ananda was very much puzzled. He said, ”Why?”
Buddha said, ”Simple psychology. You trust that I am your brother, I will not leave you unenlightened,
so you have not been doing what I have been saying. You have been just believing that ‘My brother
will not leave me unenlightened.’ What can I do? I can only indicate, I cannot become enlightened
on your behalf.”
And exactly what Buddha said happened. The day he died, Ananda did not move from the place
where he was sitting by the side of Buddha. His body was taken to the funeral pyre; Ananda did not
move. He closed his eyes. For the first time, a tremendous urgency had arisen. If he misses this
moment, then one never knows how many lives it will take to find another master of the caliber of
Gautam Buddha. And Buddha had said, ”After I die you will become enlightened.”
”I will not move from this place. I will not open my eyes, I will not eat, I will not drink. I will do what
he has been saying and I have been postponing.” He became enlightened by the evening. In the
morning Buddha died; by the evening Ananda became enlightened. The urgency had arisen.
So if something happens to me, it will be an urgency for you. If nothing happens to me, I am your
urgency.
It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.
Paddy finds an old tandem, a two-man bicycle, on the scrap heap, and fixes it up. Then he and
Seamus decide to go out for a ride on it to the top of Heart Attack Hill.
After two hours of furious pedaling up the steep hill, they finally arrive at the top.
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”Jeezus Christ!” gasps Paddy, on the front. ”I did not think we would ever make it.”
”Me either,” pants Seamus, at the back, ”and we would have slid all the way backwards if I had not
kept the brakes on!”
Little Eggbert has a nasty habit of cursing and swearing, and his parents cannot seem to do anything
with him. One day, Father Fungus comes for tea.
Little Eggbert comes up to the priest and says, ”More fucking tea, Father?”
Father Fungus is shocked, so he suggests that his parents send Eggbert to see Doctor Feelgood,
the psychiatrist.
”Tell me, Eggbert,” says the shrink, ”what would you like most in the world?”
”Wow! I would like a god-dammed rabbit!” cries Eggbert.
”Okay,” says Feelgood, ”your mom and dad will get you a rabbit if you promise not to swear again.
Is it a deal?”
”Sure, Mr. Shrink, sir!” exclaims Eggbert. ”I will do it!”
So Eggbert gets his rabbit, and for two weeks all is peaceful around the house. Then one day,
Sunday morning, Father Fungus comes for tea.
”I hear you have a pet rabbit now, Eggbert,” says the priest. ”Can I see it?”
”Sure,” says Eggbert, and runs out in the garden to get his pet. But just as he brings it into the room,
the rabbit starts to give birth to an enormous bunch of baby rabbits.
Eggbert watches in horror for a moment, then puts the mother rabbit on the ground, looks at the
priest and cries, ”Holy Shit! The fucking thing is falling apart!”
Milton Trueheart is driving along in his Rolls Royce when he sees his old school friend, Etta Apple.
He pulls over, lowers the electric window and says, ”Hi, Etta! How are you?”
”Wow!” says Etta, ”is that you, Milton? And in a Rolls Royce? How did you make so much money?”
”I am a fortune teller,” replies Milton. ”I can see the future.”
”I would love to learn how to do that,” says Etta.
”So jump in the car,” says Milton, ”and I will tell you all about it.”
Etta gets into the car and they drive off to Milton’s house.
”Okay,” says Milton, when they arrive. ”So you want to learn about fortune telling? Then take off your
blouse.”
