Nobody has
created it.
And it is of great importance that we don't have
any purpose: otherwise, we would have been machines. Machines
have purpose: a car has a purpose, a railway train has a
purpose, but you don't have any purpose, because you are a being
and not a thing.
You have a dignity, a freedom.
In fact, those who have known
themselves, their understanding is that you are all gods. Nobody
has created you. You have been here forever and you will be here
forever.
Hence the teachings of the awakened ones are not of worship,
ritual, mantras; the teachings of the awakened ones are how to
be awake and realize your eternity. And then life becomes just a
play, just a game. Do you think football has a purpose?
Everybody knows that it is just a game.
Life is a play, a playfulness.
There is no God and there has never been.
And man's freedom
is absolute. He need not worship anybody, he has only to
discover his own potential, his own creativity. What can he do?
It is not a question of Who am I? The question is, What can I
do? What I can be? As far as who I am, that has already
happened. I am. Now the question is, What should I do? Should I
be a singer, a dancer, a poet, a mystic, a lover? A man of
peace, of great depths, a man of immense silence and joy?
What I should
be is the question.
"Who am I?" is useless, unnecessary,
wasting your time.
Once this penetrates in your intelligence,
that "I am here and I have enough energy - either I can destroy
or I can create, either I can be a god or I can be a devil"...
these are the real questions.
My effort is
to make all of you gods.
The moment you are enlightened...
that is another name of the declaration that "I am a god. I am
not created, I have been always here in different forms and I
will be here in different forms. We will be meeting again and
again on different planets, in different times, in different
ages, but we cannot disappear."
So whenever somebody dies, remember a Zen monk, Lieh Tzu. His
last words were, before closing his eyes... he said to his
disciples, "See you again." He closed his eyes himself.
Ordinarily, others have to close the eyes, because a dead man
cannot move his eyelids, so every dead man remains with open
eyes. And the open eyes of a dead man create terror, because you
can see only the whites of his eyes. His pupils have moved
upwards. It looks dangerous, so people immediately close the
eyes.
But Lieh Tzu closed his eyes himself. And before
closing them he said, "See you in another time, in another
place, but see you again." This is a man worth calling a man, a
man of dignity, who does not believe in death.
Those who believe in God are bound to believe in death because
if they are created, they can be uncreated. They are only a
combination of parts. They can be taken apart, they can be put
together again.
But man cannot be put together again for the
simple reason that he is not the body; neither the brain nor the
mind but something far deeper, just a pure awareness of I am.
Never ask "Who
am I?" The moment you ask "Who am I?" you are asking a wrong
question, you are on a wrong track. Soon you will find you are
Niskriya! I say to you that you will find it. Try tonight:
whenever you close your eyes and ask "Who am I?" an answer will
come from inside: "I am Niskriya." Not only to Niskriya - it
will not come to Niskriya, it will come to everybody else.
However you try, you will not be able to get through; Niskriya
will be there.
Ask a wrong question and get a wrong person.
All that is, has always been. Isness is unchanging. Everything
changes - but isness, the very essence of life, remains the
same.
Ruthie
Finkelstein finally persuades her husband, Moishe, to go for a
checkup.
"You look terrible," says Doctor Bones. "Do you
drink?"
"Why, yes," says Moishe, "I start every day with a
bottle of cognac."
"And with that cough," continues Bones,
"you are probably a smoker."
"You bet," says Moishe, "three
packs a day for me."
"Look Mr. Finkelstein," says Bones, "you
are not a healthy man. You are going to have to give up smoking
and drinking right away, and that is an order. And before you
go, that will be thirty dollars for my advice."
"Thanks,
doc," snaps Moishe, "but who is taking it?"
Nobody takes
advice, everybody goes on doing stupid things. And the most
stupid is to inquire, "Who am I?" That is the beginning of going
insane. Certainly you will find somebody that you are: perhaps
Jesus Christ or Hazrat Mohammed or Gautam Buddha; somebody you
will find. It does not matter whether it is Niskriya or Gautam
Buddha; the very idea - Who am I? - points towards a wrong
answer. It can never lead you to yourself.
If Raman
Maharshi had told me to sit down and inquire, "Who am I?" it is
absolutely certain, that I would have told the old man, "You
have gone senile. I know very well who I am and you also know
who you are. There is no confusion." Although his purpose was
different: he was trying so that you could find by and by that
"I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not the brain." And
when you find that nothing remains in your hands, this is you.
But you have
not found the answer to "Who am I?" You have found yourself,
which you were always, whether you have looked into it or not.
Don't be bothered with philosophical questions.
Be concerned
with the existential, with the real, with the ordinary which you
have to face every moment, every day, about yourself, about your
potential.
Who cares about God?
Only stupid people who don't have
anything to do. They go on thinking about strange things.
Now, it is time for prayer, and then many
more things have to be done....
The shy young bride is really upset when she learns that her
husband has been married twice before.
Through her tears, she
asks him what has become of his two previous wives.
"I may as
well tell you," says her husband. "My first wife died from
eating poisonous mushrooms."
"And your second wife?" she
cries.
"She died of a fractured skull," the man answers. "It
was her own fault, she wouldn't eat the mushrooms."
... Vimal, it
seems you have not prayed. This is not right. In fact, you are
enjoying it! Somebody is having a migraine and Vimal is enjoying
it! I have never heard of it, that somebody has a migraine and
somebody else enjoys, but in this world everything happens.
Kowalski is
drinking in a bar with a friend.
"I love America," he says,
"I am so glad I came over here. Where else in the world could
you finish a hard day's work and be waiting for a bus outside
the factory gates, in the rain..."
"What? What is so great
about that?" interrupts his friend.
"Just wait," continues
Kowalski. "Then the boss comes out in his black Rolls Royce,
opens the door and says, `It is a hell of a night - come in out
of the rain.' When you are inside, he says, `That coat's all
wet; let my buy you a new one.'
"And after that, he takes you
back to his mansion and gives you a big meal and a few drinks
and a warm bed for the night. And in the morning, he gives you a
good breakfast and a ride back to work. That would never happen
in Poland."
"Amazing," says his friend, "that happened to
you?"
"Not to me," replies Kowalski. "It happened to my
sister!"
So now get
ready for a let-go. And beforehand, you should remember that
let-go does not mean that you have to laugh and enjoy. This is a
religious experience! It is not entertainment.
Krishnamurti
died. He would have lived if people had listened to him. His
last words were, "People think I am an entertainment - and I am
talking about enlightenment."
But as far as I am concerned,
to me enlightenment is the ultimate in entertainment. You can
enjoy, but for two minutes, let-go is to be total - no noise, no
laughter... just as if there is nobody in the Buddha auditorium.
Let it be an experience of an energy contained within.
And then I will allow it to come up in "Yaa-Hoo!" Then you can
do as much as you want. But first enlightenment, then
entertainment - not vice versa.
Niskriya, are you ready?
So when I say, "let go"... let go.
(QUITE A FEW
OF US, IT SEEMS, ARE HAVING A BIT OF TROUBLE BEING "AS IF THERE
IS NOBODY"... SUPPRESSED GIGGLES KEEP ERUPTING IN WAVES, HERE
AND THERE.)
Unless it is
total, I will continue it....
(NOW IT SEEMS
THE WISH TO CONTINUE IT OUTWEIGHS THE WISH TO BE TOTAL! FINALLY,
OSHO GIVES UP, WITH A CHUCKLE.)
Okay, come
back...