The second question:
        Question 2
        OSHO, WHATSOEVER YOU SAY, I ALWAYS AGREE WITH IT. THEN WHY  IS MY LIFE NOT CHANGING?
      MAYBE BECAUSE OF THE AGREEMENT. If you agree with me, or if  you disagree with me, your life will not change. It is not a question of  agreement or disagreement -- it is a question of understanding. And  understanding is beyond both agreement and disagreement.
        Ordinarily, when you agree you think you have understood me.  If you have understood me then there will be no question of agreement and  disagreement. How can you agree with truth? or disagree? The sun has risen --  do you agree or do you disagree? You will say the question is irrelevant.
        Agreement, disagreement, is about theories, not about truth.  So when you agree with me you are not really agreeing with me -- you start  feeling that I agree with your theory that you have already been carrying with  yourself. Whenever you feel that Osho is in agreement with you, you feel that  you agree with Osho. Whenever I am not in agreement with you, then there is  trouble, then you don't agree with me. Or, you don't listen to that, you don't  hear that. You simply close yourself when I am saying something which does not  agree with you.
        It is not a question of agreement and disagreement. Drop  this! I am not here in search of any converts; I am not trying any philosophy;  I am not here proposing any theology; I am not seeking followers. I am seeking  disciples -- and that is a totally different thing, utterly different. A  disciple is not one who agrees: a disciple is one who listens, who learns. The  very word'disciple' comes from learning, discipline.
        A disciple is one who is open to learn. A follower is  closed. A follower thinks he has agreed; now there is nothing and no need to  remain open -- he can close, he can afford to close. A disciple can never  afford to close; there is so much to learn. How can you agree or disagree? And  a disciple has no ego, so who will agree and who will not agree. A disciple is  just an opening there is nobody inside to agree or not agree. Your very  agreement is creating the trouble.
        And nobody is ever transformed through agreement. Agreement  is very superficial, very intellectual. To be transformed, one needs  understanding. It is always understanding that transforms, that mutates. AND,  when you understand, you are not to do anything -- the understanding will start  doing things. It is not that first you understand, then you practise -- no. The  VERY understanding, the very fact of understanding, goes deep into your heart,  sinks, and there is transformation.
        Transformation is a consequence of understanding.
        If you agree then the problem arises: Now what to do? I have  agreed, now something has to be practised. Agreement is very stupid, as stupid  as disagreement.
        And then mind is very cunning! You never know what you mean  by agreement... A few scenes -- first:
      The boy's mother had died when he was an infant, and his  father had worked hard to raise him properly. Finally, the boy went away to  college. His first letter was a disappointment to his father. It was a  disappointment but the old man did not know exactly why. Surely there was  nothing to despair of in the content. Perhaps something in the tone bothered  him. The letter read: "Dear Dad,
        Everything is fine. I like it here at college. I'm on the  football team. I'm in the best fraternity on campus. I got an'A' on my first  algebra exam..."
        After some thinking, the father was able to put his finger  on the difficulty. He wrote back:
  "Look, son, I don't want to seem to be a silly old man,  but there is something which would make me very happy. It isn't that I think  you're ungrateful in any way. But I've had to work very hard to raise you and  send you to college and I never had a chance to go to college myself. What I  mean is this: it would mean a lot to me if you would say,'We did this and we  did that,' instead of'I did this and I did that.' It would help me to feel --  as if I had a part in it all."
        The boy understood immediately and thereafter letters came  in the form: "Well, Dad, we won this big game last Saturday. We've got a  date with a swell girl. We're going to get an'A' in history." The old man  took earnest pleasure in this sharing of experience. Days were sunny for him.
        One day a telegram arrived: "Dear Dad, We got the  Dean's daughter in trouble. She had twins. Mine died. What are you going to do  with yours?"
      Mind is very cunning. Watch... when you agree with me, do  you really agree with me? or do you find that I am agreeable to you? And then  mind is very legal, mind is a lawyer: it can find ways to agree and yet remain  the same. Not only that, but when you agree you start feeling as if now it is  Osho's duty to transform you -- what more can you do'? -- you are agreeing, you  have done your part. What more can you do? -- you have agreed. you have become  a sannyasin, you have surrendered. What more can you do'?
        Now, if nothing is happening, you start getting angry at me.  Then when I say something to you, it is not exactly the same thing that you  hear. You hear in your own way. You hear with all Your interpretations. You  hear through your past, through memories, through knowledge, through your  conditionings. YOU HEAR THROUGH THE MIND! And the mind gives a color to  everything that you hear. It immediately Jumps on it, changes it, makes it  agreeable to you; drops a few things, exaggerates a few other things, fills the  gaps. Only part of what I have said remains in it and the part can never  transform, only the whole.
        But the whole can remain whole only when you are not making  any effort to agree or disagree. When you are not making any effort to agree or  disagree, you can put the mind aside. If you are trying to make an effort to  agree, how can you put the mind aside? It is MIND which agrees or disagrees.
        Understanding is something bigger than mind. Understanding  happens in your total being. It is as much in your head as it is in your toe.  Understanding is something total. Mind is a very tiny part, but very  dictatorial. And it goes on pretending that it is the whole.
        Second scene:
      Then there was the middle-aged businessman who took his wife  to Paris. After traipsing with her from one shop to another, he begged for a  day off to rest, and got it. With the wife gone shopping again, he went to a  bar and picked up a luscious Parisienne. They got on well until the question of  money came up. She wanted fifty American dollars; he offered ten.
        They couldn't get together on the price, so they didn't get  together.
        That evening he escorted his wife to one of the nicer  restaurants, and here he spotted his gorgeous babe of the afternoon seated at a  table near the door.
  "See, monsieur?" said the babe, as they passed  her. "Look what you got for your lousy ten bucks."
      Your understanding is your understanding. Your  interpretation is your interpretation. You will look from your angle.
        Whatsoever you hear is your interpretation, always  remember  -- beware of it! It is NOT what  I have said: it is what you have thought that you have heard -- and they are  not the same things. You agree with your own echo; you don't agree with me. You  agree with your own idea. Then how can you change? The idea is yours, the  agreement is yours, so there is no possibility of change.
        You please stop agreeing, disagreeing. You just listen to  me. Your method of agreement may be a sort of trick to protect yourself, so  that you don't get the shock. It functions like a buffer. I say something: you  agree immediately. The shock is avoided. If you were not agreeing with me, it  may have shocked you to your very roots, it may have shaken you to your very  guts. I say something; you say, "Yes, I agree." With this agreement  you cut. Now there is no need to be shocked -- you agree. If you were not  agreeing or disagreing... it is the same thing with disagreement. The moment I  say something and there is somebody who says, "I don't agree," he has  cut the energy. Now the energy will not go into his roots and will not shake  him.
        We have created so many buffers around ourselves,  protections. These protections will not allow you to change. To change you will  need to be shocked -- shocked tremendously, terribly. It is going to be painful  -- transformation is going to be painful. Agreement is very comfortable, so is  disagreement. I don't make much difference between agreement and disagreement;  they are two aspects of the same coin.
        The REAL person who wants to be near me and close to me, who  wants to be really in contact with me, will not agree, will not disagree. He  will simply listen to me -- pure listening, absolutely pure listening, with no  interpretation. He will put himself aside. He will give me way.
      The third scene:
        The teacher had just finished giving her first-graders the  basic facts of life. Little Mary raised her hand from a front-row seat.  "Can a six-year-old boy make a baby?"
  "No," said the teacher smiling, "that would  be impossible. Any other questions, class?"
        Pause. Mary again put her hand up. "Can a six-year-old  girl make a baby?"
  "No," said the teacher. Whereupon the little boy  behind Mary leaned forward and whispered loudly in her ear, "Ya see! I  told ya, ya didn't have nothin' to worry about!"
      All your agreements, all your disagreements, are just  finding ways to remain the way you are, not to change. People's whole lives are  devoted to one work: how.not to change. They GO on saying, "I don't want  to be miserable," and they go on doing things which make them miserable.  They go on saying, "I want to change," but I look deep down in them  and they don't want to change.
        In fact, this express desire that they want to change is  again a trick not to change; so they can say to the world, "I am trying to  change and I am saying loudly and shouting loudly I want to change, and still  if nothing is happening what can I do?"
        You cannot change -- the last thing I would like to say  about this question -- YOU cannot change. You can only allow change to happen.  Trying to change, you will never change. Who is trying? The old? Look at the  inner logic of it: you are trying to change yourself. It is almost like pulling  yourself up by your own shoe-strings. What can happen out of it? Nothing is  possible. You cannot change yourself, because WHO is this one who is trying to  change? It is your past. It is you.
        You can allow a change to happen. What can you do to allow  it? Please don't agree and disagree with me. You just listen! You just be here.  You just let my presence function as a catalytic agent. You just get infected  by me. You just catch the disease that I am having, the measles that I am  having. You just allow me. You don't try to change yourself.
        This allowing is what surrender is all about.
        A sannyasin is not one who has agreed with me. If he has  agreed with me, then he is not a sannyasin, then he is a follower. Just as  Christians are followers of Christ -- they have agreed with Christ, but that  has not changed them. Just as Buddhists are followers of Buddha -- they have  agreed with Buddha, but that has not changed them. Can't you see the whole  world is following somebody or other?
        So to follow is a way to avoid change. Please don't follow  me. You simply listen to what is happening here, you see what is happening here.  You just look into me, and you give me way -- so my energy can start  functioning on your energy. It is not a mind thing: it is a total affair... so  that you can start vibrating in the same wavelength -- even for a few moments.
        Those moments will bring change, those moments will bring  glimpses of the unknown. Those moments will make you aware that there is  eternity beyond time. Those moments will give you a feel of what it is to be in  meditation. Those moments will allow you a little taste of God, of Tao, of  Tantra, of Zen. Those moments will bring the possibility of change, because  those moments will come, not from your past but from your future.
        Agreeing it is your past which agrees with me. Opening,  allowing, it is your future which opens -- opens with me. Your possibility of  transformation is in your future. The past is dead and gone and finished. Bury  it! It has no meaning any more. Don't go on carrying it; it is unnecessary  luggage. Because of THIS luggage, you cannot go very high.
        What do you mean when you say, "I agree with you"?  It means your past agreeing, your past feeling good and nodding, and saying,  "Yes, that's what I have always been thinking." This is a way to  avoid the future. Be aware....
        Just being with me -- that's satsang, that's contact high.  Just being with me... in spite of you, a few rays will enter in your being and  will start playing. And then you will become aware that whatever life you have  lived was not life at all, that you have been in an illusion, that you have  been dreaming. Those few glimpses of reality will shatter your whole past. And  then there is transformation.
        It comes naturally of its own accord -- it follows  understanding.