BELOVED OSHO,

OF REDEMPTION

TRULY, MY FRIENDS, I WALK AMONG MEN AS AMONG THE FRAGMENTS AND LIMBS OF MEN!

THE TERRIBLE THING TO MY EYE IS TO FIND MEN SHATTERED IN PIECES AND SCATTERED AS IF OVER A BATTLE-FIELD OF SLAUGHTER.

AND WHEN MY EYE FLEES FROM THE PRESENT TO THE PAST, IT ALWAYS DISCOVERS THE SAME THING: FRAGMENTS AND LIMBS AND DREADFUL CHANCES -- BUT NO MEN!

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST UPON THE EARTH -- ALAS! MY FRIENDS -- THAT IS MY MOST INTOLERABLE BURDEN; AND I SHOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO LIVE, IF I WERE NOT A SEER OF THAT WHICH MUST COME.

A SEER, A WILLER, A CREATOR, A FUTURE ITSELF AND A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE -- AND ALAS, ALSO LIKE A CRIPPLE UPON THIS BRIDGE: ZARATHUSTRA IS ALL THIS.

AND EVEN YOU HAVE OFTEN ASKED YOURSELVES: WHO IS ZARATHUSTRA TO US? WHAT SHALL WE CALL HIM? AND, LIKE ME, YOU ANSWER YOUR OWN QUESTIONS WITH QUESTIONS.

IS HE A PROMISER? OR A FULFILLER? A CONQUEROR? OR AN INHERITOR? A HARVEST? OR A PLOWSHARE? A PHYSICIAN? OR A CONVALESCENT?

IS HE A POET? OR A GENUINE MAN? A LIBERATOR? OR A SUBDUER? A GOOD MAN? OR AN EVIL MAN?...

... IT IS ALL MY ART AND AIM, TO COMPOSE INTO ONE AND BRING TOGETHER WHAT IS FRAGMENT AND RIDDLE AND DREADFUL CHANCE....

WILL -- THAT IS WHAT THE LIBERATOR AND BRINGER OF JOY IS CALLED: THUS I HAVE TAUGHT YOU, MY FRIENDS! BUT NOW LEARN THIS AS WELL: THE WILL ITSELF IS STILL A PRISONER.

WILLING LIBERATES: BUT WHAT IS IT THAT FASTENS IN FETTERS EVEN THE LIBERATOR?

`IT WAS': THAT IS WHAT THE WILL'S TEETH-GNASHING AND MOST LONELY AFFLICTION IS CALLED. POWERLESS AGAINST THAT WHICH HAS BEEN DONE, THE WILL IS AN ANGRY SPECTATOR OF ALL THINGS PAST.

THE WILL CANNOT WILL BACKWARDS; THAT IT CANNOT BREAK TIME AND TIME'S DESIRE -- THAT IS THE WILL'S MOST LONELY AFFLICTION.

WILLING LIBERATES: WHAT DOES WILLING ITSELF DEVISE TO FREE ITSELF FROM ITS AFFLICTION AND TO MOCK AT ITS DUNGEON?...

THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: MY FRIENDS, THAT, UP TO NOW, HAS BEEN MANKIND'S CHIEF CONCERN; AND WHERE THERE WAS SUFFERING, THERE WAS ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO BE PUNISHMENT.

`PUNISHMENT' IS WHAT REVENGE CALLS ITSELF: IT FEIGNS A GOOD CONSCIENCE FOR ITSELF WITH A LIE....

`EXCEPT THE WILL AT LAST REDEEM ITSELF AND WILLING BECOME NOT-WILLING -- ': BUT YOU, MY BROTHERS, KNOW THIS FABLE-SONG OF MADNESS!

I LED YOU AWAY FROM THESE FABLE-SONGS WHEN I TAUGHT YOU: `THE WILL IS A CREATOR....'

HAS THE WILL BECOME ITS OWN REDEEMER AND BRINGER OF JOY? HAS IT UNLEARNED THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE...?

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Zarathustra is absolutely clear that religions have destroyed man's integrity. They have broken him -- not only in parts, but into opposing parts. The greatest crime against humanity has been committed by the religions. They have made humanity schizophrenic; they have given everybody a split personality. It has been done in a very clever and cunning way.

First, man has been told, "You are not the body," and second, "The body is your enemy." And this was the logical conclusion -- that you are not part of the world, and the world is nothing but your punishment; you are here to be punished. Your life is not, and cannot be, a rejoicing; it can only be a mourning, it can only be a tragedy. Suffering is going to be your lot on the earth.

They had to do it in order to praise God, who is a poetic fiction; and to praise heaven, which is an extension of human greed; and to make people afraid of hell, which is to create a great fear in the very center of the human soul. This way they have taken away man and dissected him.

No religion accepts the simple, natural and factual phenomenon that man is a unity and this world is not a punishment. And this world is not separate from man. Man is rooted in this world just as trees are rooted. This planet, the earth, is his mother.

Zarathustra has repeated again and again, "Never betray the earth." All the religions have betrayed the earth. They have betrayed their own mother, they have betrayed their own life source. They have condemned the earth, and they have argued for renouncing it -- renunciation is their continual emphasis.

But how can you renounce your nature? You can pretend, you can be a hypocrite. You can even start believing that you are no longer part of nature; but even your greatest saints depend on nature, just as your greatest sinners do. They need food, they need water, they need air; their needs don't change. What is their renunciation?

It creates a split mind within them. They fall apart into fragments, and these fragments are continuously fighting with each other. This is the root cause of human misery, and it has become almost an established thing because people have been suffering for thousands of years. Now they have started taking it for granted: "This is our lot, this is our fate, this is our destiny. Nothing can be done about it." The reality is, it is neither our fate nor our destiny. It is our stupidity, it is our unintelligence that we have been listening to the priests, believing in their fictions.

Of course, those fictions are very profitable to the priests. They have not bothered to butcher humanity into fragments, because these fictions serve their interests perfectly well. A healthy and whole man, a man who is not divided into fragments, cannot be enslaved by the priests. Only a man who is suffering needs prayer -- in the hope that perhaps God may help him. For God to exist, man has to suffer. To make God more and more a reality, man has to become more and more schizophrenic.

The more man is in pain, the more easily he can be convinced to pray, to do religious rituals, because he wants to get rid of the pain. He can be convinced about the saviors, messengers of God, prophets. But a man who is living blissfully, living a life of joy, does not need any God. A man who is living life does not need any prayer. It is the sickness of man's mind that is absolutely needed for the priests and their profession.

Zarathustra is not a priest. He is perhaps one of the first psychologists to have discovered the schizophrenic state of the human mind.

He says, TRULY, MY FRIENDS, I WALK AMONG MEN AS AMONG THE FRAGMENTS AND LIMBS OF MEN! It is so difficult to find a man who is whole; everybody is just a fragment. Somebody is spiritual, he denies his body; somebody is materialist, he denies his soul. The spiritualist not only denies the body, he also denies the mind.

All theologies are very jealous and very monopolistic. In America, at the end of the last century, there was a great religious movement called Christian Science. They believed only in the soul. Everything else is just an illusion -- just your thought, there is no reality in it. They had their own churches where they used to meet to discuss their great philosophy.

A young man met an old woman on the street one day, and the old woman said, "What happened to your father? -- because he is not coming to our meetings any more."

The young man said, "He has been sick."

The woman laughed. She said, "Sickness is just a thought. He thinks he is sick; otherwise how can the soul be sick? Tell him that this is not right for a Christian Scientist."

After two, three weeks again she encountered the young man, and she asked, "What happened? He is still not coming to the meetings."

The young man said, "Lady, what can I do? Now he thinks he is dead! We tried to convince him, `It is only your thought, you are not dead,' but he does not listen. We reminded him, `You are a Christian Scientist, it is not right for you to believe in a thought. Start breathing!' But he believes in his thought so much that we had to take him to the graveyard. There was no way...."

There are people who are denying even the existence of the body. There are people who are denying even the existence of the mind. And there are also people who are denying the existence of the soul; they say only the body is real and all else is fiction. All these people -- spiritualists, materialists -- are agreed on one point: that they will not leave man natural, one organic unity; something has to be discarded. But that which you discard hangs around you; it is part of you. You can, by constant repetition -- repetition of centuries -- make yourself believe. But if your belief is not according to nature, suffering will be the result.

The whole of humanity is suffering. And the amazing phenomenon is that the suffering of humanity is because of these religious ideas, which do not allow man to grow naturally, to live naturally, to love naturally. And then when suffering comes, they say, "Look! Have we not been telling you that this earth is nothing but a punishment?"

It is a very cunning strategy. First you create suffering, and then you use suffering as an argument to support the idea that you are born in sin, and your being on the earth and not in paradise is a punishment.

Because Adam and Eve disobeyed God, you are suffering. It is a strange logic. Even if Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, it was not such a great sin -- they had only eaten one apple. Because of their eating the apple -- and we don't know whether Adam and Eve ever existed or not -- thousands of years afterwards you are suffering, because you are carrying their heritage. You belong to the line, and your originators were sinners; hence you are also sinners. And the suffering of life proves it; otherwise, why is there so much suffering?

Religions have been very cunning, priests have been very inhuman. They have divided man against himself; fighting with himself he suffers.

Zarathustra is right: TRULY, MY FRIENDS, I WALK AMONG MEN AS AMONG FRAGMENTS AND LIMBS OF MEN!

It is very difficult to find a total man.

The total man will be the superman, the total man will be the happiest man, the total man will have all the blessings this beautiful planet can shower on him. But only the total man can have it.

Why can the total man be blissful? -- because the total man lives totally, lives intensely; each moment he squeezes the juice of life. His life is a dance, his life is a celebration.

And suddenly, when your life is a celebration, you cannot believe that it is a punishment. Then you can see through and through the lies of the priests, and then you don't need any paradise because you have it already here and now. You don't have to postpone it faraway, after your death.

THE TERRIBLE THING TO MY EYE IS TO FIND MEN SHATTERED IN PIECES AND SCATTERED AS IF OVER A BATTLE-FIELD OF SLAUGHTER. Zarathustra sees things very clearly, with a clarity which is rare. What we call humanity he sees as a battlefield of slaughter.

Everybody has been destroyed in some way or other, everybody has been stopped from growing. Everybody is missing something which is absolutely needed, and which was his birthright to have. The condemners -- and all the priests are condemners -- cannot see anybody happy, anybody joyous; they immediately turn upon him and start condemning his joy, condemning his pleasure. And they have developed great arguments about how to destroy people's pleasure.

Their greatest argument is that this life is very small, and pleasure is very ephemeral, continuously changing. Don't be deceived by it, because if you are deceived by it you will miss the eternal blissfulness of paradise.

Naturally, the stake is very big. Just for a small pleasure of enjoying your morning tea, you would not like to destroy your eternal blissfulness in paradise. And this life consists of small pleasures; but if all those pleasures are put together, your life becomes a pleasure unto itself. One does not need big pleasures. And their paradise and its eternal blissfulness is only poetry, because nobody has ever seen it. Nobody has come back and said, "Yes, I am an eyewitness."

In the name of fictitious gods, and in the name of fictitious pleasures, what is real has been destroyed.

AND WHEN MY EYE FLEES FROM THE PRESENT TO THE PAST, IT ALWAYS DISCOVERS THE SAME THING: FRAGMENTS AND LIMBS OF DREADFUL CHANCES -- BUT NO MEN!

THE PRESENT AND THE PAST UPON THE EARTH -- ALAS! MY FRIENDS -- THIS IS MY MOST INTOLERABLE BURDEN; AND I SHOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO LIVE, IF I WERE NOT A SEER OF THAT WHICH MUST COME.

Zarathustra is saying, "Looking at the past of humanity and the present is so painful, is such an agony, that I would never have thought I could survive it. The pain is too much; it would have broken my heart. The only thing that is keeping me alive is the hope that there is still a future. The past is finished. The present is becoming the past every moment. But there is still a hope that man may become free from the chains of religion, that man may see how he has been cheated, deceived, exploited, and in that seeing will arise the total man, the superman.

"Just the hope of the superman is keeping me alive. Otherwise looking at the past and the present is such a burden, is so depressing, that I would have died of the depression."

And Zarathustra is right. It is only the hope that one day man will understand... how long can he remain in the prisons created by the priests? They may call them churches and temples and mosques; it does not matter what names they give to their prisons. It is so painful to see human beings labeled like cattle -- somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan, somebody is a Christian.

Going around the earth, it is very difficult to find a single human being who has not been stamped, who is still free from the mob, who is still free from the crowd, who is still himself, who is one single whole, and who is living fearlessly according to his nature.

Except nature there is no religion.

And you don't have to learn what nature is. When you feel thirsty, you know you need water. When you feel hungry, you know you need food. Your nature continuously guides you. Except nature there is no other guide. All other guides are misguides. They take you away from the natural course, and once you are out of your natural course, misery starts. And your misery is their joy, because only the miserable go to the churches, only the miserable go to the temples.

When you are feeling happy and joyous, young and healthy, who cares about the churches? Life is so rich, and life is such a joy, who wants to enter into those graveyards where sadness is thought to be seriousness? where a long face is thought to be religious? where to burst into laughter... you will be condemned as a madman? where dancing is not allowed? where love is prohibited? where you have to sit listening to dead words, so old and so dusty they don't touch your heart, they don't give a thrill to your being? But these churches and temples and mosques have dominated man.

Zarathustra hopes, just like every mystic, that this cannot go on forever. Someday the intelligence of man is going to rebel.

Rebellion is the only hope. Someday man is going to destroy all these so-called houses of God, because this planet, this sky full of stars, is the only temple there is; all other temples are man-made. And this life in the trees, in the animals, in human beings is the only living God.

The gods that are sitting in the temples are just manufactured by man. It is very strange that these religions go on saying that God created the world, but their gods are created by men. They say, "God created the human being just like himself. He created man in His own image."

The truth is just the contrary -- man has created God in his own image. That's why a Chinese god will be different from a Hindu god, an African god will be different from a European god -- because people are creating gods in their own image. And the stupidity reaches to its extreme: you create those images and then you kneel down before them. Can you think of anything more idiotic? And then you start praying.

Children could be forgiven; they love their toys and they love their teddy-bears. But you have not grown up, you also love your teddy-bears. Your teddy-bears are in your temples, in your churches, in your synagogues. But they are teddy-bears -- they fulfill the same function.

The child feels alone without the teddy-bear. A small child was here a few days ago. His mother is a sannyasin, Amrito from Greece, and when I was in Greece he became very friendly with me. He brought a teddy-bear for me! And he told his mother, "I will not leave India unless I give the teddy-bear to Osho, because he lives alone, he needs some companions."

What are your gods? Consolations, because you feel, even in the crowd, that you are alone. You need a teddy-bear in the sky, an eternal teddy-bear who will be always with you. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent -- he can do anything. He is just a consolation. The people who believe in God have not allowed themselves to be grown-ups. They have remained retarded in their psychology; otherwise there would be no need of any God.

Life is enough unto itself. And it is so beautiful, so full of songs and flowers and birds on the wing -- it is absolute freedom to grow and to be yourself. It does not give you ten commandments, it accepts you as you are. It does not make much fuss about how you should be; its love and respect for all that is living is unconditional.

For what do you need your gods? -- because you are miserable. So this is the strategy: don't let people become happy, otherwise, religion will disappear.

In one of his great insights, Bertrand Russell has said, "If the whole world becomes happy, I can guarantee there will be no religions anymore." And what he is saying has tremendous truth in it. Religions want people to remain poor, to remain sick, to remain miserable, to remain always in anxiety. Then naturally they become weak, and they need some support, and the priest is ready to give the support. He is ready to inform God, "This man needs your compassion" -- although no prayer seems to be heard at all.

But the priests are very clever. They say, "Your prayers are not heard because you are not worthy. You don't deserve. You are sinners. You are committing things against religion." And it is almost impossible to live without committing some sin.

In India one of the religions, Jainism, has five great principles. The first great principle is asad, no taste; eat, but don't enjoy the taste. Now you are putting man in such difficult situations. He has taste buds in his tongue -- unless he goes through plastic surgery and those taste buds are removed, he will have to taste.

When something bitter comes into your mouth you will have to taste its bitterness; and so also with the sweet. But you have committed something wrong, because taste is of the body, and you have to fight against the body; and you are enjoying the body.

They have made everything impossible for man, so everybody is unworthy. And naturally, if you are unworthy... you have desires, you have longings -- all are condemned. You have a biology; you are born out of biology, your every cell is nothing but sexual energy.

You would like to love someone, but all religions are against it -- love, and your hell is certain! But your biology forces you to love, so you love half-heartedly, with fear, with great sadness in the heart, knowing that you are committing a sin. Naturally, you cannot enjoy love; and because you cannot enjoy, you need more; and because you need more, you go on becoming a bigger sinner. So you can say to anybody, without even looking into his biography, that he is unworthy -- that's why his prayer has not been heard.

The fact is, there is nobody to hear it. The fact is, there is nobody to answer it. The fact is that the man who is praying has remained stuck somewhere psychologically.

After the second world war they wanted to know the average mental age of the soldiers, because by that time psychologists had become more efficient at measuring intelligence. They were shocked. They had never thought that this would be the result. The average mental age of the soldiers was thirteen years! And those soldiers are no more unintelligent than anybody else.

So it seems the body goes on growing -- growing old of course -- and the mind stops at the age of thirteen or fourteen. So you may be eighty years old, but when you are kneeling down before a god you are just a thirteen-year-old boy; although you are kneeling with your body -- it is also your psychology.

Religions have done much harm. Nobody has bothered about why the mental age stops at thirteen or fourteen. It is so simple: that is the time when the boys and girls become sexually mature. At the time when they become sexually mature, biology needs no more intelligence.

Unless you make an effort on your own, your mental age will remain at fourteen, thirteen. Biology has come to its fulfillment. You are sexually mature -- this much intelligence is enough to reproduce children. If you want more intelligence, then you have to make efforts for it, then you have to meditate, then you have to sharpen your intelligence.

But all the religions want you never to be intelligent, because their teaching is to believe. A believer need not have any intelligence. Unless you learn to doubt, your intelligence will not grow, because doubt means enquiry; belief means there is no question of any enquiry.

Because of the belief systems imposed on man, his mental age has remained at fourteen, and these fourteen-year-olds are Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans. If their intelligence grows higher, they will start seeing that what they used to think of as religions are nothing but superstitions. If their intelligence goes on growing, they will start doubting about God, about heaven, about hell; they will start doubting about the priest and his religiousness; they will start questioning everything. And religions don't have answers.

Just now I said to you, Jainism believes that no-taste is one of the fundamentals of their religion. I asked one Jaina monk, "If no-taste is a fundamental of your religion, then why have the taste buds been given by nature to man?" Nature never gives anything unnecessarily.

The Buddhist monk has to walk looking only four feet ahead. He cannot look more than that, he cannot keep his head straight because he may see some beautiful woman -- that is the problem. Looking four feet ahead, at the most he can see some woman's feet, but not the woman's face.

But if love between man and woman is something wrong, why should nature give that longing? -- any intelligent person is going to ask. Even Buddha would not have been born. It is good that Buddha's father was not a Buddhist monk; otherwise we would have missed all these great people.

Nature wants to reproduce -- new life, new forms, better life, better forms. Nature is a continuous process of evolution. But religions are against... because the more evolved a person is, the less is the possibility that he can become a victim of any religious stupidity.

Bertrand Russell was one of the most intelligent men of this century. He lived almost a whole century, a long life, and even at the time of his last breath he was as young and intelligent as ever. He went on growing in his intelligence. And the result was, he started doubting all kinds of stupid ideas that had been told to him in his childhood. He was born in a very orthodox time in England, in the Victorian Age; but he could write a book, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.

His book is a milestone, and it has not been answered by Christianity even now, fifty years after its publication. He has questioned every Christian concept, and made it clear: "This is simply fictitious, and only people who are retarded can believe in it."

If intelligence grows, temples will be empty, but life will become immensely beautiful.

"This is the only hope," says Zarathustra.

A SEER, A WILLER, A CREATOR, A FUTURE ITSELF AND A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE -- AND ALAS, ALSO LIKE A CRIPPLE UPON THIS BRIDGE: ZARATHUSTRA IS ALL THIS. He is saying, "I am living only because of the hope that night, however long, is going to end; that the dawn will come -- that the dawn comes to every night. This night in which humanity is living cannot be forever."

But right now he describes his situation: A SEER, he can see far away; A WILLER, and he can will for the superman; A CREATOR, and he is doing everything to create the man that will succeed this humanity; A FUTURE ITSELF AND A BRIDGE TO THE FUTURE -- AND ALAS, ALSO LIKE A CRIPPLE UPON THIS BRIDGE.

He is saying, "I am the future because I can see it. To me, it is almost the present. I can see the dawn is not far away, and I am making every effort to bring it closer. I am a bridge between this humanity and the coming superman, but I am also crippled. I cannot be the superman, I can only be the bridge. Over me will pass humanity, into a new age, into a new space, into a more beautiful and more blissful existence." Zarathustra is all this.

AND EVEN YOU HAVE OFTEN ASKED YOURSELVES: WHO IS ZARATHUSTRA TO US? WHAT SHALL WE CALL HIM? AND, LIKE ME, YOU ANSWER YOUR OWN QUESTIONS WITH QUESTIONS.

IS HE A PROMISER? -- just like others, who have promised much and delivered nothing -- OR A FULFILLER? A CONQUEROR? OR AN INHERITOR? A HARVEST? OR A PLOWSHARE? A PHYSICIAN? OR A CONVALESCENT?

IS HE A POET? OR A GENUINE MAN? A LIBERATOR? OR A SUBDUER? A GOOD MAN? OR AN EVIL MAN?

IT IS ALL MY ART AND AIM, TO COMPOSE INTO ONE AND BRING TOGETHER WHAT IS FRAGMENT AND RIDDLE AND DREADFUL CHANCE.

He says, "Just one thing to be remembered about me -- I am not giving you any promise. I am not proclaiming that I am a messiah, or a messenger. All that I can say is this: IT IS ALL MY ART AND AIM, TO COMPOSE INTO ONE AND BRING TOGETHER WHAT IS FRAGMENT AND RIDDLE AND DREADFUL CHANCE."

And this is my whole art and whole aim. I want to put all the fragments that have been shattered together, and to make men whole. I am against all division, all dualities, and I want man to be just like a child, enjoying life without any fear, with wholeheartedness.

WILL -- THAT IS WHAT THE LIBERATOR AND BRINGER OF JOY IS CALLED: THUS I HAVE TAUGHT YOU, MY FRIENDS! BUT NOW LEARN THIS AS WELL: THE WILL ITSELF IS STILL A PRISONER. Zarathustra has been teaching up to now will to power. Now he goes a little farther ahead. He says, "Even will to power becomes a prison."

One becomes imprisoned in it. One has to transcend that too. First, will to power; and then relax. Forget about the will, and forget about the power, and just be a child playing on the sea beach -- innocent, full of wonder, unafraid of anything, trusting existence totally. That will be your liberation.

He has divided consciousness into three stages: the camel, which is the consciousness of a slave, who wants to be burdened, who is always ready to kneel down and be loaded; the lion, that is the will to power; and the third, the child. The highest is the innocence of the child. The innocence of the child is the only thing that makes you religious.

WILLING LIBERATES: BUT WHAT IS IT THAT FASTENS IN FETTERS EVEN THE LIBERATOR?

`IT WAS': THAT IS WHAT THE WILL'S TEETH-GNASHING AND MOST LONELY AFFLICTION IS CALLED. POWERLESS AGAINST THAT WHICH HAS BEEN DONE, THE WILL IS AN ANGRY SPECTATOR OF ALL THINGS PAST.

The will liberates, but it cannot forget the past. So even though the will power liberates man, he remains secretly burdened with the past memories of those days of slavery and darkness. And there is no way for the will to undo the past -- what has happened has happened. Nothing can be done about it. Only in the innocence of the child, the past disappears.

Have you ever observed one simple experiment? If you try to remember backwards, how far can you go? Four years, three years at the most. When you were four years old, up to that point you remember things. What happens? Why can you not remember those four years? -- because you have lived, and there must have been experiences.

The reason is that innocence does not collect memories. Innocence remains unscratched, nothing is written on it.

That's why you can remember the whole past, but suddenly there comes a stop and that will be either at the age of four if you are a man, or it will be the age of three if you are a woman -- because girls mature sooner than boys. There is one year's difference in their maturity. Girls become sexually mature at the age of thirteen, boys become sexually mature at the age of fourteen. Boys are always lagging behind; girls are more together.

Experienced mothers know -- if they have given birth to two or three children -- whether they have a girl or a boy growing inside them, because girls remain very quiet; even in pregnancy, those nine months they remain very silent. Boys start kicking here and there -- they start playing football! It seems natural to men to be doing something or other. Just to sit silently seems to be very difficult for them; they are fidgety.

Girls are more centered. Perhaps they are closer to nature, because they are going to be mothers and nature is the mother. Boys are just on the margin. It is possible for a girl to enter into meditation more easily than for a boy; naturally, they are calm and quiet. Boys are all over the place, running for no purpose. All boys are Americans -- they love speed. Don't ask where they are going, just ask whether they are going with full speed or not.

If you go backwards, you stop at the age of four or three. What happened to those three years? No trace is left in the memory. You were so innocent that you never collected memories. You lived each moment so totally that it never left any residue.

Memories are made by unlived moments, memories are made by incomplete experiences so they hang around you. They are asking to be completed; they become your dreams. They are continuously harassing your mind, "Something has to be done, it is still incomplete." But the innocent mind lives every moment with such completion that it leaves no marks behind. It is just like the birds flying in the sky -- they don't leave their footprints.

Although the will to power liberates you, there are still chains deep in your memories.

`IT WAS': THAT IS WHAT THE WILL'S TEETH-GNASHING AND MOST LONELY AFFLICTION IS CALLED. POWERLESS AGAINST THAT WHICH HAS BEEN DONE, THE WILL IS AN ANGRY SPECTATOR OF ALL THINGS PAST.

THE WILL CANNOT WILL BACKWARDS; THAT IT CANNOT BREAK TIME AND TIME'S DESIRE -- THAT IS THE WILL'S MOST LONELY AFFLICTION.

WILLING LIBERATES: WHAT DOES WILLING ITSELF DEVISE TO FREE ITSELF FROM ITS AFFLICTION AND TO MOCK AT ITS DUNGEON?

THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE: MY FRIENDS, THAT UP TO NOW, HAS BEEN MANKIND'S CHIEF CONCERN; AND WHERE THERE WAS SUFFERING, THERE WAS ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO BE PUNISHMENT.

`PUNISHMENT' IS WHAT REVENGE CALLS ITSELF: IT FEIGNS A GOOD CONSCIENCE FOR ITSELF WITH A LIE.

Somebody murders, and your courts and your law and your police are going to murder the murderer. But they will do it with a method: there will be a great trial and a great show, "Justice has to be done." But this is all nonsense. The fact is, the society wants revenge. But it wants to camouflage it in beautiful words of justice.

What kind of justice is this? One man is murdered. By sending the other man to the gallows you cannot revive the first man. By sending the second man to the gallows, instead of one murder there are two murders. This is justice!

And are you certain that this man who murdered... he still has a future -- he may change. He may become a great saint. Perhaps because he has murdered -- that very act may bring a transformation to his being.

You are taking away that opportunity and you call it justice. It is pure and simple revenge -- one hundred percent pure revenge. But it is done with great ritual, in a beautiful temple of justice, in the court, where servants of society, paid servants of society are sitting as judges. Paid servants of society will go through a ceremonial ritual -- they call it trial -- and finally the man is sent to the gallows. Nietzsche is saying that this is simply revenge.

`PUNISHMENT' IS WHAT REVENGE CALLS ITSELF: IT FEIGNS A GOOD CONSCIENCE FOR ITSELF WITH A LIE.

`EXCEPT THE WILL AT LAST REDEEMS ITSELF AND WILLING BECOME NOT-WILLING -- ': BUT YOU, MY BROTHERS, KNOW THIS FABLE-SONG OF MADNESS!

People will call you mad.

He is saying, "Life goes on transcending itself." The same rule applies to willing. Will also needs to transcend itself. Willing also has to disappear into silence -- only then the lion changes into a child. Many have wondered how the lion can become the child; they seem to be poles apart.

But such questions are raised by those who don't understand the dialectics of life. Only a lion can become a child because to be innocent in this cunning world needs immense courage -- the courage of a lion. To be trusting in this deceiving world is not possible for a coward, it is possible only for a lion; and the child is innocent, trusting.

It is one of the secrets of life that if you can be innocent and trusting, it is very difficult to deceive you. Your very innocence, your very trust prevents the deceiver.

You may have observed it... I have observed it myself many times, because I have been traveling around the country for almost twenty years, waiting for trains on the platform. If you want to go to the toilet, or you want to have a cup of tea, you strangely trust an absolutely unknown person who is sitting by your side on the bench, and you tell him, "Just look after my luggage, I will be coming. "Have you ever wondered that you don't know that man? He could take all your luggage.

But it never happens, no stranger ever deceives you. There must be some great principle behind it. Your very trusting becomes a barrier. You have trusted him, now he has to prove that he is trustworthy -- although he is a stranger, there is no need to prove anything; he can simply escape with your luggage and you will never see him again. And he may be a thief, may be a criminal. You don't know who he is. But almost everybody trusts strangers on the railway platforms, "Just watch my luggage, I am coming." And I have never heard anybody complaining that his trust has been exploited.

Trusting creates a certain energy around you which has its own protective aura. Innocence prevents people from deceiving you. It is easier to deceive a person who himself is a deceiver; it is easier to cheat a person who himself is a cheat. But someone who trusts, someone who is innocently ready to be exploited and cheated is never exploited and cheated. The very energy of innocence is a great protection. Trust functions almost like a shield.But the world will call you mad.

I LED YOU AWAY FROM THESE FABLE-SONGS WHEN I TAUGHT YOU: `THE WILL IS A CREATOR.'

HAS THE WILL BECOME ITS OWN REDEEMER AND BRINGER OF JOY? HAS IT UNLEARNED THE SPIRIT OF REVENGE?

Unless the will surpasses itself, it cannot forget the past. And if you cannot forget the past, you are chained with it. The last function of the will is to transcend itself, to go beyond itself.

On this point, Zarathustra is in agreement with Gautam Buddha. They both have followed different paths -- Buddha calls this state "desirelessness," and Zarathustra calls it "will-lessness."

You have arrived home. There is nothing to desire, there is nothing to will. You have reached to the fulfillment, to the actualization of your potential. Flowers have come to your being.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.