Question 1

OSHO,

YOU JUST TOLD US YOU HAVE NOTHING TO TEACH US, AND LAST NIGHT IT WAS A GREAT SHOCK WHEN YOU SAID AS FAR AS YOU ARE CONCERNED YOUR WORK IS DONE, THAT YOU'RE CARRYING YOUR BODY FOR US. A YOUNG JESUS ALSO SAID, "WIST YE NOT THAT I AM ABOUT MY FATHER'S BUSINESS." WHAT IS OR WHAT WAS YOUR BUSINESS?

When I say my work is done I mean I am finished with any seeking; I mean I have come to realize that there is nothing to be realized, nothing to be known, nowhere to go. This moment is enough, this moment is eternity. When I say my work is done I mean now there is no desire.

Desire is business. You have to do something, only then will you be happy. I am simply happy; it is not concerned with any doing, it is now uncaused. That is the difference between happiness and bliss. Happiness is caused --  you have a friend and you are happy; your beloved has returned and you are happy; you have won a lottery and you are happy. Causes are there; they are beyond you, they are outside you, so your happiness comes from the outside. It is caused, and that which is caused cannot be forever. The beloved may go back, the friend may turn enemy --  friends turn enemy --  and whatsoever you have achieved may be lost. That which is caused cannot always be there, cannot be eternal.

When I say my work is done I mean now my happiness is uncaused. There is nothing that is helping me to be blissful, I am simply blissful. It cannot be taken away. You cannot uncause it if it is not caused. You cannot do anything to it; it is simply beyond, it cannot be destroyed. My business is finished. And when I say my business is finished, I am finished, because I can exist only with the business. Then why am I here? This is one of the oldest questions.

Buddha lived for forty years after he became enlightened. After his business was finished he lived for forty years more. Many times it was asked, "Why are you?" When the business is finished you should disappear. It looks illogical: why should Buddha exist within the body even for a moment? When there is no desire, how can the body continue?

There is something very deep to be understood. When desire disappears the energy that was moving in desire remains; it cannot disappear. Desire is just a form of energy. That's why you can turn one desire into another. The anger can become sex, the sex can become anger. Sex can become greed, so whenever you find a very greedy person he will be less sexual. If he is really perfectly greedy he will not be sexual at all. He will be a brahmachari, a celibate, because the whole energy is moving into greed. And if you find a very sexual person you will always find he is not greedy, because nothing is left. If you see a person who has suppressed his sex he will be angry; anger will be always ready. You can see in his eyes, in his face, that he is just angry; the whole sex energy has become anger. That's why your so-called monks and sadhus are always angry. The way they walk they show their anger; they way they look at you they show their anger. Their silence is just skindeep --  touch them and they will become angry. Sex becomes anger. These are forms; life is the energy. What happens when all desires disappear? Energy cannot disappear, energy is indestructible. Ask the physicists; even they say that energy cannot be destroyed.

A certain energy was existing in Gautam Buddha when he became enlightened. That certain energy was moving in sex, anger, greed in millions of ways. All forms disappeared, so what became of that energy? Energy cannot go out of existence, and when desires are not there it becomes formless, but it exists. Now, what is the function of it? That energy becomes compassion.

You cannot be in compassion because you have no energy. All your energy is divided, sometimes in sex, sometimes in anger, sometimes in greed. Compassion is not a form. Only when all your desires disappear does that energy become compassion, KARUNA. You cannot cultivate compassion. When you are desireless, compassion happens; your whole energy moves into compassion. And this movement is very different. Desire has a motivation in it, a goal; compassion is nonmotivated, there is no goal to it, it is simply overflowing energy.

So when I say I exist for you I don't mean that I am doing something to exist for you. Now I am not doing anything; forms of desire have disappeared. Now the energy is there, without me. The energy is moving and overflowing, and you can partake, you can feed on it. That is what Jesus meant when he said, "Eat me. Let me become your blood, let me become your food." This overflowing energy can become food to you, food of the eternal. I am not doing anything. When I say I exist for you it is only language, for there is no other language. I am not doing anything, this is how it is happening. My forms have disappeared; now a formless energy has remained, and it will go on overflowing. Those who are wise can partake, because soon it will become bodiless also. First energy becomes formless, desireless, and then it becomes bodiless.

The body has its own momentum. When one is born, when a buddha is born, he is born out of a communion of two bodies, the father and the mother; then particular chromosomes, particular cells, create his body. Those cells have a built-in momentum. That built-in momentum means that this body will exist for seventy or eighty years; this is a body blueprint. For eighty years this body can exist. The body doesn't know, cannot know, that the soul that has entered is going to become enlightened. This house cannot know that the person who has entered this house to live will become enlightened. And when this man becomes enlightened, even then this house will not know. The house will continue; it has its own life. The body has its own life, and the body is completely unaware that a person has become enlightened. It continues, it has its own momentum, its own fuel.

At the age of forty Buddha became enlightened. The body became irrelevant but it continued. It continued, it completed its circle; it was there for eighty years. It is good, for these forty years were the overflowing years, and we were able to know what enlightenment is. If Buddha had disappeared that very moment there would have been no religion. If the body had dropped, if Buddha had become enlightened and the body had dropped, he would not have been --  even to tell what had happened. This was good; existence was very compassionate. Buddha lived for forty years more, not with any motivation, but with the momentum of the body he just went on overflowing. This body will also disappear; the momentum has to be completed.

I am not doing anything for you; for that too is sort of egoistic, anybody thinking he is doing something for you. It is happening. The form of desires disappears and energy becomes compassion. The body has to complete its momentum; it has to complete its momentum, it has to complete its blueprint. This gap will be an overflowing. It is a feast, not given by me to you, it is a feast given by the whole.

Language creates problems. Language is always dualistic, language is always of this world. Language belongs to desire and it carries all the connotations, so it is very difficult to say anything about that which is not of this world. Either you have to be silent --  even then, silence too can be misunderstood --  or you have to use language. And every word is loaded.

If I say I am here for you, you can interpret it in such a way that it looks like a business, looks like a work. It is not, it is none of it; it is simply an overflowing of love. And I am not the doer for if I am the doer, there can be no love. Just a light is burning. You may find the path the light is there. You may use it, it may become a flame for you, it may kindle a light within you, but that depends on you. I am simply here.

You are initiated, not by me but the energy itself. Eat me as much as you can, let me become part of you. Celebrate this occasion.

Jesus' words again create problems- words always create problems. Had Jesus been here, had he been here in the country of the Upanishads, Buddha and Mahavir, the language would have been totally different. Jesus was born a Jew; he had to use Jewish language, myth, phraseology. So he said, "The work, the business,

that was given from my father to me, is done." If he had been here he would never have talked about "the father." The father is a Jewish concept; it is good, beautiful, but very anthropomorphic. God is not the father, God is not a person, and God is not in any sort of business. But Jews are businessmen, and their God is also a businessman, the super-businessman- controlling, managing, manipulating. And just as with a businessman you can seduce him, you can bribe him. He is a very real person. He will be angry: if you don't surrender to him he will throw you in hell; if you follow him, you will achieve paradise --  heaven and heavenly pleasures.

This whole language belongs to the world of profit, business. But every language has its own problems. This language is concrete and gives a very family-type appearance to existence: the father, son and the work.... You can reach the father through the son.... Jesus was simply using the language available.

In this country we have tried many linguistic patterns. Hindus use millions of types for Hinduism is not a religion, it is many religions. All types of religions exist in Hinduism; it is a crowd, it is a phenomenon in itself. Every type that has ever existed in the world exists in Hinduism. This is a miracle. Even an atheist can be a Hindu --  an atheist cannot be a Christian --  and even an atheist can become enlightened. Buddha was an atheist, he didn't believe in God. He said there is no God, and even more mysterious, he said there is no soul. He said nothing exists, and he became one of the incarnations of a Hindu God. It is really mysterious. This atheist, Gautam Buddha, became the Tenth avatar. He said there is no God and Hindus said: This man is God's incarnation he is Bhagwan.

Hindus say even a denial is a way of assertion; Hindus say even to say no is to say yes. This is very mysterious. They say even to say there is no God is to say God in a negative way. If God can be asserted in positive language, why not in negative? "It" is a word, "nothing" is also a word, and one is just as relevant as the other. Buddha said no; then no became absolute, nothingness became the nature. Shankara said yes; then yes became absolute, that "yesness," Brahma, became the source. But Hindus say both mean the same. Each language, each pattern of expressing it, has its own benefits and its own dangers and pitfalls.

I myself am inclined towards the negative, hence so much emphasis on Zen masters. I have really loved these anecdotes --  no mind, no truth, no understanding.

Your desire is positive. If God is asserted in a positive way your desire will not die, your desire will turn towards God and you will start desiring God. Negativity is to say no to all your desires, to all your objects of desire. Then all desires and all objects disappear and only you are left in your purity. That purity, that innocence- the benediction of it- is what I want you to enjoy with me. It is not a teaching; I am not a teacher. It is not a doctrine, it is just you enjoying with me. I am available here, and if you put your mind aside we can celebrate. I am in an inner dance; you can also become a partner in it. You may call this my business.

My work is done as far as I am concerned because I am done. Now the energy has become a compassion and an overflowing, and all those who really want to taste are invited to do so without any condition. You are not to give anything, you simply are to take. No discipline, no bargain- nothing is expected on your part. It is a gift. It has always been so, it will always be so; the ultimate bliss is always a gift. That's why we have been calling it grace, PRASAD... as if the divine gives to you out of his overflowing energy.

I will tell you one story Jesus used to say. He repeated it many times- he must have loved this story. He said, "Once it happened, a very rich man needed some laborers in his garden to work, so he sent a man to the marketplace. All the laborers who were available were called and they started working in the garden. Then others heard and they came in the afternoon. Then others heard and they came just when the sun was setting. But he employed them. And when the sun went down, he gathered all of them and paid them equally. Obviously those who had come in the morning became disappointed and said, "What injustice! What type of injustice is this? What are you doing? We came in the morning and we worked the whole day and these fellows came in the afternoon; just for two hours they worked. And a few have just come, they have not worked at all. This is injustice!"

The rich man laughed and said, "Don't think of others. Whatever I have given to you is it not enough?" They said, "It is more than enough, but it is injustice. Why are these people getting when they have just come?"

The rich man said, "I give them because I have got too much, out of my abundance I give them. You need not be worried about this. You have got more than you expected so don't compare. I am not giving them because of their work, I am giving them because I have got too much... out of my abundance."

Jesus said some work very hard to achieve the divine, some come just in the afternoon and some when the sun is setting, and they all get the same divine. Those who had come in the morning must object: "this is too much!"

You just see: you have been meditating so much and suddenly someone comes just at evening and becomes enlightened. And you have been such a great ascetic. Just look: if all the ascetics reach and see that sinners are sitting just by the side of the throne of God, what will happen? They will become so sad: "What is happening?- these sinners never disciplined their lives, they never worked and they are here; and we were thinking they would be in hell!" There is no hell; there cannot be. How can hell exist? Out of God's abundance everything is heaven. It should be so, it must be so, it has to be so. Out of his abundance is heaven, there can be no hell. Hell was created by these ascetics because they cannot conceive of sinners in heaven. They have to make compartments; they cannot think that you will be there.

It is reported that one Hassid, a rabbi, Baal Shem, was visited by a woman. She was about seventy, h er husband was eighty, and now, by and by, was becoming a virtuous man. His whole life he had been a sinner so she had come to give her thanks that he had finally converted her husband --  which was impossible as he had been a sinner his whole life. But now he was turning so she was very thankful to Baal Shem. She had always been a pious lady, never wavered, never went wrong, always had been on the right track and always thinking that heaven was just waiting to welcome her, and always knowing well that this husband of hers was going to hell. So she said to Baal Shem, "There can be hope now- even my husband may reach heaven."Baal Shem laughed and said, "The greater the sinner, the greater the saint."

The woman became sad and said, "Then why didn't you tell me before? You should have told me forty years before."

The greater the sinner, the greater the saint. This woman will be in such hell if she finds her husband in heaven. These so-called virtuous people have created hell; otherwise, out of divine abundance, hell cannot exist. Saints will receive for they come in the morning; sinners will receive and they may have come in the evening. Everyone is going to receive. It is a gift.

I am here, not as a business but as a gift. But you are so afraid and fearful. You can understand business; you know the terms; you cannot understand a gift, you don't know the terms. You can understand if you have to fulfill some condition. If nothing is required of you, you are simply at a loss.