The fourth question

Question 4

OSHO, I GIVE AN INCH, I GET A MILE. THE ICEBERG IS MELTING BIT BY BIT. BUT SOMETHING IN ME REFUSES TO ACCEPT THAT IT CAN HAPPEN TO ME.

Deva Mitta,

WE HAVE been brought up with the idea that we are not right, that something is essentially wrong with us, that we are not to be ourselves, that we have to become Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira. One thing certainly has to be avoided: that is becoming ourselves. Nobody has ever told you to be just yourself, hence there is guilt. Everybody is feeling guilty. And whatsoever you do you will feel guilty. because basically you have been conditioned with the idea, poisoned with the idea, that you are wrong and out of you only wrong things can happen.

My approach is totally different. I declare to you that you are perfectly right, that nothing is wrong with you, that you are not to follow somebody else, that you are not to imitate anybody else, that you have to love yourself, trust yourself, that you have to live a life of freedom, a life of rebellion, a life of exploration.

And then miracles start happening. When they start happening, of course you cannot believe it because you had always believed that you are a very inferior kind of person, ugly. You have been told thousands of times that whatsoever you do is wrong. Each child is told every day -- and how many times! -- "What you are doing is wrong. Don't do it! "

A small child was asked at school, his first day at school, "What is your name?"

He said, "My name? Johnny Don't! "

The poor child -- because it is always, "Johnny, don't! " so he thinks that is his name. Whatsoever he is going to do  -- he wants to go out, he wants to play, he wants to sing -- it is always "No! " Slowly slowly he starts thinking of himself as basically wrong.

Religions help the idea that man is born in sin. Adam and Eve committed some wrong -- and I can't think what wrong they committed. Eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge cannot be anything wrong. And if there is anything wrong in it, why did God create that tree in the first place? And we say God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He should have known it before, that if he created this tree then Adam and Eve were bound to eat from the tree. The Garden of Eden had millions of trees, and God told Adam and Eve not to eat from THIS tree.

In fact, he had forbidden them two trees. One was the Tree of Knowledge and the other was the Tree of Life. It is strange! God should have known a little more psychology  -- and it is not much psychology either -- that if you prevent somebody, if you make it an order, "Don't do it!" you challenge the person. It is good that Adam and Eve accepted the challenge. I am all for them. If I have to choose between God and Adam and Eve, I will choose Adam and Eve because they did the right thing. They rebelled, they disobeyed. They said, "Who are you to tell us what we should eat and what we should not eat?" They inquired, they adventured, they risked, they gambled -- courageous people. They gambled Paradise. They said, "We are ready to lose Paradise, but we cannot lost our freedom." They respected freedom more than Paradise itself with all its pleasures. They were not hedonists, they were truth seekers.

And the moment God came to know that they had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge he expelled them immediately, because now he was afraid they would eat from the Tree of Life.

And it seems the Devil who had come to them in the form of a snake was right. He had told Eve, "God is jealous, very jealous. He is afraid that if you eat from the Trees of Knowledge and Life you will be a god yourself. And he is very jealous, he is afraid of that. " And it seems the Devil was right. Otherwise what was wrong with eating from the Tree of Life?

But what God did, the original father, all the parents have been doing to their children since then. "Don't do this, don't eat that..." They go on destroying your integrity, they go on destroying your morale, they go on destroying your respect for yourself. They create a self-condemnation in you.

That's why, Mitta, you cannot believe.

You say: SOMETHING IN ME REFUSES TO ACCEPT THAT IT CAN HAPPEN TO ME.

You cannot accept it because it goes against your whole training, your whole upbringing. And I say to you, you are ENTITLED to miracles, it is your birthright.

And exactly this is the law.

You say: I GIVE AN INCH, I GET A MILE.

Yes, exactly that is the law: you move one step towards truth and truth moves one thousand steps towards you. You take just a little risk and thousands of blessings shower on you. The existence is ready to make you enlightened any moment, only you are unwilling. And why are you unwilling? -- because you have been told that Jesus can be enlightened because he is the only begotten Son of God, Buddha can be enlightened because he is born in a special way; he is no ordinary human being. He comes from the beyond -- he is an AVATARA, an incarnation of God. How can you be enlightened? Krishna can be enlightened because he is born enlightened. You are born unenlightened and you are going to remain unenlightened. At the most you can hope to follow some enlightened one. But following is not much of a dignity, it is not a glory.

I say to you there is no question of following anybody. My sannyasins are not my followers. I am nobody's leader, nobody's guide, I am just a friend. I am sharing my insight with you, and I am grateful that you are allowing me to share it with you. You need not be grateful towards me at all. I am too overfull with my bliss, with my peace, with my insight -- I want to share it. It is like a cloud full of rainwater which wants to shower. It is like a flower full of perfume which wants to share its perfume with the winds, and is grateful that the wind accepts it, that it is not rejected.

It is a question of wrong upbringing. Each child hates his parents, is bound to. Slowly slowly he forgets it because repressed, very deeply repressed. And each society teaches you to respect your parents. Why? Why does each and every society teach the children to respect the parents? -- for the simple reason that they know that if the child is not taught to respect he will hate. Hate will come naturally, hence it has to be repressed by respect.

"Dad," says the little boy, "would you buy me a real gun?"

"Are you crazy, son? Where did you get such a silly idea?"

"Oh, come on, dad, I really want a gun!"

"Don't bother me now, son."

"But I want a real gun, a gun that fires real bullets. Please, dad, give me one."

"Look, Johnny, if you don't stop this I will have to punish you."

"Oh, but please, I gotta get one!"

The father is fed up. He stands up and screams at Johnny, "No! I am the boss here!"

The small boy interrupts, "Yeah! Now you are, but if you buy me a real gun..."

You say, Mitta: SOMETHING IN ME REFUSES TO ACCEPT THAT IT CAN HAPPEN TO ME.

It is such a great miracle that it is very natural that something in you rejects it. We have been fed with many stories of miracles, but nobody believes in them -- not even those who tell them, who teach and preach; even they don't believe in those miracles.

Those miracles that Christians go on thinking Christ did, and Jainas go on thinking happened in Mahavira's life, and Buddhists go on writing about as far as Buddha is concerned, are all inventions. And they have been invented to prevent the real miracle from happening to you. Let me repeat it: all these stupid miracles have been invented and propagated around the world simply to distract you from the real miracle that can happen to you.

Now what is the point of a Satya Sai Baba materializing a Swiss watch? Millions of Swiss watches are available everywhere! How is this going to enrich the world? And in fact, he should be caught by the police because he must have stolen it from somewhere. otherwise how can it be Swiss -- made? It would have been Sai Baba -- made! It is Swiss -- made. Either he has stolen it or he is deceiving you.

Once I was staying in Bombay. A Parsi woman came to me, an old woman, and she said to me, "Satya Sai Baba used to stay at my house, but now I have discovered two things about him. And when I tell people, people think I have gone made."

Now he was spreading a rumour that this woman was possessed by evil spirits, and that woman looked perfectly sane.

I said, "What are those two things?"

She said, "One is, the last time he came here, just out of curiosity when he was taking his bath I looked into his suitcases -- they were full of watches! Secondly, he always makes friends with small boys, so I became a little curious. I looked through the keyhole -- and he is a homosexual! Now I am telling people these two things and people think that I am mad. And both things are absolutely true! And he is spreading the news about me that 'She is possessed by evil spirits.'"

In fact, homosexuality is an ancient religious tradition. To put nuns separate and monks separate is to create homosexuality. It is natural; it is bound to happen.

And these watches... and people think miracles are happening. And Jesus walking on water... I don't think that he was so foolish as to walk on water. But these miracles have been told to you so that you can be distracted from the real miracle, so when the real miracle starts happening you cannot believe it. You can only believe in miracles if they are in stories, and Jesus is nothing but a story to you and Moses is a story.

Moses parted the ocean... I have been trying to part the water in my bathtub and I have not been able to yet! It is all nonsense. Every day for twenty-five years... and I close my eyes and I open my eyes, and it is the same!

It is sill; to believe in such things, but we have been brought up on these silly things.

A Brazilian is sitting by the side of the road with his cow. He sees a Porsche in the distance coming towards him. The driver is a big shot from the city. He stands up as the car draws closer and signals the driver to give him a lift. The Porsche stops.

"Give me a lift, senor," he asks.

"But what about the cow?" says the driver.

"Not to worry, I will tie her to the back bumper."

"What!" exclaims the city slicker. "She won't keep up with this car."

"Oh, don't you worry about her, she'll be all right," drawls the Brazilian.

So off they go, the cow tied to the rear of the car. The city guy, wanting to have fun, accelerates the car to fifty miles an hour. He looks in the rearview mirror and there is the cow running along at the same speed as the car. He cannot believe his eyes... sixty, seventy-five, ninety, one hundred miles an hour and there is the cow right behind.

The driver, both amazed and puzzled, speeds up even more to one hundred and twenty miles an hour, and the cow is still there keeping up with him. When he gets to one hundred and fifty miles an hour he looks through the rearview mirror and notices that the cow is still running but her tongue is hanging out.

"Looks like your cow can't take it for much longer, " he says with relief to the Brazilian. "Her tongue is already hanging out."

"On which side of the mouth is hanging?" the Brazilian asks casually.

"The left side," says the slicker.

"So keep to the right, that means she is signaling to pass you!"

Such things happen in stories, in jokes, but not in reality.

Mitta, what is happening to you is something real. You can beheve m fictions and you have forgotten how lo trust reality. Watch what is happening, respect it, trust it, and it will deepen -- it will become vaster, it will become richer, it will gain many more dimensions to it. You are on the right track, but don't refuse to accept it because if you refuse to accept it then you stop, then you become closed.

Remain open and vulnerable to all the winds and the rain and the sun. Remain available to existence as such. To me, existence is God and there is no other God. And existence is each moment a miracle -- we have just become blind.