Question 2

BELOVED OSHO,

MY MIND IS ALREADY WORKING ON THE PARADOX I FIND BETWEEN YESTERDAY'S TALK AND TODAY'S.

TODAY YOU HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT SPONTANEITY OF RESPONSE TO NEW SITUATIONS, SEEING THEM AS FRESH. YESTERDAY, ONE OF THE MESSAGES FROM THE STORY ABOUT JOSHU WAS THAT SITUATIONS ARE ALL THE SAME, PEOPLE THE SAME. HENCE JOSHU OFFERED THREE PEOPLE A CUP OF TEA.

TO ME, THIS IS A PARADOX.

Yesterday is no more; Joshu has died. Only today is - and even that has passed. Only this moment is.

The mind looks at things and finds paradoxes because the mind thinks of the past, the present and the future. Only the present is. The mind finds paradoxes because the mind is always moving from the past to the present and then to the future. Once you were a tiny cell in the womb of your mother, so tiny that you could not be seen by naked eyes. Now you are totally different, you are young, but sooner or later, you will be old, crippled. Now you are alive but the day will come when you are dead.

When the mind thinks all these things together, a child and an old man become a paradox. How can a child be old, a young man old? For the mind birth and death become a paradox because they can both be thought; for existence, when there is birth there is no death, when there is death there is no birth. For existence there is nothing paradoxical, but the mind can look at the past, the present and the future, and these are paradoxes.

Yesterday you heard me; be finished with it. There is no more yesterday but the mind carries it. If you really heard me yesterday you will not carry it, for if you carry it how can you hear me today? The smoke of yesterday will be a disturbance; there will be that smoke and you will only hear me through yesterday and you will miss.

Yesterday should be dropped so you can be here and now. There is no paradox, but if you compare yesterday and today then it comes. If you compare birth and death, the paradox comes. Today and yesterday cannot exist together, they can exist together only in the memory. Existence is non-paradoxical, the mind is paradoxical.

Why think about yesterday? If you are thinking about it how can you be here? That will be difficult. Because of yesterday you will not be able to hear me today.

Did you hear me yesterday? - for there have been other yesterdays. And will you be able to hear me tomorrow? -  for this today will have become yesterday. The film of all the yesterdays is there; through that film it is difficult to penetrate into the present.

So all that I can say is be here, Joshu is dead. The man who was talking here yesterday is no more; he is dead. There is no question of consistency or inconsistency.

Tomorrow I will not be here, you will not be here; it will be absolutely fresh. And when two freshnesses meet there is a spark, a spark that dances, and a dance that is always consistent.

A carried past creates problems. The problem is not what I said yesterday or what I am saying today; the problem is that you carry yesterdays and miss today. And whatever you think you have heard, I've not said. You may think you have heard it, but through so many yesterdays you will interpret whatever I say. You will think meanings into it which are not there; you will miss things that are there, and it will become something of your own. Then you will create many paradoxes and the mind will become puzzled and confused. Go on dropping the yesterdays.

I am not a philosopher or a systematizer; I am absolutely anarchistic, as anarchistic as life itself. I don't believe in systems.

If you go to a Hegel or a Kant and say that this is contradictory, immediately they will say no; they will immediately show that it is not contradictory. If you can prove that it is contradictory they will drop one part so their system becomes consistent.

One gambler was saying to another gambler, "Yesterday I met this guy, a wonderful man, a great mathematician and economist. He has discovered a system through which a family can live without money."

The other gambler became interested wanting to know immediately what the system was. He asked, " Does it work?"

The friend replied, "The system is wonderful but there is one loophole - it doesn't work. That's the only loophole; otherwise the system is wonderful."

All systems are wonderful. Those of Hegel, Kant, Marx are all wonderful. The only loophole is this - they are dead.

I have no system. Systems can only be dead, they cannot be alive. I am a nonsystematic, anarchistic flow; not even a person, just a process. I don't know what I said to you yesterday. The person who said it is not here to answer; he is gone, I am here. And I am answerable only for this moment, so don't wait for tomorrow for I will not be here. And who is going to make consistency, who is going to find a thread that is not contradictory? There is nobody. And I would like you to be the same.

Just this moment exists, absolutely consistent, for there can be no comparison. There is no past, no future; only this moment is. How can you compare? If you live in this moment there will come a consistency which is not of a system, which is of life, which is of the energy itself. That will be an inner consistency of your very being, not of the mind.

I am interested in the being not in the mind, so don't take my answers very seriously; they are just play, play with words. Enjoy them and forget them; enjoy me but don't try to systematize me. The whole effort is useless, and in that effort you miss much that is beautiful; you miss much that can become a deep ecstasy in you.

Look at me and don't be bothered with what I say; be with me and don't be bothered about theories and words. Act with me, listen to me, and don't try to think about it; and this listening should be an act, not a mental effort. I am not trying to convince you, I am not trying to give you a belief; I am not trying to create any religion or sect - no doctrine is implied. When talking to you, I am there; talking is just an excuse. I may be using one sect today, another tomorrow. If you look at my sect, you will say, " You are inconsistent. Yesterday you had this sect and today, this."

I say :Look at me, words are just dressings. I am consistent, my being is consistent; it cannot be otherwise. How can your being be inconsistent? There is no gap in it, it is a continuum, but the mind starts thinking, comparing, and then problems arise.

Once it happened that a disciple came to a Zen master and asked, "Why are a few people so intelligent and a few so stupid? Why are a few people so beautiful and a few so ugly? Why this inconsistency? If God is everywhere, if he is the creator, then why does he create one ugly and another beautiful? And don't talk to me about karmas. I have heard all those nonsensical answers - that because of karmas, past lives, one is beautiful, another is ugly. I am not concerned with past lives. In the beginning, when there was no yesterday, how did the difference come? Why was one created beautiful and another ugly? And if everyone was created equal, equally beautiful and intelligent, how can they act differently, how can they have different karmas?"

The master said, "Wait! This is such a secret thing that I will tell you when everybody has left." So the man sat, eager, but people kept coming and going and there was no chance. But by the evening everybody had left so the man said, "Now?"

And the master said, "Come out with me." The moon was coming up and the master took him in the garden and said, "Look, that tree there is small, this tree here is so tall. I have been living with these trees for many years and they have never raised the question of why that tree is small and this tree is big.

"When there was mind in me, I used to ask the same question sitting under these trees. Then my mind dropped, and the question dropped. Now I know. This tree is small and that tree is big; there is no problem. So look! There is no problem."

The mind compares. How can you compare when the mind is not? How can you say this tree is small and that tree big? When the mind drops, comparison drops, and when there is no comparison the beauty of existence erupts. It becomes a volcanic eruption, it explodes. Then you see the small is big and the big is small; then all contradictions are lost and the inner consistency is seen.

Drop the mind and listen to me, then you will not ask, "Why yesterday? Why this today and that yesterday?" Then there is no yesterday and no today; then I am here and you are here. There is a meeting, and this here and now, when the mind is not there, becomes a communion.

I am not interested in communicating something to you, I am interested in communion. Communication means my mind talking to your mind. Communion means I am not a mind, you are not a mind - just your heart melting into my heart, no words.