It has always been so. People live in such an unconscious state that it is almost impossible for them to understand anything. Misunderstanding comes natural to them. The mind functions as a distorting mechanism. They cannot see what is. They project something onto it, and they never become aware that they go on seeing their own projection.
If somebody is sexually obsessed, whatsoever he says, whatsoever he hears, whatsoever he sees, will somehow be coloured by his obsession. And humanity has lived under sexual obsessions. Religions have repressed so much that every human being is a victim so he cannot see what is. He distorts it and gives it a colour of his own. He cannot even listen because the moment the words enter him, they no more have the same meaning.
So what I say is not necessarily what is heard. People will listen with their own minds. And my words have to go through their thoughts. By the time it reaches their being, it is almost unrecognisable. People have no right vision, no right listening, no right understanding. But that is understandable. They cannot have it. If it were otherwise it would be miraculous. So they have always done that. When Socrates or Jesus or Buddha is there, they do the same again and again and again.
They misunderstand, and upon their misunderstanding, organisations arise, churches are built, dogmas and creeds are settled, theologies throb. They are all based, not on jesus, but on the misunderstanding of people who thought that they understood Jesus.
So this strange thing happens – that Christianity is based on the misunderstanding of Christ, not on Christ. Buddhism is based on the misunderstanding of Buddha, not on what Buddha was. So every religion is the enemy of its own founder. And it is very difficult to sort it out because there are two thousand years of misunderstanding and accumulation and argument. Now it is almost impossible to sort out what Jesus was like, what exactly he was saying. It is so distant and the interpretations are so many. Thick is their crowd... centuries of tradition. They have prestige and they have power – they are the authority.
This is my observation – that Jesus was not killed by Jews; he has been killed by Christians. The Jews could only crucify his body but that’s nothing; that is immaterial. One day he was going to die, so how he dies doesn’t matter much. The body had to be left. Whether it is left on the cross or sleeping in a bed makes not much difference. It is irrelevant in a way. But the real death happened through Christianity. They killed the very spirit – but they think they are helping to spread his message.
Misunderstanding is the whole history of the human being. And it is tremendous! I am here but people will not come to me. They will listen to somebody and will form a prejudice. They will ask you but they will not come to the ashram and see what is happening here. That too is a defense, because if they come, perhaps, maybe truth will be so much that it may not allow them to misinterpret it. The fact may be so heavy that they will not be able to carry their fiction. So they don’t come close to the fact; they avoid it. Then it is very easy and cosy – their own mind, their own prejudices, and they go on applauding themselves. But they are not fooling anybody. They are just fooling themselves. And these people have always missed.
So watch it. It is good to watch these people. It will help you much towards self-understanding because that’s how the mind functions. Never believe anything unless you have experienced it.
Never form any prejudice, even if the whole world is saying that it is so, unless you have encountered it.
In India there has been a great mystic, Kabir. He says, ’Never believe in the ears – just believe in the eyes. All that you have heard is false. All that you have seen is true.’ This should be carried as a constant remembrance because we are human beings and we tend to say falacies. We are part of this whole mad world, and that madness is inside every human being. It has not to be allowed to overpower you. One has to remember continuously. And if this much can be done.... It is arduous, because prejudices are very comfortable and easy; you don’t have to pay for them. Truth is costly, precious. You have to pay much. In fact you have to put your whole life at stake. Then you arrive at it. But only truth liberates.
So looking at other people and the functioning of their mind, always remember that the same type of mind is hidden in you also. So never listen to it. It will persuade you; it will argue, it will try to convince you. Just tell it, ’I will see for myself. I am still alive. I can encounter whatever is needed.’
That is the difference between belief and trust. Belief Is through the mind. Trust is through your own experience. Belief is just intellectual. Trust is total.
And if you start seeing, listening, without any prejudice, a great discipline arises in your life. They have a word in Latin for listening, ’obedire’. The english word ’obedience’ comes from that. If you rightly listen, it creates obedience. If you rightly see, it brings its own discipline. The basic question is that inside, one should be perfectly empty while listening, perfectly empty while seeing, perfectly empty while touching . . . no prejudice for or against, uninvolved, having no subtle leanings, because that leaning destroys the truth... having no leaning at all, allowing truth to be... not forcing it to be something else but allowing it, whatsoever it is. This is the austere life of the religious man.
This is real austerity: to allow truth to have its own say, not disturbing, not coloring, not manipulating, not managing it in some way according to one’s own beliefs.
When truth is allowed to be itself, naked and new, a great discipline arises in you – obedience. A great order arises in you. Then you are no more a chaos; for the first time you start gathering a centre, a nucleus, because truth known immediately becomes your truth. Truth known as it is, immediately transforms you. You are no more the same person. The very vision, the very clarity and the very experience of what truth is, is a sudden mutation. It is the revolution that religion is all about.
So keep this always in mind and be alert. And if you have started feeling, even a little, the first step of being responsible towards yourself, then I am going to be with you, because my whole effort here is to make you responsible towards your own life.
It is your life and it is tremendously precious. It is not something to just be thrown, wasted. And nobody can do anything unless you decide to do something with your being, your future. Only your decision is decisive. This is what responsibility is. It is great. It is almost frightening. If there is a God, He is responsible, so you can remain juvenile, immature. No need to be worried – the Father is there and He looks after you. Even if you do something wrong, His heart is great and He is always forgiving, so He will forgive.
Humanity has played these tricks for a long time. And because of these tricks, people have not grown, have not become mature.
To be absolutely responsible means that there is nobody who is looking after you. You have to look after yourself. There is nobody to whom you can say, ’You are responsible.’ All responsibility is yours. If you become a wastage, it is because of you. If you go into hell, it is because of you. If you reach to heaven, it is because of you. All possibilities are open.
So each step is dangerous and one has to be very very alert. This very alertness, this responsibility, this feeling of responsibility, makes one mature. One becomes ripe and then one takes one’s life into one’s own hands. That very moment you are no more part of the fast-asleep humanity. A little awakening has happened. And I can see that that has happened.
But it can be lost, so one has to go on supporting it, helping it. One should never feel satisfied, because all that can be gained can be lost. The old habits are great and deep-rooted, but the light is very small and the grip of darkness is very old. The past is almost like an ocean. The new that has arisen is such a small wave, just a ripple. The ocean can drown it. So one has to fight for it so that it is not drowned, but rather, the ripple becomes so big that by and by the ocean is drowned in it. This is what Gurdjieff used to call ’the work'
A Rose is a Rose is a Rose
Osho
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