OshoSpeak – 2009: #9

From ‘The True Sage. Talks on Hasidism’

There are religions – Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and many more – but they are religions, not the religion. They are the reflections of the moon in many kinds of minds, they are not the real moon. The moon is one………..When the religion is not a reflected one – when one comes face to face with reality without any minds whatsoever, when there is no mind between you and the truth – then there is born the religion.

Hasidism is the religion. Sufism is the religion. Zen is the religion. They differ only in names; otherwise they are all the same.




They don’t believe in creeds, ideologies, scriptures, dogmas, doctrines; they know the truth. And when you know the truth there is no need of scriptures.




In Roptchitz, the town where Rabbi Naftali
lived, it was the custom for rich people
whose houses stood isolated, or at the far
end of town, to hire men to watch over
their property by night.

Late one evening, when Rabbi Naftali was
skirting the woods which circled the city,
he met such a watchman walking up and down.
“For whom are you working?” he asked
The man told him, and then inquired in his turn,
“And for whom are you working, Rabbi?”
he asked. The words struck the zaddik like a
shaft. “I am not working for anybody just yet,”
he barely managed to say. Then he walked up
and down beside the man for a long time.
“Will you be my servant?” he finally asked.
“I should like to,” the man replied.
“but what would be my duties?”
“To remind me,” said Rabbi Naftali




When the son of the Rabbi of Lenshno was
a boy, he saw Rabbi Vitzhak of Vorki praying.
Full of amazement, he came running to his
father and asked how it was possible for
such a zaddik to pray so quietly and simply
without giving any sign of ecstasy. His father
answered. “A poor swimmer has to thrash
around in order to stay up in the water.
The perfect swimmer rests on the tide
and it carries him.”




It is reported that Rinzai, a great Zen master, was asked by a disciple that “I have left the whole world, renounced all – now why am I still to wait for nirvana? Why is the enlightenment not happening?”

Rinzai said, “You have left the world, now leave enlightenment also, otherwise it will not happen, because whatsoever you call enlightenment is nothing but the opposite polarity of your world………………..Drop enlightenment also.”

……………………In a single moment it is possible. But if you cling to the duality, then for lives together you can go on and on and on.




Boredom is one of the greatest problems of human life. No animal is ever bored……………No animal, no bird, no tree is ever bored; only human beings are bored – why? They have missed the natural flow of life, they have moved away from life………………Jesus says, “Nobody will be able to enter into my kingdom of God unless he is like a child.” What does he mean? What is the quality of a child? – he is fresh and never bored…………... his consciousness is so fresh that dust never settles on it.




Gurdjieff used to say that there are seven types of men……………The first three types are very ordinary……..The first ‘number one man’ Gurdjieff calls, is body oriented. He lives in the body……..he lives to eat. The second type of man…………is emotional……..sentimental. Number three is the intellectual……….They are almost on the same level…………in India…….the body oriented we have called the sudra. The feeling oriented…….we have called the kshatriya, the warrior…..the intellect oriented we have called the Brahmin, the intellectual, the intelligentsia.

The fourth, the vaishya, the businessman, is in fact not a type but an amalgamation of all the three.

………….These are the three types………..they are all blind.

……….Number four, Gurdjieff calls “one who has become aware.”………..who has become a little alert, who can see…………….With the number four, religion enters into the world.

………………number five, whose awareness has become settled…………he has his own inner light burning.
………….number six whose all discontentment has disappeared, who is absolutely content………….everything is attained, fulfilled; there is nothing to attain………..then why number seven?

With the number seven even contentment disappears……..no content, no discontent; no emptiness, no fullness. The number seven has become God himself. To the number seven we have called the avatara. A Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ, they are number seven.




Zen masters hit their students – beat, throw them out of their houses and windows, jump on them sometimes. But one thing you should remember: they are not angry; that too is part of their compassion…………..it is possible only in Japan. In no other country is it possible, because a certain tradition is needed. For almost one thousand years this has been a tradition. So when a Zen master jumps and beats his disciple, the disciple understands the language……….when a Zen master beats the disciple, he accepts it in deep gratitude…………..Zen disciples deep down hanker for the day to come when the master will beat them. They wait, they pray for it………a strange tradition, but when it goes deep-rooted into the unconsciousness of a country, race, it functions.




Don’t try to practice virtue. Practice only one thing: awareness. Virtue follows it……….Once you enter into your own being and become rooted there, centered there, all, all happens because all the doors are open




References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaddik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinzai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdjieff