Question 6

OSHO, WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE EASTERN MIND MEETS WITH THE WESTERN MIND?

The greatest thing that can happen, the greatest synthesis that is possible.

The western mind is the male mind. The eastern mind is the female mind. The western mind is the active mind -- too restless, too active... almost aggressive, aggressively active. The eastern mind is passive, relaxed -- almost lazy.

You can see the difference. The East is lazy and the West is constantly running for nothing. The question is not where you are going; the only question in the West is how fast you are going. Don't ask where; that is not the point. Don't waste time. Go fast.

In the East, nothing seems to move; everything seems as if there is no movement... time has stopped. The western mind lives with time, is very time-conscious. The eastern mind is relaxed in eternity.

There are benefits to both and there are dangers, harmful effects to both. If you are too active you will become tense; you will get ulcers. Life will be just a constant running, reaching nowhere. You will produce many things, your markets will be full of things, your life will have a better standard. Economically, medically, scientifically, technologically, you will be far more developed. That's good.

But then there are the harmful effects. Inside, you will be very empty. The supermarket will be full, but inside will be totally empty. The outside will become richer and richer and inside will become poorer and poorer. The standard of living will go high, but life will disappear by and by from your hands. You won't be able to say why you are living.

You will live comfortably, conveniently. You will live comfortably, you will die comfortably, but you will not live at all because the interior will be empty. And one has to live from the innermost core of his being. The real-richness comes from the innermost core. Things are good, but not good enough. They are needed -- but man cannot live by bread alone.

In the East, people are relaxed -- so much so that they are almost lazy. It is not good to say relaxed. They are lazy. Of course, in that laziness they can have glimpses of their inner being more clearly. They have nowhere to go, so they go on diving deep within their own beings. All their movement has become inward. Their inner core is richer, but their outward life is so poor and ugly... horrible, nauseating. They are beggars.

If the eastern mind and the western mind meet, that will be the greatest synthesis of the male and the female mind, of the passive and the active mind, and there will arise a balance and for the first time humanity will be born -- a global humanity, neither eastern nor western. It will be simply humanity... whole, total. A western man is half, an eastern man is also half.

"I have heard about one man. He was an indian, but he lived almost his whole life in Germany. He died, and of course, as all indians expect, he expected to go to heaven. But as it almost always happens, he went to hell.

He was very worried. He went to the officer-in-charge. He said, 'There must have been some mistake. I am an indian. I should go to heaven. I am not a german. I was just living in Germany.'

The officer-in-charge took pity on him and he said, 'I can understand your difficulty, but now only one thing can be done. That too is not regular, but for you I will make a concession. You can choose either the indian hell or the german hell.'

'But what is the difference?' the man asked.

'In the german hell,' explained the officer-in-charge, 'you spend half your time eating all the food you want, listening to music and disporting yourself with girls. in the other half of the time you are pinioned to the wall and beaten mercilessly. Your nails and teeth are pulled out and boiling oil is poured over you.'

'And in the indian hell?'

'In the indian hell you spend half your time eating all the food you want, listening to music and disporting yourself with girls. In the other half of the time you are pinioned to the wall and beaten mercilessly. Your nails and teeth are pulled out and boiling oil is poured over you.'

'But there is no difference.'

'There is, in some of the details. In the german hell you have german food, german music and german girls, whereas in the indian hell you have indian food, indian music and indian girls. But both nationalities are first-class in this respect. Certainly, as for the more painful part,' said the officer-in-charge, 'the tortures in the german hell are conducted in the usual german fashion, whereas...'

The man suddenly jumped and said, 'I will take the indian."'

The indians are so lazy that in their hell there cannot be much discipline. There will be chaos. They cannot do anything in a planned way. But of course, in a german hell things are done in a german way.

The eastern mind, because of the interior journey, has become by and by completely oblivious of the outside world. Much is lost that way. Much is gained, much is lost. One becomes more attuned to his inner being, but then poverty, illness, disease, chaos outside.

You can close your eyes and enjoy yourself, but open your eyes in India and everywhere it is horrible. It is impossible to tolerate it, to bear it. That's why indians have learned the trick of closing their eyes and meditating. With open eyes you cannot meditate. It is so ugly all around that it will not be possible to meditate.

In the West, everything is beautiful on the outside, the world has attained much through technology, but that tao is onesided. And people have completely forgotten how to go in. They have forgotten how to close their eyes.

Both are incomplete. And to me, the only possibility for the new man is a great synthesis between the East and the West. And that's what I am trying here in Poona.

I am neither an eastern man nor a western man. I don't belong to any country, to any nation, to any religion, because if you belong to any country you cannot belong to all, and if you belong to any religion, all religions cannot be yours. I don't belong to any. I have no roots in any country, in any religion, in any partial humanity.

And the whole effort here is to create a situation in which the division between the East and the West drops. And that is the same division between man and woman. On a different level, but the same division... between yin and yang. The same division between the active and the passive. The same division between the positive and the negative.