BELOVED OSHO,

PROLOGUE PART 4

WHAT IS THE GREATEST THING YOU CAN EXPERIENCE? IT IS THE HOUR OF THE GREAT

CONTEMPT. THE HOUR IN WHICH EVEN YOUR HAPPINESS GROWS LOATHSOME TO YOU,

AND YOUR REASON AND YOUR VIRTUE ALSO.

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY HAPPINESS? IT IS POVERTY AND DIRT AND

A MISERABLE EASE. BUT MY HAPPINESS SHOULD JUSTIFY EXISTENCE ITSELF!’

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY REASON? DOES IT LONG FOR KNOWLEDGE

AS THE LION FOR ITS FOOD? IT IS POVERTY AND DIRT AND A MISERABLE EASE!’

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY VIRTUE? IT HAS NOT YET DRIVEN ME MAD!

HOWTIRED I AM OF MY GOOD AND MY EVIL! IT IS ALL POVERTY AND DIRT AND MISERABLE

EASE!....

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY, ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY PITY? IS NOT PITY THE CROSS UPON

WHICH HE WHO LOVES MAN IS NAILED? BUT MY PITY IS NO CRUCIFIXION!’

HAVE YOU EVER SPOKEN THUS? HAVE YOU EVER CRIED THUS? AH, THAT I HAD HEARD

YOU CRYING THUS!

IT IS NOT YOUR SIN, BUT YOUR MODERATION THAT CRIES TO HEAVEN, YOUR VERY

MEANNESS IN SINNING CRIES TO HEAVEN!

WHERE IS THE LIGHTNING TO LICK YOU WITH ITS TONGUE? WHERE IS THE MADNESS,

WITH WHICH YOU SHOULD BE CLEANSED?

BEHOLD, I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN: HE IS THIS LIGHTNING, HE IS THIS MADNESS!....

MAN IS A ROPE, FASTENED BETWEEN ANIMAL AND SUPERMAN – A ROPE OVER AN ABYSS.

A DANGEROUS GOING-ACROSS, A DANGEROUS WAYFARING, A DANGEROUS LOOKINGBACK,

A DANGEROUS SHUDDERING AND STAYING-STILL.

WHAT IS GREAT IN MAN IS THAT HE IS A BRIDGE AND NOT A GOAL; WHAT CAN BE LOVED

IN MAN IS THAT HE IS A GOING-ACROSS AND A DOWN-GOING.

I LOVE THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOWHOWTO LIVE EXCEPT THEIR LIVES BE A DOWN-GOING,

FOR THEY ARE THOSE WHO ARE GOING ACROSS.

I LOVE THE GREAT DESPISERS, FOR THEY ARE THE GREAT VENERATORS AND ARROWS

OF LONGING FOR THE OTHER BANK.

I LOVE THOSE WHO DO NOT FIRST SEEK BEYOND THE STARS FOR REASONS TO GO DOWN

AND BE SACRIFICES: BUT WHO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES TO THE EARTH, THAT THE EARTH

MAY ONE DAY BELONG TO THE SUPERMAN.

I LOVE HIM WHO LIVES FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WHO WANTS KNOWLEDGE THAT ONE DAY

THE SUPERMAN MAY LIVE. AND THUS HE WILLS HIS OWN DOWNFALL....

I LOVE HIM WHO LOVES HIS VIRTUE: FOR VIRTUE IS WILL TO DOWNFALL AND AN ARROW

OF LONGING....

I LOVE HIM WHO DOES NOT WANT TOO MANY VIRTUES. ONE VIRTUE IS MORE VIRTUE

THAN TWO, BECAUSE IT IS MORE OF A KNOT FOR FATE TO CLING TO....

I LOVE HIM WHO IS ASHAMED WHEN THE DICE FALL IN HIS FAVOUR AND WHO THEN ASKS:

AM I THEN A CHEAT? – FOR HE WANTS TO PERISH.

I LOVE HIM WHO THROWS GOLDEN WORDS IN ADVANCE OF HIS DEEDS AND ALWAYS

PERFORMS MORE THAN HE PROMISED: FOR HE WILLS HIS OWN DOWNFALL.

I LOVE HIM WHO JUSTIFIES THE MEN OF THE FUTURE AND REDEEMS THE MEN OF THE

PAST: FOR HE WANTS TO PERISH BY THE MEN OF THE PRESENT.

I LOVE HIM WHO CHASTISES HIS GOD BECAUSE HE LOVES HIS GOD: FOR HE MUST PERISH

BY THE ANGER OF HIS GOD.

I LOVE HIM WHOSE SOUL IS DEEP EVEN IN ITS ABILITY TO BE WOUNDED, AND WHOM

EVEN A LITTLE THING CAN DESTROY: THUS HE IS GLAD TO GO OVER THE BRIDGE....

I LOVE ALL THOSE WHO ARE LIKE HEAVY DROPS FALLING SINGLY FROM THE DARK CLOUD

THAT HANGS OVER MANKIND: THEY PROPHESY THE COMING OF THE LIGHTNING AND AS

PROPHETS THEY PERISH.

BEHOLD, I AM THE PROPHET OF THE LIGHTNING AND A HEAVY DROP FROM THE CLOUD:

BUT THIS LIGHTNING IS CALLED SUPERMAN.

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Zarathustra continues to talk to the audience, which consists only of the blind and the deaf and

the heartless. But his love and his compassion is such that he does not ask them to be worthy to

understand him.

I am reminded of Bodhidharma, a man of the same height of consciousness as Zarathustra. He

remained sitting before a wall, facing the wall, keeping his back towards the audience for nine years.

People would come, but he would talk to the wall; people would ask questions, but he would answer

to the wall.

The emperor of China, Wu, was very much puzzled with this strange man. He asked him, ”Why

do you face the wall? this is absolutely unheard of. You are talking to the people; you should face

them.” Bodhidharma had tears in his eyes, and still facing the wall he said, ”I have talked for many

years to many people, facing them, but I have always found I am talking to the wall. They hear, but

they don’t listen. They appear to understand, but they only misunderstand.”

And particularly a man like Zarathustra or Bodhidharma is bound to be misunderstood, because

they are absolutely non-compromising with your lies, with your beliefs. Their truth is going to shatter

you completely. To protect yourself, either you don’t hear what they are saying or you interpret it in

such a way that it does not disturb you. You will be extremely surprised that modern research has

found that almost ninety-eight percent is being censored out – only two percent reaches to you.

Zarathustra is saying tremendously significant statements which can become the foundation of a

new humanity, but he has to be understood with great sympathy. He has to be heard not only by

your mind, but by your being too. Unless every cell of your body is thrilled by what he is saying, you

will not understand him.

Do not depend only on the mind: mind – rather than understanding – always creates

misunderstanding, because mind has already its own prejudices. It clings to its prejudices. It allows

in only those things which support its prejudices; otherwise it does not allow them in. Or even if by

chance they have entered in, it interprets them, dilutes them, destroys their fire, takes their living

quality. They become just hypotheses, they lose their reality, they cannot transform you.

Only a truth that reaches to your heart alive, dancing, is capable of taking you beyond your present

state of consciousness. In these statements there are thousands of gems spread all over, but one

needs to be a jeweler to understand them.

An old fable of Aesop is: A farmer is returning home with his donkey, and finds by the side of the

road, perhaps the biggest diamond in existence, but the poor fellow has no idea that it is a diamond.

He has heard the word, but he has never seen one. Still it is shining so beautifully in the sunrays,

that he thinks, it is a beautiful stone and I have never given anything to my poor donkey. He will

enjoy it very much. So he ties the stone around the neck of the donkey.

As they move on, a jeweler approaching on his horse is so shocked: he has never seen such a

great diamond, and that too tied on a donkey’s neck. He stops his horse and asks the owner of the

donkey, ”How much will you take for it?” The farmer said, ”It is a stone; perhaps one rupee will be

enough.”

But greed is such, that the jeweler, knowing it is worth millions of rupees, says, ”You are asking too

much just for a stone. I will give you eight annas, half a rupee.” The farmer thought for a moment,

and then he said, ”Then let my donkey enjoy it. I am not selling it.”

As chance will have it, by great coincidence, another jeweler comes by in his chariot, and almost

has a heart attack when he sees.... He asked the owner, ”How much is the price?” Now the owner

started becoming a little alert: The stone seems to be precious. He said, ”Two rupees will do.” Just

the poor man’s imagination; two rupees are too much.

The first jeweler has gone slowly, just a little bit, hoping that the farmer will think that eight annas,

half a rupee, just for a stone is too much. He will agree, he just needs a little time.

But when he saw a chariot standing there, he rushed to the place and he asked the farmer,

”Remember I was the first to enquire the price of the stone? I am ready to give you one rupee.”

The other jeweler said, ”I am ready to give him two rupees.” And there was a contest; the owner was

simply listening. They were talking numbers that he could not understand.

Finally the farmer said, ”Don’t unnecessarily waste your time; I have decided not to sell it. I don’t

understand your numbers, but one thing is certain: I have to go to the marketplace and seek a few

more opinions about the stone. The stone is not an ordinary stone, that much is certain, and I am

very grateful to both of you.”

The first man said, ”But you are foolish. We are ready to give lakhs of rupees.” The farmer laughed,

and said to his donkey, ”Have you listened? Who is foolish? I was selling it at one rupee, and I was

not aware that it is something so precious. Then he said to the jeweler, ”I am a poor man, you are

a jeweler, you know exactly how much is the value, and still you did not agree to give me just one

rupee. Who is foolish? I was ignorant of the fact that it has any value, but you were perfectly aware,

and still you wanted to save half a rupee.”

They both tried. They said, ”We will not conflict. We will purchase it together.” He said, ”Now it is too

late. I have become aware so I am going to the market, and I will ask all the jewelers. First, I will

have to find out how much this stone is worth, and then I will think whether I want to sell it or let my

donkey enjoy it.”

People like Zarathustra, in each of their words, are giving you gems of immense value. But it

depends on your understanding, intelligence, alertness; otherwise you will hear them just like

anybody else talking. Remember the same words have different values when they come from

different mouths. When an ignorant man speaks, he may be using the same words, but they

are empty: They don’t have any value. When a man like Zarathustra speaks, the same words

immediately become so valuable, because the man behind the word is the meaning of the word. His

experience is the content of the word.

WHAT IS THE GREATEST THING YOU CAN EXPERIENCE? It is almost impossible to imagine

Zarathustra’s answer. He says, IT IS THE HOUR OF THE GREAT CONTEMPT – the contempt for

your ignorance, the contempt for your hate, the contempt for your jealousy, the contempt for your

mundane life, the contempt for all the animal instincts within you. In short, the contempt for yourself

is the greatest experience you can experience. And only those who have gone beyond humanity are

the people who have contempt for everything that man consists of.

It is all rotten: your beliefs are rotten; your ideologies are dead; your religions are nothing but

imprisonments; your philosophies are just castles in the air.

What do you have? Your life has not produced, has not been creative of something that can make the

universe more beautiful, more valuable. You are just a burden on the earth, unnecessarily occupying

space, unnecessarily stopping somebody else who may have been a creator, who may have been

a Zarathustra.

It hurts for the first time when you hear it: that the greatest thing you can experience is the hour

of the great contempt, the hour in which even your happiness grows loathsome to you. What is

your happiness?... so mundane, so ordinary, so repetitive: there is nothing great in it. But nobody

thinks about what his happiness consists of. Somebody’s happiness is good food, somebody’s

happiness is sexuality, somebody’s happiness is accumulation of money, somebody’s happiness is

fame, somebody’s happiness is power.

Jayesh was telling me the other day that one of his friends was writing a book on Indira Gandhi, and

remained for many months to watch her life, to ask her questions. One day when they were both

alone, he asked a simple question, and he was shocked when he heard the answer; you will also be

shocked.

His question was, ”We have been discussing great problems – philosophical, political, social,

religious, educational – and today I want you to answer me a simple thing. What is your hobby

in life?”

That moment in Indira Gandhi’s life must have been of tremendous honesty and sincerity. One

cannot expect politicians to be sincere, but there are moments. One becomes tired of insincerity,

tired of dishonesty, tired of hypocrisy. She was alone and forgot that she was a politician, and

answered, ”My only hobby is power.” But then she must have recognized immediately what she had

said. She implored the man, ”This is off record, it is just a personal chit-chat: You cannot put it in the

book you are writing.” The politician is back.

Somebody’s happiness is power: power over people, domination, destruction. What are the

constituents of your happiness? If you watch intelligently, you will be full of contempt. And your

reason.... Everybody thinks that he is a very rational being. But have you ever thought that you

have so many superstitions which are a solid evidence of the absence of reason, not the presence

of reason.

A man of reason cannot have a belief in God. Do you believe in God? A man of reason cannot

believe in heaven and hell. Do you believe? A man of reason cannot be a Christian, or a Hindu, or a

Mohammedan, or a Buddhist, because these are different kinds of superstitions. Their differences

are not based on any valid evidence. Their differences are so stupid that if you have reason, you will

not be able to believe that millions of people are living with these superstitions, believing that they

are rational.

In my university, there was a department for yoga, because the vice-chancellor was very much

interested in yoga. He thought that he is being very rational, far ahead of his time, because he was

the first to introduce yoga as a department in his university. No other university in the whole world

had a yoga department. He bragged about it.

One day I could not resist the temptation and I said, ”Enough is enough. I have heard you bragging

about this yoga department and you think you have done a great rational service to humanity. Now

I want rational proofs. All kinds of distortions of the body, how they are going to help man’s spiritual

growth? What relationship is there? And if spiritual growth happens through these distortions, then

the head of the department of yoga, who knows all yoga exercises to perfection, he should be a

giant like a Gautam Buddha, or a Mahavira.

”But he is a stupid man. He is a proof that all those distortions of the body do not help spiritual

growth; perhaps they destroy spiritual growth.” And I have reasons to believe that they destroy.

Standing on your head for hours is going to destroy your very fragile brain cells, because so much

blood will be coming to the mind, like a flood. And your small head has millions of cells, so tiny and

so fragile.

Animals have not been able to develop intelligence, for the simple reason their head and their body is

in the same horizontal line. Too much blood runs through their head and does not allow the delicate

framework of a brain to develop. Because man is standing on his feet, blood has to go against

gravitation towards the head, so a very small amount reaches. That is enough for the nourishment

of those cells. It is not a flood, it is just the right proportion.

I asked him, ”Do you use a pillow when you sleep, or not?”

He said, ”I use a pillow, but what does that have to do with yoga?”

I said, ”It does have something to do with it. It keeps your head intact from the flood that will come

if it was horizontal with the body. You cannot sleep without a pillow, for the simple reason that the

flood is so much it keeps you awake. Your mind cannot be at rest.”

I said, ”You stop bragging about it; otherwise I will start speaking against it in the university. And I

know the man you think is a spiritual teacher who heads the department.”

By chance I had come to know him. I was going to New Delhi in a train and at a midway junction the

compartment was disconnected from the first train, and was connected to another train that went to

New Delhi. We both were travelling. I was in the compartment and he was to catch the compartment

at the junction. I had got off, because the train was going to be there for one hour, so I could take

my bath, my breakfast and a little walk.

When I came back to my compartment, what did I see? He had removed my bed, had spread his

own bed, and was pretending to be fast asleep. The train was crowded, and there was not even a

space to sit. But because I was coming from the original place from where the train starts....

I said, ”This is great.” I shook him, but he would not open his eyes. I said to him, ”Remember, it is

only difficult to wake up a man if he is awake. If he is asleep, it is not a difficult problem. And soon

you will repent.”

I took all his luggage out of the compartment on to the platform. Still he managed... thinking that I

cannot be so unkind to him. We were professors in the same university. But I told him, ”You have

been ungraceful. You should have asked my permission before you removed my bed. I will see how

long you can sleep, because now there are only ten minutes more, and the train will leave, and all

your luggage is on the platform.”

Now he became fidgety, and as he heard the first whistle, he jumped up. I said, ”What happened to

your great sleep? I was thinking you are in samadhi!”

He said, ”This is very mischievous of you.”

I said, ”You started the game, and I believe in tit for tat.”

But he would not get out. He called a porter from the window, and asked him to bring the luggage

in. But I told the porter that ”I will pay you double. Just keep that luggage on the platform.”

The porter said, ”Of course, whoever pays me more.” And finally the third whistle, and the train

started moving and the yogi jumped out to take his luggage. Meanwhile, I folded his bed and threw

it on the ground and I was fast asleep. He was very angry, and although I was fast asleep he started

saying to me, ”This is not good.”

I said, ”Listen, I am fast asleep. You are not supposed to talk to a fast-asleep man. You have learnt

your lesson!”

I told the vice-chancellor, ”This stupid man you think is a saint, has some spirituality: he is not even

intelligent.

”Because by a very strange coincidence, the train.... In India everything is possible – only on the

platform will the lights come on, and as the train leaves the platform, the lights will disappear, the

electricity will be gone. The yoga teacher was sitting on his luggage, because there was no other

place. Once I hit on his head in the darkness, and he said, ”Who is hitting me?” And when the lights

came on, he enquired again.

I said, ”Why should anybody hit you, unless you have done something wrong.”

He said, ”I have been sitting on my suitcases.”

I said, ”We will see, it is still a long journey and the whole night is ahead.”

A woman was sitting on the upper berth. When the light went off again, I started pulling her saree.

So she started screaming, ”Somebody is pulling my saree.”

I said, ”It is nobody. It is this man who is sitting in front of you.” And I put the saree in his hands, and

he was such an idiot, that he took it.

He said, ”What is it?” Then the station came, and the whole compartment was against him: ”Throw

this man out. He is pretending to be a saint, and pulls the saree of a poor woman who is sitting

here.”

I said, ”Now you know that you must be doing something wrong; that’s why somebody was hitting

you.”

He went to the bathroom, and I told the two people who were sitting on both sides of him, ”This man

has to be thrown out some way, because this is absolutely against Indian culture. In the West it is

okay, but in India a monk who pretends to be a celibate and is pulling the saree of a woman cannot

be tolerated.” So they said, ”What should be done?”

I said, ”You do one thing: when he sits down you press him from both sides.”

They said, ”That’s a good idea.”

In the darkness the yogi started shouting, ”Two people are pushing me from both sides.” And at that

very moment I hit him again, and he said, ”Just forgive me, I will change compartments.”

As the light came on again at another station, he asked the people who were sitting by his side, ”Why

were you pushing me?” They said, ”Strange, you seem to be a man of imagination. Why should we

push you?” And he said, ”Somebody hit me again on the head.”

I said, ”It is your yoga that has led you into hallucinations.”

He said, ”I want to go out of this compartment. I want to change compartments.”

I said, ”You cannot.”

He said, ”Why?”

I said, ”The whole compartment is agreed on the point that you should be punished the whole night.

You can go out, but your luggage we will not allow you to take out.”

And of course he could not leave his luggage, so the whole night all kinds of things were done to

him, and in the morning I told him, getting out at New Delhi station, ”You created the game. If you

had not pretended... if you had told me that you are tired and you want rest, I would have moved my

bed – but you threw it down. And I don’t believe that if you do something wrong in this life, you will

be punished in another life. I believe: cash payment! You have been punished enough. Never do

such a thing again.”

He said, ”I will never do it again. Just do me one favor: don’t talk about it back in the university.”

I said, ”That I cannot do. I never give any promises. And this whole night has been so juicy, that I

am really in a hurry to go back to the university and tell the vice-chancellor and tell all those idiots

who are learning yoga exercises from you.”

Not a single yogi in the centuries past has created anything, has discovered anything, has shown

any genius.

Just look at what your reason is, and you will feel a contempt for your reason. It is full of blind

beliefs, unproved hypotheses, unexperienced faith. Without any proof, without any argument, you

are carrying your religion, your philosophy; and you call it reason? It is a thing you should have great

contempt for. And for your virtue also.

What is your virtue? Almost everybody thinks he is virtuous. Because you have given some alms to

a beggar, you are virtuous? Have you ever thought, in the first place why beggars exist? You exploit

and create beggars, and then you give just a small portion – and you become a great virtuous man.

What is your virtue? You don’t have anything to give really; you don’t have love, you don’t have

joy, you don’t have any blissfulness: what can you give? All that you have is money, and money is

soaked with the blood of those same people. It is a strange game: first make them beggars – then

give them alms; and you are virtuous. Give something to an orphanage, and you are virtuous. And

most probably that orphanage is having your children, produced by prostitutes. You produce those

orphans. You talk against prostitution – if you ask people you will not find a single person who is in

favor of prostitution – then why do prostitutes exist? Who goes there?

Poor people cannot go – they don’t have the money. It is the rich people, the middle class people

who can afford to go. The middle class people have to go to the prostitutes. The rich class people

don’t go there. They have created a new class of prostitutes:call-girls. You just dial their number,

and they will be available at your place. And all these people are against prostitutes.

Your priests have been found, all over the world, exploiting sexually, and abusing sexually, small

children. Many of them have been jailed. And it does not mean that those who have not been

caught are not doing something of the same kind. Most of your monks, saddhus, nuns, sadhvis –

are either homosexuals or lesbians, and they are talking against sex, talking about celibacy, but it is

only talk.

What is your virtue? You will feel a great contempt for it. It is hypocrisy. It is not virtue.

Zarathustra is very strong.

WHAT IS THE GREATEST THING YOU CAN EXPERIENCE? IT IS THE HOUR OF THE GREAT

CONTEMPT. THE HOUR IN WHICH EVEN YOUR HAPPINESS GROWS LOATHSOME TO YOU,

AND YOUR REASON AND YOUR VIRTUE ALSO.

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY HAPPINESS?’ IT IS POVERTY AND DIRT

AND A MISERABLE EASE. Just look closely, what is your happiness? What are the situations

which make you happy? And you will feel a great contempt for them.

BUT MY HAPPINESS SHOULD JUSTIFY EXISTENCE ITSELF! Zarathustra says, ”My happiness

is not of miserable ease, of dirt, of poverty. My happiness springs from my own being. It justifies

existence.” Your happiness does not arise from yourself. Your name comes up in a lottery and you

are happy. What does it prove? Only your poverty. Only a poor man can be happy because a lottery

came up in his name.

Anything that comes from outside and makes you happy makes you also a slave, makes you also

dependent. What kind of happiness is it that destroys your freedom, that destroys you?

Leo Tolstoy has a beautiful story: A poor tailor used to purchase a ticket every month for the lottery.

He had been doing it for twenty years but the lottie never came up in his name. His family, his

friends got tired, and told him, ”Why do you waste money? You are so poor, but the ticket has to be

purchased. It has become almost a religious ritual.”

But one day the miracle happened. A black limousine came to the poor tailor’s shop and a man

came out with a big bag – the tailor had won the lottery! He could not believe it, but he had to

believe it when the money was delivered to him.

He was so happy. He locked the door of his shop and threw the key in a well, because now what is

the point. He has so much money, he can live his whole life comfortably, enjoying all that is available

in the world. But he was not aware that money goes very fast – in prostitutes, in alcohol, in gambling.

All kinds of things that he had never imagined, he went through. He lost his health and within two

years all the money was gone.

He came back to his shop. People said, ”What happened? You look so old!” He said, ”That

goddamned lottery that destroyed my health, that took me to places where I should never have

been. But what can you do with money? It is a constant temptation. All is lost; Please help me

to find my key.” Some young man went into the well, searched for his key; the key was found, he

opened his shop, started his work.

But just out of old habit, he still continued to purchase one ticket every month. Now people said,

”Why are you doing it? It has not been a blessing to you, it has been a curse.” He said, ”I know, and

I know that it is not going to happen again; and I don’t want it to happen again.” They said, ”This is

strange, then why do you go on purchasing the ticket?” He said, ”If I don’t purchase the ticket, the

whole month I feel something is missing. It has become my lifelong habit. I am addicted, so don’t

prevent me from purchasing the ticket. You know, for twenty years nothing happened, and I cannot

think I have twenty more years to live. Those two years have destroyed me completely.”

But when miracles happen, they happen in a chain. Next year, again the black limousine came, and

he said, ”My God! Now I am finished.” The people said, ”You need not do all those things.” He again

locked the door, threw the key into the well and he said, ”Now there will be no need to take it out,

because I don’t think I can survive. The first lottery almost finished me – seventy-five percent, and

this one will finish the remaining twenty-five percent.”

Such is the unconsciousness of man. Again the same round of prostitutes, of drinking alcohol, of

gambling.... What is your happiness? Is it a blessing?

Just a few days ago, I was informed that in America almost one million people suffer from a headache

when they make love, and for the next two days the migraine remains. But the strangest thing is

they go on doing the same thing again and again, knowing perfectly well that migraine will come,

and for two days they will have to suffer. They don’t enjoy sex, they cannot; it is a curse to them, but

the stupidity, the insanity, the unawareness, leads them. After two, three days, when the migraine is

gone, they start feeling again an urge – they have forgotten. Perhaps they have started hoping that

it may not happen again. Their whole life is a proof that it has been happening again and again.

What is your happiness? Unless your happiness comes from within you, just as flowers come from

the inner juices of the tree.... If your happiness is a flower of your being, it justifies existence. All

your so-called happiness of power, and money, and prestige is just a migraine.

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY REASON? DOES IT LONG FOR KNOWLEDGE

AS THE LION FOR ITS FOOD?

IT IS POVERTY AND DIRT AND A MISERABLE EASE!’ An authentic, reasoning man is always in

search of truth. Reason is the hunger for truth. Is your reason a hunger for truth? Is your reason a

thirst for truth? Are you ready to sacrifice everything to find the truth? Just as the lion goes in search

of food, reason goes in search of truth, in search of wisdom. Any other reason is nothing but dirt,

poverty, and a miserable ease.

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY VIRTUE? IT HAS NOT YET DRIVEN ME MAD!’

A virtuous man cannot compromise with the lies of the society. A virtuous man will destroy the

causes, not the symptoms. He will not be satisfied and comfortable by giving donations to a few

institutions.

Anando was seeing a chartered accountant in Bombay who has a charitable trust – tax exempt.

The trust is for providing food for stray dogs, so he goes in his car, with food for the dogs. Those

stray dogs are in the poor sections of Bombay, where hungry boys and girls are standing – and he

is feeding the dogs! He is thought to be a very virtuous, a very charitable man. What kind of virtue

is this? And he feels great pride that he is the only one who takes care of the stray dogs.

Humanity is going to die. Half of this country is going to starve to death by the end of this century;

but he is immensely happy that he is taking care of stray dogs. The poor boys are standing there

with their big bellies and thin limbs, hungry, hoping that somebody will give something to them. But

his virtue, his charity, does not include them. He has found a good way to feel himself a pious man,

a religious man.

The same man is ready to take any kind of bribe. In fact, all that virtue is a very minimum part of

all the bribes that he accumulates. Taking bribes is not a problem: because, he is making absolute

arrangements in the otherworld by feeding the dogs.

Is your virtue just a cover-up of all your sins, of all your unvirtuous acts, of all your inhuman behavior

to human beings?

THE HOUR WHEN YOU SAY: ‘WHAT GOOD IS MY PITY? IS NOT PITY THE CROSS UPON

WHICH HE WHO LOVES MAN IS NAILED? BUT MY PITY IS NO CRUCIFIXION!’

Jesus Christ is crucified, but none of his popes, in two thousand years, has been crucified, and they

are his representatives. Yes, they have a golden cross hanging around their neck on a golden chain.

What a great capacity to deceive yourself! Your neck has to be on the cross, not the cross hanging

on your neck; and that too of gold.

Jesus was only thirty-three years old, a young man and a carpenter’s son, accustomed to carrying

big logs and wood from the forest to his father’s shop. He was given such a big and heavy cross that

he fell three times before he reached to the destination. It was not made of gold. There were soldiers

around him, lashing him when he fell: ”Get up! Take the cross on your shoulders, and move.”

If your compassion, your pity, is just a comfortable idea, you should feel contempt for it.

The pope runs a bank; Jesus was a beggar. The pope’s bank has been found guilty of changing

black money into white – millions of dollars – that is its whole business, and those millions of black

dollars, changed into white money, are coming from the sale of heroin and other drugs. The pope

goes on giving sermons against drugs, and the whole Vatican is supported by the money that comes

from the drug sales.

The Italian government has issued an arrest warrant for the director of the pope’s bank. But they

cannot enter the Vatican, because that eight square mile area is considered to be an independent

country. It is in the middle of Rome. The man who was the head of the bank was only a bishop.

Rather than handing him over to the police he has been promoted. Now he has become an

archbishop; and the pope is hiding him. The Italian police cannot enter into the Vatican, and the

business continues.

The pope goes on preaching around the world that religious people should not take part in politics,

and he sent one hundred million dollars to a party in Poland to fight against the communists. If that

is not taking part in politics, then what is taking part in politics? Man is such a deceiver; not only

deceiving others, he deceives himself.

Zarathustra is right: if you look into those qualities for which you feel proud, you will feel contempt,

and that is the greatest thing that can happen to a man, because only after that contempt will you

make some effort to go beyond man, towards the superman.

HAVE YOU EVER SPOKEN THUS? HAVE YOU EVER CRIED THUS? AH, THAT I HAD HEARD

YOU CRYING THUS! Deep down, however clever and cunning you may be, you ARE aware that

your virtue is false, your religion is a formality, your morality is a social mannerism, your honesty is

just a facade.

IT IS NOT YOUR SIN, – and this is a great statement – IT IS NOT YOUR SIN, BUT YOUR

MODERATION THAT CRIES TO HEAVEN, YOUR VERY MEANNESS IN SINNING CRIES TO

HEAVEN! He is saying that the superman will be total in every one of his acts. Totality will be

his joy and his reward. What you call sin is not the problem, but your moderation. You sin, but

halfheartedly. You cannot even sin with your totality. You cannot even be sincere in your sin.

Zarathustra is against what you have heard Confucius teaching: the golden mean. Confucius is

more a social and political thinker: Never go to the extreme, always remain in the middle. But

remaining in the middle, you will never be able to live anything in its totality. The insight of Zarathustra

is: if you can live your life of sin in totality it will disappear. It is your moderation that causes it to go

on lingering your whole life. It is your hypocrisy that does not allow it to be experienced, because the

experience itself will be such you will not repeat it. But because you are halfhearted, the incomplete

experience goes on urging you to complete it. Every incomplete experience has the tendency for

completion.

IT IS NOT YOUR SIN, BUT YOUR MODERATION THAT CRIES TO HEAVEN, YOUR VERY

MEANNESS IN SINNING CRIES TO HEAVEN!

There has been a prohibition for alcohol, but all bureaucrats, all top-ranking officials, all so-called

political leaders were drinking without any problem. They have power – the prohibition is for others;

nobody can prevent them. This is meanness.

Every political leader exploits his country. He promises the country that he is going to do great

things. Those promises are never fulfilled.

On the other hand, he goes on filling his treasury with as much money as possible. Those who give

money are favored by licenses, by new permissions to make factories. Those who don’t give money

are arrested, their houses are searched, and just a small loophole is enough to torture them.

Man’s meanness is tremendous: One of the prime ministers of India, Indira Gandhi, forced people

like Jay Prakash and thousands of others into jail. It was the jail that killed him, because he could

not get the right treatment. His kidneys were not functioning, and he was released only when it was

certain that now no cure is possible. But at his funeral, Indira Gandhi was present, Rajiv Gandhi

was present, Sanjay Gandhi was present. The funeral was almost official. All great leaders and all

great officers and generals of armies were present: and they were the real killers of the man.

When Morarji Desai came into power – he was in jail in Indira Gandhi’s time – his whole effort was

to force Indira into jail. Are these children? Have they any intelligence and wisdom? And now, even

today, the same policy continues. Kirloskar, one of the industrialists of Poona, was arrested and kept

five days in jail. And the reason was that he is a relative of Morarji Desai. His daughter is married to

Desai’s son.

Ramakrishna Bajaj’s factories and all his offices were raided because he did not contribute to Rajiv

Gandhi’s election fund. He was a follower of Jay Prakash and he was against Indira Gandhi.

Now those people are being tortured. Of course, they always find some legal jargon to torture

people. But meanness is the real sin. One should be clean of all meanness, and that will become a

transcendence.

WHERE IS THE LIGHTNING TO LICK YOU WITH ITS TONGUE? WHERE IS THE MADNESS,

WITH WHICH YOU SHOULD BE CLEANSED? One needs almost to be so extreme, if he to

transcend this ugly humanity, that people will call him mad. They have called Gautam Buddha

mad, they have called Jesus mad, they have called Socrates mad. Anybody who is not part of the

crowd insanity, who goes beyond it, is condemned by the crowd as mad. But such madness is the

only way to be cleansed.

BEHOLD, I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN: HE IS THIS LIGHTNING, HE IS THIS MADNESS!...

MAN IS A ROPE FASTENED BETWEEN ANIMAL AND SUPERMAN – A ROPE OVER AN ABYSS.

Man is not a being, but a process – not a being, but a becoming. A dog is born a dog, and dies a

dog. It is not absolutely so with man.

Gautam Buddha is born as a man and dies as a god. But to attain to this state, one has to be the

lightning that burns all that is rotten in you, and one has to be mad enough to go beyond all the

hypocrisies, all the mannerisms, all the facades that man has created to remain where he is without

growing.

MAN IS A ROPE FASTENED BETWEEN ANIMAL AND SUPERMAN – A ROPE OVER AN ABYSS.

A DANGEROUS GOING-ACROSS, A DANGEROUS WAYFARING, A DANGEROUS LOOKINGBACK,

A DANGEROUS SHUDDERING AND STAYING-STILL.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a

going-across and a down-going.

Man is not static: he is change, and that is what is beautiful in him. Man is not dead but alive –

that is what is lovable in him. He has to go across from animal to superman. He has also to gather

courage to go down from his high peaks of being a superman, to give the message and the joy and

the dance to all those who are left behind, who have become static and who are not moving, and

who are not changing.

I LOVE THOSE WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO LIVE, EXCEPT THEIR LIVES BE A DOWNGOING,

FOR THEY ARE THOSE WHO ARE GOING ACROSS.

One of Zarathustra’s greatest contributions is this: that once you have reached to the point of

enlightenment, to the point of awakening, you should not remain there. That is too selfish – you

should come back. Because millions of people are there; perhaps their thirst is asleep, perhaps

they are not aware of their hunger. You have to provoke them and challenge them, and you have to

guide them and you have to show them the path: how they can also go across, how they can also

change from the animal to the superman.

I LOVE THE GREAT DESPISERS, FOR THEY ARE THE GREAT VENERATORS AND ARROWS

OF LONGING FOR THE OTHER BANK. THESE WOR+DS SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN GOLD: I

LOVE THE GREAT DESPISERS, FOR THEY ARE THE GREAT VENERATORS AND ARROWS OF

LONGING FOR THE OTHER BANK. A man who has no longing to go beyond, no longing to climb

the Everest of consciousness is not worthy to be called a man.

I LOVE THOSE WHO DO NOT FIRST SEEK BEYOND THE STARS FOR REASONS TO GO DOWN

AND TO BE SACRIFICES: BUT WHO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES TO THE EARTH, THAT THE

EARTH MAY ONE DAY BELONG TO THE SUPERMAN. You have been told by all the religions that

to sacrifice yourself to attain the kingdom of God. Zarathustra says, ”Sacrifice yourself to the earth

that the earth may one day belong to the superman.” Become the herald of the coming morning.

Make the way for the superman to happen.

I LOVE HIM, WHO LIVES FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WHO WANTS KNOWLEDGE THAT ONE DAY

THE SUPERMAN MAY LIVE. AND THUS HE WILLS HIS OWN DOWNFALL. A man who wants the

superman is certainly wanting that the man should disappear: the man should disappear into the

superman.

I LOVE HIM WHO LOVES HIS VIRTUE: FOR VIRTUE IS WILL TO DOWNFALL AND AN ARROW

OF LONGING.... I LOVE HIM WHO DOES NOT WANT TOO MANY VIRTUES. ONE VIRTUE IS

MORE VIRTUE THAN TWO, BECAUSE IT IS MORE OF A KNOT FOR FATE TO CLING TO.

One should be one-pointed, a single arrow with your whole energy. Only then you can pass the

dangerous abyss between animal and superman. Many virtues are not needed.

Zarathustra says, I conceive only one virtue: the longing for transcendence, the longing for the

beyond. The longing not to remain man, but to go beyond man, to become God.

I LOVE HIM WHO IS ASHAMED WHEN THE DICE FALL IN HIS FAVOUR AND WHO THEN ASKS:

AM I THEN A CHEAT? – FOR HE WANTS TO PERISH. It is not a great virtue to be successful,

successful as a man, because success needs all kinds of meanness, all kinds of fallacies, all kinds

of false promises. Success needs violence. The successful man is not a man of love, is not a man

of compassion.

The truly compassionate man, the truly loving man is ready to dissolve himself, so that something

great may arise. He wants to become the manure for the roses to grow.

I LOVE HIM WHO THROWS GOLDEN WORDS IN ADVANCE OF HIS DEEDS AND ALWAYS

PERFORMS MORE THAN HE PROMISED: FOR HE WILLS HIS OWN DOWNFALL.

I LOVE HIM WHO JUSTIFIES THE MEN OF THE FUTURE AND REDEEMS THE MEN OF THE

PAST: FOR HE WANTS TO PERISH BY THE MEN OF THE PRESENT.

I LOVE HIM WHO CHASTISES HIS GOD BECAUSE HE LOVES HIS GOD: FOR HE MUST PERISH

BY THE ANGER OF HIS GOD.

I LOVE HIM WHOSE SOUL IS DEEP EVEN IN ITS ABILITY TO BE WOUNDED, AND WHOM

EVEN A LITTLE THING CAN DESTROY: THUS HE IS GLAD TO GO OVER THE BRIDGE.

He is not afraid of death, because he knows, unless the seed dies the plant will not grow. Unless

the seed dies there will not be any flowers. He is ready to die. In this courage he is capable to go

gladly over the bridge, which is dangerous.

The journey of transcendence is dangerous. You will be disappearing and something new will come

into existence. You will be sacrificing yourself for the new to arrive, but this sacrifice is a great bliss,

because you are a creator – you have become a womb for the new, and for the great.

I LOVE ALL THOSE WHO ARE LIKE HEAVY DROPS FALLING SINGLY FROM THE DARK CLOUD

THAT HANGS OVER MANKIND: THEY PROPHESY THE COMING OF THE LIGHTNING AND AS

PROPHETS THEY PERISH.

BEHOLD, I AM THE PROPHET OF THE LIGHTNING AND A HEAVY DROP FROM THE CLOUD:

BUT THIS LIGHTNING IS CALLED Superman.

Zarathustra is saying that the prophet proclaims about the future, stakes everything for the future,

dies for the future, so that this planet can become a paradise; so this humanity need not be mean,

need not be anymore full of things which have to be condemned; so that this humanity becomes

pure and innocent.

Just as at the beginning of the rains the clouds come – they herald only the beginning of the rain

and the lightning.

Zarathustra says, ”I am the prophet of the lightning. I want you to be aware that soon the superman

will be appearing. Be ready to receive him.

The only way to receive him is to be ready to sacrifice yourself.”

This lightning is called superman, because this lightning is the beginning of a new season, of a new

climate. The earth will become green, and the dead trees will become alive, and the naked branches

will be with foliage, and there will be flowers all around.

I have told you that my word for the superman is the new man, because the word superman carries

in it the idea of superiority. In existence nothing is superior and nothing is inferior – things are only

unique, and different.

The new man will be different and unique. The new man will not be serious, the new man will have

a sense of humor, the new man will not be tense and anxious, and full of anguish; instead he will be

full of joy. The new man will be able to dance and sing and play and be a small child.

The new man is the hope for the whole of humanity.

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.