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Kabir

THE FISH IN THE SEA IS NOT THIRSTY

Chapter 11: The Paradox that Life is,

Question 2

 

 

Energy Enhancement                Enlightened Texts                Kabir                The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty

 

 

The second question

Question 2

OSHO, HOW CAN ONE DEVELOP A CONSCIENCE -- SOMETHING WITHIN THAT WILL GUIDE ONE IN ONE'S EVERYDAY LIFE TOWARDS WHAT IS NECESSARY FOR ONE'S DEVELOPMENT? TO DO WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE UNFOLDING OF ONE'S INNER LIFE? IT SEEMS AS IF I AM ALWAYS TORN AND YET THERE DOES EXIST SOMETHING WITHIN AT TIMES WHICH I HOPE COULD BE HELPED TO GROW AND BECOME A LIGHT FOR ME. CARL ONE LEARN TO INTENSIFY ONE'S FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS IN ORDER TO BRING ONE CLOSER TO A PLACE OF REAL BEING?

Steven,

THERE IS NO NEED TO DEVELOP a conscience at all. What is needed is consciousness, not conscience. Conscience is a pseudo thing. Conscience is created in you by the society. It is a subtle method of slavery. The society teaches you what is right and what is wrong. And it starts teaching the child before the child is aware, before the child can decide on his own what is right and what is wrong, before the child is even conscious of what is happening to him, before the child is even awake. In a kind of sleep, in a kind of dream, the child lives in the beginning.

In the mother's womb the child sleeps for twenty-four hours. Then after the birth he sleeps for twenty-three hours, twenty-two hours, twenty-one hours, twenty hours... slowly slowly. But he remains in a kind of limbo, neither awake nor asleep. The child cannot make any distinction between what is real and what is unreal. And we start teaching the child what is right, what is wrong -- we are conditioning him. We are conditioning him according to our ideas. All these ideas -- from parents, from priests, teachers, politicians, saints -- -all these ideas jumble together inside him. They become his conscience.

And because of this conscience he will never be able to grow consciousness -- because conscience is a pseudo consciousness. And if you are satisfied with the pseudo you will never even think of the real. It is very deceptive; the way we have been bringing up children is very deceptive. It is ugly, it is violent, it is against humanity.

That's why millions of people live without any consciousness. Before they could have grown into consciousness, we gave them pseudo toys to play with. And their whole lives they think this is all that is needed to live a good life. And their whole lives they will be rewarded if they follow the conscience, and they will be punished if they don't follow the conscience.

From the outside they will be punished and rewarded, and from the inside also. Whenever you do something that your conscience says is wrong, you feel guilty, you suffer, you feel inner pain. You are afraid, you are trembling... it creates anxiety. And the fear about heaven, that you may lose heaven, and the fear of hell, that you may fall into hell... and with great inventiveness your saints have painted the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell.

This is conscience. Conscience is artificial, arbitrary. Conscience is needed because the society does not want you to be intelligent. Hence, rather than making you intelligent it gives you fixed rules of behaviour: Do this, don't do that.

The day humanity drops this whole nonsense of conscience and starts helping children to grow their consciousness will be the greatest day, will be the real birth of humanity, a new human being and a new earth. Then we will help the child to become more intelligent, so whenever a problem arises the child has enough intelligence to encounter it, to face it, to respond to it. Why should one need any conscience? Intelligence is enough, consciousness is enough.

Consciousness will make you capable of responding to the present immediately, and your response will be true. Conscience is old, and the situation is always new -- and your conscience is ALWAYS old. There is no meeting-ground. You go on responding according to the conscience cultivated in you by the society, forced into you by the society, conditioned in you by the society -- and the situation is totally different!

One of my friends went to Tibet. He is a very religious brahmin, very orthodox. He went there to study Buddhist scriptures, but he could not stay in Tibet -- he had to come back as quickly as possible. The journey was simply a sheer wastage, an unnecessary trouble, because to go into Tibet is not easy.

And the problem was that from his very childhood he had been taught to take a cold bath before the sun rises. Now. to take a cold bath in Tibet before the sun rises... he was telling me that it was impossible. And if he did not take the cold bath before sunrise, the whole day he would feel guilty. He had been told that without taking a cold bath in the morning you cannot pray, your prayer is useless. And without prayer you cannot eat anything. So he was taking a cold bath in the morning, and that was dangerous to life. In Tibetan scriptures it is said that once a year it is a must that one should take a bath!

Once a few Tibetan lamas came to stay with me, and those were the days when Maneesha was not there and Radha was not there to smell these people -- and I suffered so much...

For those few, seven, eight days that they stayed in my house, I was almost out of the house. Any excuse and I would escape from the house -- the whole house was stinking, because they would not take a bath. And a hot summer in India... and they would not take any bath! They were following their conscience.

It has been such a difficult thing for me to talk to Jaina monks. They used to come to see me; it was so difficult to talk with them -- because they don't cleanse their mouths, rinse their mouths, they don't clean their teeth. That is not allowed. That is thought to be a part of beautifying the body -- -and how can a Jaina monk beautify the body? He is so dead set against it.

Just to talk to them is so difficult -- they have such bad breath. It is bound to be so. And the Jaina monks are not allowed to take a bath either, because why should you be so careful about your body? -- the anti-body attitude. Their bodies stink, their mouths stink.

One Jaina nun became so much impressed by me and be-came so much interested in me that I told her, "You can at least take a sponge bath -- nobody will know. Just a wet towel, you can... and nobody will ever know that you have taken the bath."

The idea appealed to her. She took one sponge bath, felt very good and very bad too. She told me, "It feels very good and I feel fresh, but it hurts inside that I have committed a sin.

Do you ever think when you take a bath that you have committed a sin? And she had not even taken a full bath -- just a sponge bath, just a wet towel rubbed all over the body. But she felt so guilty that she had to fast for three days as repentance.

This is conscience. Conscience goes on making you a fool. Situations change, but the conscience cannot change, it cannot grow -- conscience remains static. You go on living with ideas that were given to you in your childhood, by your ignorant parents, ignorant teachers. And you will live according to them, and you will suffer much. And your response will never be true because it will never fit with the situation. You will always be lagging behind.

Responsibility simply means the capacity to respond to the reality as it is -- and it changes, the reality changes, and the conscience remains fixed. That's the difference between conscience and consciousness.

Consciousness is a mirror. Conscience is a photoplate. Once a photoplate is exposed, it is finished; it catches the picture and then that picture remains for ever, fixed. It cannot grow, remember.

One woman was showing her child the family album, and they came across a picture of a beautiful man with black hair, very fresh, young. And the child asked, "Who is this, Mom?" And the mother said, "Don't you recognize him? He is your father!" And the child said, "He is my father? Then who is that bald-headed man who lives with us?"

In reality, things change. Beautiful black hair disappears -- one becomes bald-headed. But in pictures things are fixed.

Conscience is a photoplate and consciousness is a mirror. It also reflects, but it never clings to any reflection. It remains empty, and hence it remains capable of reflecting new situations. If it is morning, it reflects the morning. If it is evening, it reflects the evening. The photoplate is fixed; if you exposed it in the morning then it will always remain morning in the photo, it will never become evening, night.

There is no need, Steven, to develop a conscience. The need is to drop the conscience and develop consciousness. Drop all that you have been taught by others, and start living on your own and searching and seeking.... Yes, in the beginning it will be difficult because you won't have any map. The map is contained by the conscience. You will have to move without the map, you will have to move into the uncharted, with no guidelines. Cowards cannot move without guidelines; cowards cannot move without maps. And when you move with maps and guidelines, you are not really entering into new territory, into new realms -- you are going in circles. You go on moving into the known; you never take a jump into the unknown. It is only courage that can drop conscience.

Conscience means all the knowledge that you have. And consciousness means being empty, being utterly empty, and moving into life with that emptiness, seeing through that emptiness and acting out of that emptiness -- then action has tremendous grace. And then whatsoever you do is right. It is not a question of what is right and what is wrong, because something that is right today may be wrong tomorrow. And borrowed knowledge never helps.

Homer and Jethro were digging a ditch in the blazing Mississippi sun. Seeing the boss sitting coolly in the shade above them, Homer put down his shovel and said, "How come he is up there and we are down here?"

"I dunno," said Jethro.

Homer went up to the boss and asked him, "How come you boss up here and we work down there?"

The boss answered, "Because I am smart."

"What is smart?" asked Homer.

"Here," said the boss putting his hand on a tree, "I will show you. Try to hit my hand."

Homer wound up a mighty swing and let fly. Just as he swung, the boss moved his hand away, and Homer crashed into the tree.

"Owwww!!!" he screamed.

The boss said coolly, "Now you are smart too."

Homer went back to the ditch. Jethro asked what happened and Homer said, "Now I am smart."

Jethro said, "What is smart?"

Homer said, "I will show you."

He looked around for a tree, and not seeing one, he put his hand over his own face. "Here," he said, "try to hit my hand...."

That's what goes on with your so-called knowledge, conscience -- situations change, trees are no more found... but you have a fixed routine and you cannot do anything else, you go on repeating your routine. And life has no obligation to fit with your routine. You have to fit with life.

A VERY STRANGE, mysterious thing happened just twenty years ago in the world of modern physics. It destroyed the whole Aristotelian logic; it destroyed all ancient certainties. Physicists came to know that electrons move in a very strange way: they behave simultaneously as if they are particles and also as if they are waves. This is impossible! Either something can be a particle or it can be a wave. In the language of geometry, either something can be a point, a dot, or a line. but one thing cannot be both together: a point, a dot, and a line together. That is impossible. But that's what was happening.

They observed and observed, and the behaviour was such that the electrons were behaving in a very illogical way. They tried hard to figure it out, to somehow manage the old Aristotelian logic, that A is A and A is never not A. That was the two-thousand-year-old thought, deep-rooted, that A can never not be A. And that's what was happening: the particle was behaving like a wave -- A was behaving not like A. Now what to do?

It was difficult to discard Aristotle, very difficult -- a two thousand years' long love affair. But electrons have no obligation, they don't bother at all about Aristotle. They were saying "Get lost!" And finally the physicists had to agree with the electrons. And when they were asked again and again "How is it possible?" they said, "What can we do? It is not a question of possible or not possible -- it is happening! It is so! We understand that it is illogical, that it should not be so, but what can we do? We are helpless! The electrons don't believe in Aristotle."

Aristotle has been discarded -- the two-thousand-year-old tradition of logic has become simply irrelevant.

Another phenomenon happened after a few years: they came to know that when the electron moves from point A to B, in the middle it disappears. Moving from point A to B, you find it on the point A, then suddenly you find it on point B, but in the middle you don't find it at all.

Now this is even more impossible. Somebody coming from Bombay to Poona; you find him in Bombay, and then you find him in Poona, and on the way nowhere is he found! This is strange, unbelievable, but what to do? That's how it is. So another great ancient idea simply had to be dropped. The old idea was that nothing can come out of nothing. Now that is happening: in the middle it is nothing, in the beginning it is something, in the end it is again something. So out of something nothing comes, and out of nothing something comes again.

But this has been the experience of the mystics always. This is new for modern physics, but this is not new for metaphysics -- this is very ancient. Mystics have never believed in Aristotle; they have always been anti-Aristotle -- they have always been illogical, because they don't know what the way of the electron is but they know their own inner consciousness. And there too they have observed these miracles: that the ego is something, comes out of nothing, and then disappears into nothing again. The ego arises out of nothing, becomes very solid, and then one day in meditation you simply find it has evaporated again.

This has been one of the most ancient experiences about the ego: that one moment it is there, another moment it is not there, and again it is there. And this has been the experience about time too, that when you are in deep meditation time simply disappears and when you come out of meditation time is again there.

The mystics have known it, that life follows no logic, that life is basically supra-logical, that life follows no reason, that fundamentally it is irrational. Conscience is very arbitrary, artificial. It gives you a fixed pattern, a fixed gestalt, and life goes on changing, and life is very uncertain, it id very zig-zag. Unless you are conscious you will not be able to live your life truly; your life will be only a pretension, a pseudo-phenomenon. You will always be missing the train.

And always missing the train is what creates anguish in man. Just think of yourself always missing the train: rushing to the station, and whenever you reach the train is leaving the platform. That's what happens to the person who lives according to the conscience: he never catches the train. He cannot! He has a fixed gestalt, and life is a fluid phenomenon. He has a rocklike thing inside him and life is more like water.

Be conscious. Don't ask how to grow, how to develop a conscience. Here we are trying to do just the opposite: destroying conscience -- the Christian conscience, the Hindu conscience, the Mohammedan conscience, the Jaina conscience -- we are destroying all kinds of conscience. And consciences come in all shapes and all sizes.

Consciousness is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan -- it is simply consciousness. Conscience divides people, consciousness unites.

Steven, forget all about conscience. You ask:

HOW CAN ONE DEVELOP A CONSCIENCE -- SOMETHING WITHIN THAT WILL GUIDE ONE IN ONE'S EVERYDAY LIFE...?

What is the need of carrying a guide with you? Consciousness is enough! Whenever a certain need arises, your consciousness will respond. You have a mirror, you will reflect it. And the answer will be spontaneous.

When I was a student at university, my professors were very much worried about me. They were worried -- they loved me -- they were worried because I never prepared for the examinations. They were even worried that I might answer in such a way that the examiner may not even be able to see the point.

My old professor, Dr. S. K. Saxena, he used to come just early in the morning to wake me up so that I could study a little bit. And he would sit in my room saying, "You do a little preparation." And he would leave me in the examination hall, then he would go home, because he was even worried that I may not go.

And when it came to the final oral examination, he was very very worried, because I might say something that could offend the examiner. He was also present; he was the head of the department so he was present and the examiner was present. And he had told me, warned me again and again, "Simply stick to the question! Whatsoever he asks, you simply answer that. Don't go into any depth about it -- just a plain answer, the answer that is given in the books will do. And I will be there and if I see that you are going astray, I will just give you a push with my foot underneath the table -- so then come back again and just stick to the question."

The first question and the problem arose. The professor who had come to examine asked, "What is the difference between Indian philosophy and Western philosophy?" And my professor became afraid, because he knew that the words 'Indian' and 'Western' were enough for me... and that was so. I said, "What do you mean by Indian? Can philosophy be Indian and Western also? Then philosophy can be Bengali and Maharashtran. If science is not Indian and Western, then why should philosophy be?"

And my professor started hitting me, and I told my professor, "Don't hit me! You just keep yourself away. This is between me and him. You are not supposed to give me any hints.

Now the old examiner was at a loss: what to do? Whatsoever he asked, I answered him by another question. He was at a loss because he was just carrying ready-made answers. I told him, "You look at a loss because you can't respond. Now, it is such a simple thing that philosophy is philosophy -- what has it to do with East and West? Say yes or no...!"

But the fixed gestalt: Indian philosophy -- everything has to be Indian, everything has to be Western, everything has to be this and that... adjectives and adjectives. We can't think of this earth as one. We can't think of humanity as one. Now, what is Indian about Buddha? and what is Jewish about Jesus? Nothing at all. I have tasted both and the taste is the same. But borrowed knowledge always remains in you as a fixed thing, and whenever you respond out of your fixed ideas. your response falls short. It is not a true answer to the reality.

So, Steven, there is no need to develop a conscience to guide you -- there is no need to have any guide! All that is needed is intelligence, awareness, consciousness, so that you can respond whatsoever the case is. Life brings challenges, you bring consciousness to those challenges. And meditation is a way of dropping conscience and moving into consciousness.

The miracle is: if you can drop conscience, consciousness arises on its own -- because consciousness is a natural phenomenon. You are born with it; just the conscience has become a hard crust around it and is not allowing its flow. Conscience has become the rock and the small spring of consciousness is blocked by the rock. Remove the rock and the spring starts flowing. And with that spring your life starts moving in a totally different way that you have not even imagined before, you could not have even dreamt. And everything starts to fall in harmony with existence. And to be in harmony with existence is to be right -- not to be in harmony with existence is wrong.

So conscience as such is the root cause of ALL wrong, because it doesn't allow you to fall in harmony with existence. And consciousness is always right just as conscience is always wrong.

And you ask: CAN ONE LEARN TO INTENSIFY ONE'S FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS IN ORDER TO BRING ONE CLOSER TO A PLACE OF REAL BEING?

Neither thoughts will help to bring you closer to your being nor feelings -- but feelings are better than thoughts, closer, but not yet the real thing. First one has to drop thoughts, then one has to drop feelings, so that the inner world becomes totally empty. In that emptiness your consciousness turns upon yourself and the reality is known.

Truth is neither a thought nor a feeling nor an emotion. Truth is the experience of consciousness of itself. Soren Kierkegaard is right when he says: "Truth is subjectivity." Meditate and go on dropping... there are layers and layers and layers. Man is like an onion -- go on peeling. Meditation is the art of peeling the onion. And of course, when you peel the onion, tears come to the eyes -- that has to be accepted. It is painful. Go on peeling the onion till nothing is left in your hand -- that nothing is reality.

You can call it God, you can call it nirvana, enlightenment, or whatsoever you want to call it. Names don't matter. But the real thing happens only when NOTHING has happened.

 

Next: Chapter 11: The Paradox that Life is, Question 3

 

Energy Enhancement            Enlightened Texts           Kabir           The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty

 

 

Chapter 11

 

 

 

 
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