The second question

Question 2

OSHO TODAY YOU SAID TO BE CONSTANT IS TO BE STUPID. THE TRUTH CANNOT CHANGE IT REMAINS FOR EVER CONSTANT. NOW WHAT?

I HAVE NOT SAID that to be constant is to be stupid -- I had certainly said to be consistent is the way of the mediocre mind, the stupid mind. But don't you see the difference between being constant and being consistent?

Consistency is a logical phenomenon. When I say: Don't be consistent, I mean you need not remain confined to your past -- that's what consistency is. You have done something today; tomorrow life will change, and you have to repeat the same thing to be consistent. Tomorrow will not be today; today is not your yesterday. The answers that were adequate yesterday are no more adequate today. Consistency means that it is always yesterday that has to dominate, it is always the past that has to dominate the present. That's what I mean by 'consistency'. Then you will never grow, because your youth has to be consistent with your childhood, and your old age has to be consistent with your youth -- that means you will remain childish your whole life.

And that's how people are. The average mental age of human beings is only twelve years. This is what happens if you enforce consistency. In childhood, a few answers were given to you; they were good for the time being, but only for the time being. More than that you would not have understood. But as you grow, those answers become out of date, those answers become confinements, imprisonments, those answers become chains. You have to constantly throw them so that you can remain fresh, so that you can respond to the reality as it is.

But this is how, Zareen, it goes on happening: I say one thing, you understand something else. I say one thing, you hear something totally different. Your minds are so full of your own thoughts that I say, "Don't be consistent," and you hear, "Don't be constant."

Pasquel was being examined for naturalization as a U.S. citizen. "Who is the President of the United States?" The foreigner answered correctly. "And the Vice President?" Again he gave the right answer. "Could you be President?"

"No, no!"

"Why not?"

"I am-a too busy. I work-a in the barbershop all-a day now."

Now, his own occupation... he says, "No, no! I am-a too busy. I work-a in the barbershop all-a day now."

Zareen, you have heard something which I have not said. Your question has come out of your own idea. You know, at Least you believe you know, that the truth cannot change. Who told you? And how do you know? Do you know truth? You have heard it being told to you that truth never changes; it remains for ever constant. Is it your experience? Have you known anything in life which remains always constant? Anything, I say, have you known in life which remains constant?

Everything is changing if you look at life. If you watch life, then Heraclitus is right: you cannot step in the same river twice, because the river is constantly flowing, changing. Old Heraclitus says: The ONLY thing that never changes is change. Only change is constant, otherwise everything is changing.

In fact, life is not a noun but a verb. If one day we want to be really scientific about our language, we will have to drop all nouns. A really scientific language will consist only of verbs. You see these trees all around and you think, "Beautiful trees!" But to call a tree 'a tree' is not true, because a tree is not something static -- it is a movement. By the time you utter the word 'tree' it has changed. It is no more the same tree about which you were talking One dead leaf has fallen, a new leaf is just growing, a bud is opening. The tree is growing higher -- each moment! Otherwise how is it going to grow?

To be exactly true about it, it is better to call it 'treeing' rather than 'a tree'. But we even call a river 'a river' -- a river is a rivering. It is a CONSTANT change! Life is not really life but only living -- there is no life as such but only living. Our languages give us a very wrong notion of the world. There is nothing like love, but loving.

Always remember... we have to use nouns because otherwise it will be very difficult to explain things to each other. For centuries we have used nouns. But whenever you use the word 'love', remember it is 'loving' -- it is a process. It is not a thing, constant.

If you have loved, Zareen, you will know: morning it has one colour, afternoon it has another colour, by the evening it is a totally different phenomenon. Sometimes the river is very deep and sometimes it is very shallow. And sometimes it makes much noise, and sometimes it is very silent. So is love. Sometimes it is sad, and sometimes it is a rejoicing. It changes its moods constantly. So the only constant thing is change. But you say:

THE TRUTH cannot change...

WHO HAS ORDAINED IT, THAT TRUTH CANNOT CHANGE? What do you mean by it? Have you known anything in life that never changes? The child becomes the young man, the young man becomes the old man, and the old man is gone one day -- dust unto dust. You go on seeing that everything is constant change, but there seems to be a fear deep down in the human heart: the fear is death. If change is there, then death is bound to happen. Change brings death in.

So we want to believe in something permanent, absolutely permanent. It may be truth, it may be God, it may be soul, but something is needed for the fearful heart to cling to so that death can be defied. At least one can believe, "There is something permanent in which I can have a shelter, which can become my security."

Do you know truth? Do you know God? Do you know the soul? No, you know only death -- which happens every moment, all around. But we go on defying death; we don't want to look at it, because it reminds us that we are going to die. We would like something that remains for ever and for ever. And we would like to be part of it so that we can also remain for ever and for ever.

But what is permanent in you? Your body changes -- you can ask medical science: your body changes constantly. Just ten years ago they used to think that the body changes totally in seven years' time, becomes completely new, not even a single cell remains of the old; but now further research has shown that the body changes totally in one year. The body is continuously renewing itself.

That's why when you cut your hair and your nails it does not hurt -- why? The hair is part of your body and the nails too, and you are cutting them and it doesn't hurt? The reason is that your hair is not alive. These are the dead cells of the body that are being thrown out of the body. So are the nails -- just dead cells being thrown out of the body to make place for the new ones to happen. That's why it doesn't hurt if you cut them.

In a single year, your body is no more the same.

Buddha used to say again and again that life is like a flame. You burn a candle, you light a candle in the evening; the whole night it burns. In the morning you are just going to put it out -- a question can be asked of you: "Is it the same flame you started in the evening that you are putting out?" In a sense it is the same flame, because it continued the whole night; but in truth it is not the same flame, because the flame has been constantly changing, becoming smoke, and a new flame is replacing it. And the replacement is so quick that the old going into smoke and the new coming into existence is so fast that there is no gap between the two -- hence you cannot see it, hence you cannot see that it is not the same flame. Then Buddha had to invent a new idea.

The scientists now call it 'continuum', 'continuity' -- it is neither the same nor not the same, it is a continuity, a continuum. Buddha calls it SANTATI -- the first flame gives birth to another and that gives birth to another, and so on and so forth, one flame goes on giving birth to another. The whole night the birth process continued. So it comes into the same line, but it is not the same. You cannot say that it is different, you cannot say it is the same. In a sense it is different, in a sense it is the same.

Have you known, Zareen, anything in life which is really permanent? -- anything? Your body changes, your mind changes continuously, your emotions go on changing. About WHAT truth are you talking?

Yes, there is one truth which never changes, but that has to be experienced. Don't take it as a belief. And that truth is not something outside you; that truth is hidden in you -- that truth is your capacity to witness. Only the witness never changes, everything else goes on changing. There is a consciousness inside you that goes on watching and watching all the changes -- the childhood comes and goes, the youth comes and goes, the old age comes and goes, and there is a witness inside who is simply watching.

All meditation is nothing but an effort to know this witness. There is no God outside you who is permanent, never changing; there is no truth outside you which is for ever. Yes, there is a certain reality inside you, at the deepest core of your being... but to find it, Zareen, you will have to go deep in meditation. When all thoughts disappear, and all desires are gone, and when there is nothing to witness, then you become aware of the witness. Then witnessing turns upon itself. Having nothing else to see, it starts seeing itself If something remains there as an object, it remains focussed on the object. Meditation is a process of taking all objects away from you; all contents of the mind are to be taken away. Slowly slowly, one day... the interval, the gap. Sudden emptiness. When there is nothing to see, no content to focus on, then the miracle happens. The witnessing energy, finding nothing else to obstruct it, turns in a circle back upon itself. This is what Jesus calls 'metanoia', which has been wrongly translated as 'repent'. It should be translated as 'return', not 'repent'; it should be translated as 'revolution', a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn -- and then suddenly you see yourself. And this witness has no name. It is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan; it is neither man nor woman: it is just pure consciousness.

Yes, this pure consciousness is absolutely the same. Except this, everything else changes. And when I was talking to you about consistency I was not talking about the witness, I was talking about your ideologies, about your knowledge, about your experiences. They have all to be dropped every day: die every day to the past so you can remain fresh, so that you can respond to the reality as it is in the moment, not according to the past.

And listening to me, be alert, be very alert about each single word; otherwise, I will say one thing and you will understand something else. And you will go on thinking that I have said it.

These cats are having themselves a little jam session. They are really wailing. Pretty soon they hear a knock on the door; one of them opens up and the owner of the building is standing there. "I am sorry to burst in on you like this," said the landlord, "but do you know there is a sick old lady moaning upstairs?