The third question

Question 3

OSHO, WHAT IS IMPORTANT?

Sambodh,

IT DEPENDS ON YOU. If you ask me, to me it is all the same. You can say that everything is important, or you can say nothing is important. Both mean the same.

Everything is ordinary, or everything is extraordinary. Whatsoever you want to choose, whichever word appeals to you -- everything is important, everything, not excluding anything at all; or nothing is important. Both mean the same, because the moment everything is important, or everything is not important, the very word 'important' loses meaning. The meaning remains only if there are some things which are important and some things which are not important, a few things ordinary and a few things extraordinary. Then the word carries meaning. But if everything is exactly either important or unimportant, then the word loses meaning.

My own suggestion is you can choose either, because the ultimate result will be the same.

If you have a negative mind, then the Buddhist answer will be perfectly right. Buddha says: "Nothing is important." Then there is nothing to make any fuss about. When hungry, eat; when thirsty, drink; when sleepy, sleep -- nothing is important. And this will give you a kind of relaxedness, a calmness -- nothing is important, so whether you succeed or fail it is all the same, whether you become famous or notorious, it is all the same, whether anybody knows you or nobody knows you doesn't matter. It will give you a very relaxed, still, tranquil state of being -- and that is the purpose!

Or you can choose Shankara's answer. He says: "Everything is important, because all is God, even the dust is divine." That too is perfectly right; you can choose that. Then, too, when hungry, eat, because it is important; and when thirsty, drink, because it is important; and when sleepy, sleep, because God is feeling sleepy -- the God within you.

These are the two answers, the basic answers: positive and negative. Just watch your own mind... whichever appeals to you. There are people who are basically attracted towards the positive, or towards the negative. Feel your own attraction, what attracts you more. And whichever attracts you more, that can become your path: NO can become your path, res can become your path.

Kabir's path is that of YES. Buddha's path is that of NO. But, really, YES and no are not significant. What is significant is totality. If you say yes with your total being it is totality that liberates. If you say no with totality, it is totality that liberates. But it all depends on you.

There are not some things labelled as important and other things labelled as unimportant. A roseflower may be important to a poet and may be utterly unimportant to somebody who is only interested in money. For him, a note, a hundred-rupee note, is more important. He will ask, "What is the use of the roseflower?" In fact, he will be very much worried why people go on singing songs of rose flowers -- "Why don't they sing songs of hundred-rupee notes?"

When I was at university I had a colleague who was really a money-maniac; his whole interest was money. Even somebody else's hundred-rupee note, and he would take it in his hand and he would touch it with such love that you may not have even touched your woman with that love -- with such care, with such tender hands, as if the note was alive. And his eyes would shine, candles would burn in his eyes when he saw a note -- even if it was somebody else's note. A note is a note! And his whole thinking was money: how to have more money?

And then there is the one about the shipwrecked Englishman: as he gets out of the water onto the beach of a remote island, he is greeted by another man standing in the shade of a palm tree. "Pleased to meet you," says he, and then enquires, "Eton?"

"Yes," responds the new arrival.

"Oxford?"

"Yes."

"Guards?"

"Yes."

"Homosexual?"

"No."

"Pity!"