Commentaries on Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. Vol. 1 The Messiah Chapter 22: Sinners and saints: the drama of sleeping people

BELOVED OSHO,

IF ANY OF YOU WOULD BRING TO JUDGMENT THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE,

LET HIM ALSO WEIGH THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND IN SCALES, AND MEASURE HIS SOUL WITH MEASUREMENTS.

AND LET HIM WHO WOULD LASH THE OFFENDER LOOK UNTO THE SPIRIT OF THE OFFENDED.

AND IF ANY OF YOU WOULD PUNISH IN THE NAME OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LAY THE AXE UNTO THE EVIL TREE, LET HIM SEE TO ITS ROOTS;

AND VERILY HE WILL FIND THE ROOTS OF THE GOOD AND THE BAD, THE FRUITFUL AND THE FRUITLESS, ALL ENTWINED TOGETHER IN THE SILENT HEART OF THE EARTH.

AND YOU JUDGES WHO WOULD BE JUST.

WHAT JUDGMENT PRONOUNCE YOU UPON HIM WHO THOUGH HONEST IN THE FLESH IS YET A THIEF IN SPIRIT?

WHAT PENALTY LAY YOU UPON HIM WHO SLAYS IN THE FLESH YET IS HIMSELF SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT?

AND HOW PROSECUTE YOU HIM WHO IN ACTION IS A DECEIVER AND AN OPPRESSOR,

YET WHO ALSO IS AGGRIEVED AND OUTRAGED?

AND HOW SHALL YOU PUNISH THOSE WHOSE REMORSE IS ALREADY GREATER THAN THEIR MISDEEDS?

IS NOT REMORSE THE JUSTICE WHICH IS ADMINISTERED BY THE VERY LAW WHICH YOU WOULD FAIN SERVE?

YET YOU CANNOT LAY THE REMORSE UPON THE INNOCENT NOR LIFT IT FROM THE HEART OF THE GUILTY.

UNBIDDEN SHALL IT CALL IN THE NIGHT, THAT MEN MAY WAKE AND GAZE UPON THEMSELVES.

AND YOU WHO WOULD UNDERSTAND JUSTICE, HOW SHALL YOU UNLESS YOU LOOK UPON ALL DEEDS IN THE FULLNESS OF LIGHT?

ONLY THEN SHALL YOU KNOW THAT THE ERECT AND THE FALLEN ARE BUT ONE MAN STANDING IN TWILIGHT BETWEEN THE NIGHT OF HIS PYGMY-SELF AND THE DAY OF HIS GOD-SELF.

AND THAT THE CORNER STONE OF THE TEMPLE IS NOT HIGHER THAN THE LOWEST STONE IN ITS FOUNDATION.

Kahlil Gibran says beautiful things, and once in a while he comes very close to truth. But most of the time he misses the target. He is a good poet but not a great archer.

He is just like a physician, who may help you but who knows only the symptoms of your disease, and cures the symptoms. But the symptoms are not the causes. If you cure the symptoms the disease will erupt somewhere else. His thinking is more concerned about actions, but not about the source of actions. And no man has ever known any transformation unless he has come face to face with the causes.

He is saying:

IF ANY OF YOU WOULD BRING TO JUDGMENT THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE,

LET HIM ALSO WEIGH THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND IN SCALES, AND MEASURE HIS SOUL WITH MEASUREMENTS.

It is good, there is some compassion in it -- but no real insight into the very source of the problem. The problem is, who are you to demand faith from anybody else? It may be your wife or your husband -- demanding faith is demanding slavery. Behind a beautiful word "faith" you are hiding an ugly disease, the very cancer of soul that has killed people's joy.

What right you have got to demand faith from your wife or from your husband? The real problem is not touched. The real problem is marriage.

Marriage has given a wrong conception to people, that love is something permanent. Only stones are permanent, only dead people are permanent. Only idiots never change. The more intelligent you are, your life is going to be a life of continuous change.

Don't condemn the wife or the husband for faithlessness. In the first place, to ask faith is wrong. There was a season -- the spring, the faith, the love arose in you. You were not the makers of it. You are not the doers of it, it is a happening. Just like a breeze it comes and just like a breeze it goes.

When it comes, rejoice.

And when it goes, say goodbye.

Show your gratefulness for all those beautiful days while the breeze was dancing around you and made you dance, while the breeze was passing through you and made you sing.

Yes, it is sad, but it is not sin.

Kahlil Gibran is still repeating the old, rotten idea of faithfulness. But faithfulness simply means slavery, and a slavery against yourself. Millions of couples in the world know that now there is no more love, but still -- for respectability, for reputation, for society and for other causes -- they go on pretending that they love each other.

This pretension is the real sin, the real crime.

If you have loved someone, when the love has gone you have to be honest and sincere enough to open your heart -- in sadness, in sorrow, but still grateful. Even if it lasted for a few days, few months, those months should be remembered; those sweet moments should fill your heart. And rejoice in one thing -- that your wife is honest, truthful. And you be honest also, and truthful.

The question of faithlessness has tortured man so immensely -- perhaps there is no other problem which has tortured humanity so much. It creates all kinds of ugly things in you.

First, you are constantly watching -- you become a detective -- whether your wife is faithful to you or not, whether your husband is faithful to you or not. But why should anybody be faithful to anybody else? Love is faithful, but when love disappears, faith also disappears.

Kahlil Gibran is pointing to an important thing:

IF ANY ONE OF YOU WOULD BRING TO JUDGMENT THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE, LET HIM ALSO WEIGH THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND IN SCALES,

Because love or lovelessness happens almost simultaneously. When it has disappeared in the heart of the woman, it has also disappeared in the heart of the man.

Perhaps lust has remained -- lust is more permanent than love, because lust is not part of your being. It is part of your chemistry, part of your hormones; it is biological, nothing spiritual in it. But a great misunderstanding continues: you go on calling your lust, love. Not to deceive others, although they are deceived -- but to deceive yourselves, perhaps unconsciously.

You cannot live without the wife. It has become a habit. Love is not a habit and love knows no boundaries. If a woman can love you, why can't she love somebody else? She can find someone who is more loving than you -- and the society has expected to you to go on clinging to each other whether you love or not. Then there is suspicion, then there is continuous anxiety, and sooner or later whether you say it or not, you cannot hide it. Neither can you hide your love nor can you hide your lovelessness.

You cannot hide a flame, you cannot hide its absence.

When the flame was there, young and dancing, there was light all around. When the flame is gone, the same space is filled with darkness.

I differ with Kahlil Gibran on this point. I would like you to be loving -- and love can be your whole, lifelong affair. But it need not be tethered and imprisoned.

In an authentic human society, marriage will be a crime.

Two persons love, they feel good to be together -- what is the need of marriage? And one day they find that the unknown visitor, the guest from the beyond, has left. They have again become strangers to each other. Truth demands that they should, with sadness and sorrow, expose their hearts to each other, that they are no more beating in harmony and it is time for them to depart. Depart as friends; there is no need of any divorce.

Divorce is the by-product of marriage. If there is no need of marriage, there is no need of divorce. Both are ugly, imposed.

It is man's basic right that when love knocks on his doors he should open the doors -- it does not matter who has come as a lover, whether he is your old partner or a new guest. Love should be sovereign in human life, not bogus marriages.

You create one unnecessary thing, make people suffer, and then finally after suffering for years they want to be separated. And have you watched the fact that if you want to get married you can just go to the marriage registrar's office and be married, but if you want to be separated, the society, the law, the government, everybody tries to create problems for you.

Marriage is their invention, and divorce is the response of the rebellious spirit in man. And the man who has no rebellious spirit has no spirit at all. Corpses can go on permanently in love, for the simple reason that they cannot go back to the registrar's office for a divorce.

This is good, that Kahlil Gibran says that if a husband brings his wife to judgment, that she is unfaithful wife, it will be not right to listen only to one party. Why is she unfaithful? Because the love is no more -- and the husband has all the freedom to move in society, have new contacts with women, or even go to the prostitutes. But the woman is confined in the house, which once was a home. When love was a guest, it was a home; now it is again just a dead house.

And it is natural that when love disappears there are quarrels, constant naggings, constant problems. You had chosen the wife or the husband to live a peaceful, joyful life together. But you are living certainly together, but without any joy, without any peace, without any love.

Prostitution is a by-product of marriage.

All the religions preach marriage and all the religions condemn prostitution, and nobody sees the connection. Why are there prostitutes? Love cannot be purchased, only lust can be purchased -- but something is better than nothing.

Marriage is not a natural phenomenon. It is artificial, arbitrary. And when it disappears you cannot do anything to bring it back. You can pretend, but that pretension makes you a hypocrite. And your pretension cannot deceive the woman, because she has known your love and the pretension cannot become the substitute. The only way is to separate -- in friendship, because you have given each other so much.

But rather separating in friendship, people separate as enemies, fighting the case in the court, proving the fact that they don't love each other anymore. Love is something invisible, but the court wants something objective, evidence. The woman has to prove that the man is going to other women, or that the man is impotent.

The woman is hurting the man, the same man she has loved. We are forcing her to hurt the man. And the man is hurting the woman -- saying that she is unfaithful, she has been with other people, or she is barren. But these are only excuses.

And look at the ridiculousness, that when they come to marry they don't have to provide any reasons for why they want to get married. It would be far better if marriage were made difficult. Two years' time should be given to them to live together and see, after two years, whether they want to continue to live together. And I know those two years will be enough! There will be no need of any marriage and no need of any divorce.

One thing people go on missing seeing -- perhaps they don't want to see -- is that life knows nothing but change. Life is change. Only death is permanent.

I met one old friend at the London airport. I asked him, "How are you?"

He said, "All right..." That was his old habit, for everything -- "All right." How is your wife? -- "All right." How are your children? -- "All right." And I said, "How is your old father?"

He said "He has been all right for five years now."

I could not understand, at first, what he meant. "He has been all right for five years now..." I said, "Just a little explanation?"

He said, "He is dead. Now he has no problems, and neither do we have any problems with him. He is all right in his grave."

Only dead people are all right.

Living people are all wrong!

It is good that Kahlil Gibran is raising the question that if one of the partners brings the other partner to be judged, and condemned or punished, he should also be taken into account. Because love was a river between two shores -- if love has disappeared it cannot only disappear from one shore. No river can manage to continue with one shore alone. Love was a movement of energy between two persons. If one person is no more there, the other person may desire -- but his desire is nothing but lust. It is not love.

Lust can be permanent -- that's why in animals there is no marriage, no divorce. When the season comes to produce children, they choose the partner -- every season a new partner. It is only man who is obsessed with permanency. But nobody can love permanency always.

Mulla Nasruddin was appointed as the advisor of a king. And the advisor had to remain with the king, because any moment, any problem could arise and his advice may be needed. So he was with the king almost twenty-four hours... he was sleeping in the king's palace and he was moving with the king the whole day.

The first day they were eating, sitting at the dining table. And the cook had made beautiful stuffed bindhis. The king liked them, and he asked Nasruddin, "Mulla, what is your opinion?"

He said, "My lord, bindhis are the best vegetable for health, for long life, for better intelligence... a protection against all kinds of diseases. In the old scriptures they have been described as the best preventive medicine, and your cook is great."

The cook heard it, so he started making bindhis every day. The second day, the king tolerated. Third day, it was getting too much. Fourth day, he started getting irritated. Fifth day he threw the whole plate on the floor and called the cook: "Are you mad? Every day bindhi, bindhi, bindhi -- am I a man or a buffalo?"

The cook said, "I am an ignorant man. I heard your great advisor say that bindhi is nectar, preventive of disease, preventive of old age, giving length to life, intelligence... and I thought if bindhi has so many qualities my lord should be given bindhis as much as possible."

The king said, "Mulla, what do you say?"

Mulla said, "Bindhis? -- they are poison! Never touch them."

The king said, "You seem to be a very strange person. Just five days before, you were praising them."

He said, "Listen, my lord, I am your servant, not the servant of the bindhis. Whatever you like I will praise -- even if it is poison I will call it nectar. And if you don't like something, even if it is nectar I will call it poison. I am your servant."

You want to taste different foods, you want to wear different clothes. You want to visit new places, you want to make new friends. What is wrong if you find a new lover? Who says it is unfaithful? The very idea of unfaithfulness is fascist, because it is demanding, "Go on eating bindhis, bindhis, bindhis.... Because bindhis cannot speak... otherwise they would all have screamed from the floor, "You are being unfaithful to us! For five days we remained married and you are throwing us on the floor -- is this your gratefulness?"

As far as I am concerned, you should be faithful only to love, not to the lover. Both should be faithful to love, as long as it lasts. If it lasts your whole life, good. If it does not last your whole life that is even better! There is no crime in it.

But the possessiveness, the greed... why did man start marrying? Marriage has not always been on the earth. Man started marrying the woman so that he could be certain that any time he wants a woman, she is ready. He can demand love, faithfulness... and man has gone to the absurd limit that the faithful wife should die when the husband dies. Alive, she should jump into the funeral pyre of the dead husband.

In this country, millions of living beings had to destroy themselves simply to prove to the society that they are faithful to their husbands. But nobody ever questioned that in ten thousand years not a single man has jumped into the funeral pyre of his wife. Are all husbands unfaithful?

It is a man's world, and he has made laws and moralities and ethics in order to enslave the woman. Even dead, he is worried that if his wife remains alive... time heals wounds. She may again fall in love with someone, and he will not be able to do anything because he will be dead, just tossing and turning in his grave. It is better to take the wife also with him.

And the wife was forced by the society. If she was unwilling -- and who can be willing? not that she is not sorry and sad about the death, but that does not mean that you should commit suicide -- if she refused, she was condemned by the whole society and boycotted, that she is an unfaithful woman. She lost all honor, prestige -- which she could have had if she had jumped into the fire!

But what is the point of honor and respect when you are dead?

I agree with Kahlil Gibran that if one partner -- and that partner is almost always the man, who brings the wife to the court saying that she is unfaithful. He is making a right point, that his heart should also be searched -- perhaps he began the whole thing; first he became unfaithful and the wife simply followed. But I cannot agree with his superficial analysis. The very idea of faithfulness is ugly, inhuman, anti-life.

Divorce should be made so easy that a single partner just has to inform the registrar that "We have separated." There is no need for any evidence. There is no need for both partners to agree to the separation. If one wants to separate, that's enough.

Of course one person cannot be accepted if he wants to marry someone -- then the agreement of both is needed. But this whole society is standing upside down. Marriage is easy, no evidence is needed. And divorce is made as difficult as possible, as ugly as possible.

Just to get the divorce the couple has to lie: either the woman has to say that the man is impotent or the man has to prove that the woman has fallen in love with somebody else. This may not be so -- it may simply be that the love has disappeared. But the court does not believe in invisible things. You have to produce solid, logical and legal proofs; otherwise the court will force you to live together.

And all the cultures and all the civilizations are forcing people to live together. That's why you rarely see a smiling face, you rarely see people happy -- particularly when they are with their wives and with their husbands. It is almost impossible for them even to smile. If the wife smiles at someone that's enough for the husband to freak out. If the husband looks at some woman... and when some beautiful woman passes by, not to look at her is inhuman. But he cannot look, because the wife is watching from the corner of her eye. Just to look at another woman is enough to disturb their whole life.

What kind of sick society have we created?

And governments exist to protect this society, because the more people are miserable the more obedient they are.

One of my friends applied for a job, and went to give an interview. The first question was -- which was not concerned with the job at all -- "Are you married?"

Being with me for years, he said, "What kind of nonsense question are you asking? What has my marriage to do with the work? These are my certificates, my qualifications, and you are asking `Are you married?"'

And the man who was interviewing him said, "Cool down. We don't accept unmarried people because they are not obedient. The married man knows how to obey, he is a slave. We want slaves here, we don't want masters and rebellions. We want to run our business, our industries, our whole empire for earning money -- we want people here who are always obedient. Husbands have proved the best people because they are trained, tamed, they are not wild. Their wives have done a great service to all the vested interests."

He told me, "I had this encounter... I am puzzled."

I said, "This society is not for the rebellious spirit. This society exists to exploit. From the very childhood, obedience is taught. Throughout the educational career, obedience is taught. Obedience is another way of saying that you are not allowed to think and decide; you have just to follow the orders."

If marriage disappears from the world, divorce disappears from the world, and people are free to choose to be with someone for as long as they feel.... There is no need to quarrel. The moment quarrel starts, it is time. Quarrel has given a definitive indication that now your paths will be separate.

AND IF ANY OF YOU WOULD PUNISH IN THE NAME OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LAY THE AXE UNTO THE EVIL TREE, LET HIM SEE TO ITS ROOTS;

AND VERILY HE WILL FIND THE ROOTS OF THE GOOD AND THE BAD, THE FRUITFUL AND THE FRUITLESS, ALL ENTWINED TOGETHER IN THE SILENT HEART OF THE EARTH.

I have said to you that Kahlil Gibran never could get free of his Christian upbringing. He was a man of great intellectuality, but he could not see that even Jesus was not able to see this, to see what he is saying. And he was a worshipper of Jesus.

He is saying that the good man and the bad man are not separate. Somewhere hidden deep in the darkness of the earth, their roots are entwined. So don't condemn the fruitless tree -- perhaps the fruitless tree is not getting enough nourishment, is not getting enough water. Fruits don't come from the sky, they need nourishment.

Perhaps the fruitless tree is under the shadow of a big tree, and cannot get breathing space, cannot get the life-giving light rays of the sun. Don't be too quick to judge.

But he never criticized Jesus Christ, and that's where I think some insincerity... because it is impossible for Kahlil Gibran not to remember Jesus Christ, writing these sentences. If I, who have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, cannot forget... his whole upbringing was Christian. All these upbringings bring blindness to you. You cannot see anything wrong with your upbringing; you can see everybody else's wrong.

Jesus has fallen in my eyes because of very small instances. For example, he was traveling with his apostles, and in three villages they passed, people did not allow them to enter their villages. They did not offer them food or water; they had to search for a new place. On the way, when the sun was setting, they came to a fig tree -- which had no fruits, because it was not the season for figs. And Jesus cursed the fig tree -- "We are hungry and you have not welcomed the only begotten son of God. You should have been ready with juicy fruits -- I curse you and condemn you forever, that you will never be a beautiful tree."

What kind of intelligence has this man? What can the poor fig tree do? It is not the season for fruits.

Kahlil Gibran has completely ignored the fact that Jesus was a fanatic in many ways, a little insane. He needed a great training somewhere in the East to become more meditative. He could not see the simple fact that the poor tree has nothing to do with it. She needs time, the right season, nourishment -- only then fruits can be there.

When you condemn anybody, be patient and think: perhaps in his place you would have been the same type of person as he is.

A man with a sense of justice always puts himself in the same position he is trying to judge.

Every law college should make it a fundamental teaching for all those people -- because they are going to be judges, advocates, attorneys, solicitors -- that before you judge somebody, put yourself in his position. And you will find it almost impossible to condemn the man.

You can condemn the man, you can punish the man for the simple reason that your upbringings have been different. A hungry man steals food -- just put yourself in his place.

It happened that one woman came to a Sufi mystic, Farid, with her young child and asked the mystic, "Baba, except you nobody can change my child. He eats too many sweets, is getting fat, and white sugar is almost poison. But he does not listen to me."

Farid said, "Bring him back after two weeks."

The woman said, "Can't you say something to him right now?"

Farid said, "No, it will take two weeks for me to figure out the whole situation." The woman was puzzled. She had heard Farid speak on great subjects of life... and he needs two weeks of preparation for a small child, to tell him not to each too many sweets?

But since he was not willing, she came back after two weeks. And Farid said to the child, "My child, for two weeks I had to put myself in your position, because I myself like eating sweets. With what face could I have given any advice to you? For two weeks I stopped eating sweets. I have lost weight, I am feeling healthier, younger, better than ever. You are young, you have a long life to go. Please, stop eating too many sweets. I am not saying stop completely -- once in a while you can eat them."

The boy touched the feet of Farid -- his mother was surprised, because he was not that type. He had never touched anybody's feet.

She said, "I am puzzled -- I am puzzled with you. You took two weeks to decide a simple thing that you could have told him on that very day. Neither I nor he knew that you loved sweets..."

Farid said, "It is not a question of your knowing or his knowing. My words would have been lies, and lies cannot transform anyone. First I had to put myself in his position. These two weeks have been hard, but I have gained great insight because of your child. I am grateful to him."

And she asked her child, "Why have you touched the feet of Farid? You never touch anybody's feet, and particularly... we are Hindus and he is a Mohammedan."

The boy said, "I cannot give you any arguments, but a man who remained for two weeks without sweets just to answer me, needs to be respected. He is not like your other parrots. You have been taking me to this monk, to that monk, and they are immediately ready -- just parrotlike, the same thing. This man is different. He is respectful of me, although I am a child, and he has suffered for me. I am going to follow his advice."

Kahlil Gibran is saying something right, but he has never criticized Jesus -- although he has written books on Jesus -- for the same reason: that it was insane, not only a mistake, to curse a fig tree. Only an insane person can do that.

Don't judge anybody in the first place. But if you have to judge, if you cannot resist the temptation of judging... remember, I am calling it a temptation, because when you judge somebody you put yourself higher than him. You become a judge, as if he is standing in your court. You forget your own humanity.

He is also not mentioning that you should look into your own soul, too. Perhaps your murderer is asleep, and it can be provoked any moment. Because nobody who has murdered, just a moment before, would have been able to see that he was going to murder.

I have known one man in my childhood -- he had a gymnasium just near my house. He was a good wrestler, a very loving person. I had no interest in wrestling with the body, I had my own way of wrestling! But with the body you can wrestle only with one person -- I am wrestling with the whole past and I am wrestling with all the so-called contemporaries and and I am wrestling also with those who have not yet been born.

Once in a while I used to go just to sit there and to watch. His disciples would be wrestling, practicing, and once in a while he would come to me and say, "It is strange, why do you come if you don't want to participate?"

I said, "I don't want to participate, but I use every opportunity of watching because finally that is my longing, just to be a watcher. It does not matter what it is."

He said, "You are strange." But he started being very loving to me.

I had never thought that this man could be a murderer one day.

And he murdered in front of my eyes -- it was not late at night, it was just nearabout ten o`clock. I was reading something and suddenly I saw in the street that he came and was hiding behind a tree. I was puzzled: what is he doing? And then the man who was to be murdered, passed by. And this man shot him, not knowing that there was a watcher.

To me the problem was that just a moment before I could not have thought, conceived, dreamed that this beautiful person could be a murderer. He was caught. I managed permission to see him... because he was going to be sentenced to death. I asked him only one thing: "This murderer must have been in you always, asleep -- were you aware of it?"

He said, "I was never aware of it. I became aware only when it was too late. Out of anger I killed that man" -- because that man had opened another gymnasium and was preparing people to fight against his wrestlers. And that man was very rich, he was providing food, milk, other nourishment to his wrestlers which this poor man could not do, and he was afraid that when the annual contest happened, his wrestlers were not going to win. He was so enraged that he simply shot him dead.

He said, "But where were you?"

I said, "In the same position -- watching. That is my whole approach towards life. I can learn much just by watching others, myself, their actions, my actions. I cannot see their minds but I can see my mind and I can watch it."

Before any desire, any temptation comes to your mind to judge somebody, look into yourself. And you will find the same person asleep within you. Then the real question is not to condemn him by your judgment but to transform yourself, because you all are in the same boat.

WHAT JUDGMENT PRONOUNCE YOU UPON HIM WHO THOUGH HONEST IN THE FLESH YET IS A THIEF IN SPIRIT?

He is asking everybody, because everybody is a judge. It has become some unconscious habit in you. You go on judging.

Yesterday, the notice from the police inspector of Poona -- which must have been prompted by the police commissioner -- had such a ridiculous statement in it that I cannot believe any man who has even a little intelligence can ask us to do something like that.

He demands -- in the first place, who is he to demand? We are not prisoners, we are free citizens of a country. He can request, but he cannot demand. He demands of us that we should put a noticeboard in front of our gate saying that no follower of Osho is allowed illegal activities inside the ashram or outside the ashram.

I became aware for the first time that only we are not allowed; everybody else is allowed to do illegal activities in their houses and outside their houses. So I have told my people, "Reply to him, and invite him for a discussion next week. And tell him that rather than demanding such a ridiculous board, it will be better... he should put boards all over Poona stating that except the followers of Osho, everybody is allowed to do illegal activities -- and it is not a request, it is a demand."

I have seen idiots, and I used to think I had seen all kinds. But in Poona I am discovering new categories of idiots. The very formulation of the sentence is illegal, and I have told my people that we will take him to court. What does it mean? Its implication is clear, that only our people are not allowed illegal activities. What about others?

And we are a small minority. But perhaps he has not been conscious of what he is demanding. He will become a laughingstock in the court. And in the court, we are going to demand that all these police people be given salaries from public money to teach people illegal activities. They should open a college in Poona: whoever wants to learn illegal acitivities... of course, my followers are prohibited.

I am sometimes simply surprised at these fools.

He is demanding that only one thousand foreigners be allowed to listen to my discourses. Is there anything in the Indian constitution which decides the number? Is there any law which decides the number, how many people should listen to me or not? And what are the grounds to choose the number one thousand? Why not a thousand and one, which will be more Indian, because it is an Indian tradition -- when somebody gives you a present, he will not give ten rupees, he has to give eleven. He will not give you one hundred rupees, he has to give one hundred and one.

One thousand and one will be more Indian, although without any reasoning, without any argument for it.

Why one thousand, why not ten thousand? And who are you to decide the number? Have you decided the same for Rajiv Gandhi, how many people should listen to him? Have you decided for any religious institution -- a mosque, a temple, a church? Or do you have to create a totally new constitution for me and my followers?

Why is this special attention being given to us? We don't care a bit about you, why are you worried?

I am going to take these people to the court. These are blind people.

He demands that every day we should inform how many people are in the ashram. Have you asked the same question to other ashrams all over the country? Are we discriminated from everybody else? Then you will need a special law in your parliament.

The whole world will laugh that a third-class police inspector is deciding and demanding. And your police commissioner is a perfect coward, because he was in the picture from the very beginning. Seeing that he has no grounds... and I have been hammering him continuously. This letter has come from a police Inspector. And their foolishness is such that the letter has come in the name of a person who holds no position in the ashram. He is not the in-charge of the ashram, he is not a trustee in the ashram.

Now the cowards are completely afraid, but I am going to expose that police inspector and force him to reveal the fact that the letter has been dictated by the police commissioner. If he wants to save his skin, he should say truthfully that the letter has been dictated by the police commissioner -- that's why these fallacies have entered into it. It is not addressed to the in-charge of the ashram, it is not addressed to any trustees.

It is addressed to a sannyasin who has nothing to do with it. He could have simply refused. But I want a clear confrontation. He had asked me -- "Should I refuse? because I have nothing to do with it. It is not my business." I said, "Don't be worried, you accept it. And tell them, `Our legal experts will be available next week. First you have to give a support for each demand, either from the constitution or from your legal courts. And if we cannot come to a conclusion then you and my legal experts have to be present in a court, so a judge can decide what kind of nonsense is being done to us."'

And to you I would like to say, be very alert.

Because these people are in search of something so they can justify their order for me to leave Poona in thirty minutes. They don't have any justification yet. So remember this on the streets -- don't give them any opportunity. They are dying to find some opportunity so that they can have some evidence.

Just the other day, two persons in police uniform came to the ashram gate. They wanted to have a look all over the ashram. And when asked for their identity card -- because how can we decide whether you are real policemen or just actors in Hindi films, where anybody becomes a police inspector, police commissioner? -- they said they had forgotten their identity cards in their rickshaw. They will be bringing it back, the rickshaw is standing outside. And they ran away, they never came back.

Now these kinds of people can enter here with any kind of drug, can plant the drug anywhere in the ashram to prove that there is drug trafficking going on.

So every sannyasin has to be aware -- I am totally on the warpath, and any fault on your side will harm me. So don't do anything against the blind and the deaf and their stupid ideas. Be alert that you are not caught in their net.

They have shifted the whole thing from me to the followers. The first notice was against me. Seeing that it is impossible to prove anything which supports their order against me, now they have shifted. The second order... these demands, ridiculous, hilarious, are all for the disciples. Now they are trying to harm me through you.

So you have to be very alert and aware.

And this is a good training, because we will be facing the same problem all over the world. And now they have provoked us, they will have to repent.

Even if somebody starts fighting with you on the street, just go and inform the nearest police station that you are a follower of Osho and a few nuisance people, fanatics and bigots, have attacked you. Don't fight against them. I want you to be fully aware because I have seen with my own eyes Hindu and Mohammedan riots -- Hindu police will be standing simply watching the scene, the show. Hindus are killing the Mohammedans and they will not prevent it. If Mohammedans start killing Hindus they will prevent it -- Mohammedans will be caught, and they will say that these are the people who are creating a nuisance in the town, violence in the town. And the same is the case in cities where Mohammedan police will simply watch Hindus being burned alive, their temples destroyed. But if any Hindu reacts to it he will be immediately caught -- "he is creating trouble."

I know all the strategies of this stupid bureaucracy. Don't be caught in their net.

I have seen politicians... just a dead cow, they will put in front of a Hindu temple. Naturally the Hindus will think it must have been done by Mohammedans, and immediately there is a riot. And then these same politicians start speeches for peace, for brotherhood.

We are living in a really mad world.

I know the politicians -- who have been creating the riots and when hundreds of people have been burned and killed, and mosques and temples have been destroyed, then they will call a public meeting of all the religions and will talk about peace, humanity, progress. And they are the people who are hindering all progress.

One day I told you that if all controversial people are removed from humanity there will be only buffaloes and donkeys left. I would like to add that politicians and policemen will also be left -- politicians to create riots between buffaloes and donkeys... which are very peace-loving and non-violent people. Nobody has ever heard of a donkey attacking a buffalo or a buffalo attacking a donkey. For millions of years they have never created any riot.

To create riots, the politicians will be needed. And then to impose curfews and take the donkeys and buffaloes into jails, the police will be needed.

Their power, the politicians' power, is in your unawareness.

And this is not just the police officials here -- behind them is the whole politics of Hindu chauvinists.

I am going to be opposed everywhere for the simple reason that I am not a Christian, not a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan nor a Jaina nor a Buddhist nor a Sikh.... All these religious people who have been fighting amongst themselves will join together. They have found a common enemy. And the politicians are always with the crowd, because they exploit the crowd, their votes.

We are a minority, but every minority has its right to exist in the world. In the beginning I was alone, a minority of one. Then people who love, people who are in search of truth, started coming. How did they get the news? How did they start moving towards me? And the caravan started becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and now it surrounds the whole earth.

Just to protect you, I have withdrawn your malas. You will feel sad for it but it is necessary that you should not be recognized as my people. Otherwise, everywhere you will be harassed. It is not only in India. In Australia sannyasins have been beaten, in England sannyasins have been beaten. In Germany sannyasins have been thrown out of their jobs. It is a global phenomenon.

In America, they have destroyed our commune. And now they are admitting -- their very United States attorney is admitting that they had nothing against me. Then why was I fined four hundred thousand dollars? Why have I been prevented from entering America for five years? And the attorney has admitted in a press conference that "Our priority was to destroy the commune." But why?

Even if somebody has done wrong, that person should be taken to the court. Five thousand innocent people -- why should you destroy them? Do you think because Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu, all the Hindus should be destroyed? Because in Poona there are many criminals who are sent to jail, do you think it should be the priority of the government to destroy the whole city?

I am going to put a case in the supreme court of America, because the same man -- the attorney general of America, Mr. Meese -- is behind the whole case of Irangate. Ronald Reagan and Mr. Meese, and the CIA chief -- these three persons are in the same situation in which, a few years before, Richard Nixon was. Of course their crime is far bigger.

Soon, I predict they will be going down the drain. I just want them to remember: while you are going down the drain, remember Rajneeshpuram and the criminal act you have committed against five thousand innocent people.

The whole White House needs to be painted black, because this is the ugliest place on the earth, the most unholy. All kinds of crimes arise from the White House. Perhaps that's why from the very beginning they started calling it the White House -- to hide all that is dark and evil, inside the name "White House." But remember, there are white lies too, which are far worse....

So you have to be aware -- not only here but when you go back home -- anywhere you are, I suggest that you not use malas, not use orange clothes if they create any trouble. With a heavy heart I am saying that, but I love you and I don't want you to be in any trouble. I am ready for any trouble for myself, but not for you.

And this way you will be able to bring many more people to me who are seekers, but were afraid of becoming sannyasins.

You can have my photos in your house, but now the sannyas movement has to go underground absolutely. I will be in your heart, there is no need to be worried about the mala or clothes. My whole religion consists only of one thing: don't forget meditation. Everything else is non-essential.

Kahlil Gibran is asking:

WHAT PENALTY LAY YOU UPON HIM WHO SLAYS IN THE FLESH YET IS HIMSELF SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT?

Your whole system of law is superficial.

If somebody is slain in the spirit your law has no way even to find it out. And almost everybody has been murdered in his spirit. Unless somebody kills your body, only then the law can see it. Law is still of the lowest kind. Your judges are not capable of looking into your eyes to see what has been done to your being.

AND HOW PROSECUTE YOU HIM WHO IN ACTION IS A DECEIVER AND AN OPPRESSOR, YET WHO ALSO IS AGGRIEVED AND OUTRAGED?

Anybody who is a deceiver or an oppressor must have been produced by certain circumstances. What remedy has your law that those circumstances should not exist which create murderers, thieves, exploiters, all kinds of criminals? We don't really have an authentic system of law -- because a judge, a magistrate can only be a magistrate if he knows what meditation is, if he knows what love is, if he is capable to look in the deepest core of your being, if he can put himself in your place and conceive of all the circumstances.

But no law college is concerned with all this. That's why crime goes on increasing, innocence goes on decreasing -- and we are all responsible for it.

I would like my sannyasins first to go through an inner transformation -- and then rebel against anything that is wrong, anywhere in the society. We have to create a new world... because there is no greater creation.

AND HOW SHALL YOU PUNISH THOSE WHOSE REMORSE IS ALREADY GREATER THAN THEIR MISDEEDS?

In the first place the very idea of punishment is wrong, because thousands of years of experience prove that punishment has not changed anyone. Sending somebody to jail is sending him to a university for criminals. Perhaps it may be his first crime -- he is immature; otherwise you would not have been able to catch hold of him. But inside the jail there are mature criminals. I have heard, a young man was sentenced for three years because he had stolen medicine for his dying mother. I don't see it as a crime, I see that it can happen only in a criminal society -- his mother is dying and nobody is bothering about it. He has not even enough money for medicine or to call a doctor. What do you want him to do?

He was sentenced to three years in jail, and when he entered the jail cell there was one person resting on his bed, and two other criminals were giving him a massage. The man asked, "For how many years are you going to be here?"

He said, "Three years."

He said, "That's perfectly okay. You can have the bed near the door, because we are going to remain here -- somebody for twenty years, somebody for thirty years -- you are just a young kid. Just stay there -- anyway within three years you will be going out, so remain close to the door. Don't come in."

Have you ever heard that any criminal who has been punished comes out into the society changed? Yes, in a way changed -- he comes back with a great learning, that to commit a crime is not wrong but to be caught is wrong, so you have to be more articulate -- you are very amateurish. After living with old criminals, he has come out now -- graduated from the university.

And outside, the society is not going to give him the dignity that belongs to every man whether he is good or bad. The society will look at him as evil, bad, criminal -- who is going to give him a job? Who is going to give him shelter? Soon he will be forced by the circumstances to commit again a bigger crime, because now he knows the whole art of it.

In my village there was a very beautiful man, a Mohammedan. I had a deep friendship with him. My whole family, my whole village, my teachers, everybody was against having any kind of friendship with that man -- his name was Bartak Ali -- because he was three months in jail, one month out, six months in jail, two months out, three years in jail...

The last time I saw him he had come out after five years in jail. And he had been sent to jail by one of my neighbors who was a very rich man. He had been caught red-handed, stealing.

But Bartak Ali was a man who could not be humiliated by anything. He had no money. As he was released from jail he hired a tonga, a horse-driven vehicle. The driver asked, "Where do you want to go? because you don't have a home...."

He said, "I have a home, and I am coming out of there. Three-fourths of the time I rest in my home, one-fourth of the time I come out in the world to see what is happening -- just for a change. You take me to Mr. Mody's shop" -- that was the place where he was caught stealing, and Mody was the person who had managed to send him for five years into jail.

The driver said, "You are really a unique person...."

He said, "Where else can I go? He has destroyed my home, he sent me to jail. I don't even have money to pay you; he will have to pay you. He will have to pay money to you and he will have to find a shelter for me. And if he does not do it, then I am going to do something more harmful, so that I can remain in my home forever."

That was the time I met him, when he stepped out of the vehicle. That rich man had almost a nervous breakdown when he saw him. He was a very strong man, very influential in a way -- you could not have forgotten him if you had seen him once.

He said, "Good morning," and Mr. Mody was trembling. He entered the shop, sat on a chair and told him, "Pay the driver, because I don't have any money. And now find me a place to stay and give me a job -- or a salary without a job, I don't mind."

I was present. I said, "Bartak, there are limits. That man is in such a situation, he may have a heart attack! You could have come to my house, you could have come to any other house. You have so many friends...."

He said, "Why should I go anywhere else? This man is responsible for forcing the judge -- and only for five years! I wanted to live in peace forever in my home. Now it is his duty."

And stuttering, Mr. Mody said, "Don't be worried." He paid the driver and he ordered food from a hotel for him, and he said, "I have a small house near the river where I rarely go. You can stay there."

He said, "What about my expenses?"

He said, "I will take care, but don't harass me too much... my heart is jumping as it has never jumped before. You just go. This is the key, food will be coming every day twice a day, tea in the morning, everything."

He said, "Remember, if any day anything is missed, your safe will disappear. Because now I know much more about how to make things disappear. Last time I was playing in a new dimension -- basically I am a pickpocket but in pockets you find such rubbish, after so much effort, that I thought something better had to be done. And now I have come absolutely graduated -- a five-year graduate from the university of crime."

Your jails are universities: they create criminals, they train criminals. This is not punishment, this is simple stupidity. Nobody needs to be punished. Every person who is doing something wrong needs the compassion of the whole society, he is part of us.

It happened in a court. A man had murdered someone and the judge sentenced him to death. He said, "It is very unjust because I have not murdered him -- my hand is responsible."

The judge was also in a light mood -- he said, "That's true. Your hand has killed the man so we will send your hand to jail."

He said, "That's perfectly okay. Every criminal should be punished," and then he pulled his robe up, took off the hand -- it was a false hand. He gave it to the judge and said, "Your honor, can I go now?"

Whoever is doing wrong is just a part, and not artificial -- natural, existential.

And he is saying that if this man's remorse is greater than his misdeeds, what more punishment do you want to give him? If he is repenting, if he understands that something wrong has happened through him, if he feels heavy in his conscience, ashamed of his act, what more punishment can you give?

This is again Christian influence. It is not an original idea. Christianity has been telling you: just go to the church and confess, and God will forgive you. Your confession is your remorse.

But that is too simple. You are again free to commit the crime. Next Sunday, you can confess in privacy -- the priest is not allowed to talk about anybody's confession -- and you are forgiven. >No, just remorse won't do. And remorse may kill that person because of guilt much more quickly than any punishment. I am against repentance, against remorse.

My whole approach is that of understanding. He should understand that his unconscious is animal, and whatever he has done was done because he has never bothered to rise above unconsciousness, above ordinary consciousness, to super-consciousness and higher levels of being. Just as out of unconsciousness, crimes are born -- out of super-consciousness, all that is valuable and beautiful is born.

Anybody who has committed anything wrong should seek a mystery school, a master who can teach him how to become more conscious.

And there are peaks of consciousness -- at the highest peak, crime or sin or anything wrong becomes impossible. By remorse, it is not going to happen. Although he is not writing a Christian book, because he is basically brought up as a Christian he goes on, perhaps unconsciously, repeating what he has heard.

Jesus continually goes on saying in THE BIBLE, "Repent! Repent and ye shall be forgiven." A simple formula -- so simple that it cannot transform people.

YET YOU CANNOT LAY REMORSE UPON THE INNOCENT NOR LIFT IT FROM THE HEART OF THE GUILTY.

Certainly your judges are incapable of doing that. The longer they are in the service of being a judge, the harder become their hearts.

AND YOU WHO WOULD UNDERSTAND JUSTICE.

HOW SHALL YOU UNLESS YOU LOOK UPON ALL DEEDS IN THE FULLNESS OF LIGHT?

Don't judge a fragment of an action. You cannot judge a novel by tearing one page from the middle and reading it; you cannot judge whether the novel is a great piece of art, creativity, or just rubbish. How can you judge anybody by a small act?

But you yourself are not capable of seeing YOUR wholeness. How can you be capable of seeing the whole life of another person? First start from yourself, and the more you understand yourself the more compassionate you will be.

The day you have understood your whole being, you will know there are no sinners and no saints -- this is all a drama of sleeping people.

ONLY THEN SHALL YOU KNOW THAT THE ERECT AND THE FALLEN ARE BUT ONE MAN STANDING IN TWILIGHT BETWEEN THE NIGHT OF HIS PYGMY-SELF AND THE DAY OF HIS GOD-SELF.

AND THAT THE CORNERSTONE OF THE TEMPLE IS NOT HIGHER THAN THE LOWEST STONE IN ITS FOUNDATION.

Nobody is lower, nobody is higher.

Nobody is a sinner, nobody is a saint.

We are all one, single whole.

If somebody commits a sin, we have committed it.

And if somebody becomes a Gautam Buddha, we have also tasted something of the beyond.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.

Kahlil-Gibrans-Prophet

THE MESSIAH, VOL 1

Chapter-22

Sinners and saints: the drama of sleeping people