Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 1 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 2: Love Comes Faceless, Question 6

The sixth question

Question 6

I KNOW THAT EXISTENCE IS PERFECT IN ITS TOTALITY, BUT WE ARE SINGLE INCARNATIONS AND IF TOTALITY IS INTELLIGENT, ITS PARTS ARE NOT. YOU SAID THAT GOD NEEDS YOU AS YOU ARE OTHERWISE HE WOULD NOT HAVE CREATED YOU. BUT IF I HAVE HAD A HARD, HORRIBLE ILLNESS FROM MY EARLY AGE AND THIS MISTAKE OF NATURE MAKES ME SUFFER CONSTANTLY, THEN WHOSE SUFFERING IS IT? DON'T SAY GOD'S. IT IS TORTURE FOR THIS VERY PERSON. HOW THEN TO ENJOY LIFE? MY PROFESSOR OF PATHOPHYSIOLOGY SAID, 'NATURE IS STUPID, OTHERWISE IT WOULD NOT OPPOSE ITSELF BY PUTTING ONE PART AGAINST THE OTHER. NATURE MAKES US SUFFER. 'WHY DOES GOD NEED SUFFERING? WHY, OSHO?

LUNACEK,

THE QUESTION IS SIGNIFICANT But it can be answered only if you are ready to rise a little higher than the ordinary logic of life, if you are ready to raise your eyes towards some higher mathematics.

The lower mathematics has one kind of rules; the higher mathematics is just the opposite of it. Pythagoras says there are two laws: that of necessity and that of power. Lower mathematics consists of necessity; higher mathematics consists of power. And their workings are different, utterly different -- although they are part of a bigger whole, the primordial law, LOGOS, TAO, DHAMMA.

First thing: in lower mathematics the part is never equal to the whole, obviously -- how can the part be equal to the whole? But in the higher mathematics the part is equal to the whole. For example: in the lower mathematics, a dewdrop cannot be the ocean; it is so small and the ocean is so vast. But the difference is only of quantity! Lower mathematics takes account only of quantity; higher mathematics thinks of quality not of quantity. And then the dewdrop is exactly the ocean. It contains all the oceans! If you can understand a single dewdrop, you have understood all the oceans of all the planets and all the stars and all the earths. A single dewdrop can reveal to you the formula H2O -- and that is the formula of all the oceans. The secret is contained by a small dewdrop as much as by the big ocean. The quantity is different, but the quality is not different. Qualitatively the small dewdrop is as big as the ocean -- because it contains AS much truth as the ocean.

Tennyson has said that if we can understand a small flower, root and all, we will have understood the whole universe. And he is right -- he is talking about higher mathematics.

Just the other day I mentioned three great books: first iS Aristotles ORGANUM, second Bacon's NOVUM ORGANUM, and third P. D. Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM. Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM IS A book of higher mathematics; he was a mathematician, one of the greatest mathematicians that has ever been. And in the very beginning of the book, Ouspensky says, "My book, TERTIUM ORGANUM, IS the third, but the third existed before the first." Now there is a difference of two thousand years between Ouspensky and Aristotle -- but Ouspensky says the third existed before the first. This is the beginning of higher mathematics; from the first statement the higher mathematics starts.

Somebody asked Jesus: "What do you say about Abraham?" And he said, "Before Abraham ever was, I am."

Now this is something strange, on the surface absurd. I how can Jesus be before Abraham? But the essential quality of Christ-consciousness is eternal. Jesus as a body cannot be before Abraham, but Jesus as essential consciousness is CERTAINLY before Abraham. The higher mathematics turns things upside down, because things are already topsy-turvy.

You ask me: I KNOW THAT EXISTENCE IS PERFECT IN ITS TOTALITY...

You don't know what you are saying. If existence is perfect in its totality then each part has to be perfect; otherwise, how can the total be perfect? If all the parts that constitute the total are imperfect, how can the sum of all those parts be perfect? -- that is impossible. If each drop that makes the ocean is imperfect, how can the whole ocean be perfect? It's simple: if the ocean is perfect then the logical corollary will be that each drop is perfect.

The Upanishads say -- again they talk of higher mathematics -- they say: God is perfect. Even if you take the whole of God out of him, still the perfection will remain behind. Take everything out of the whole, but the whole will still remain behind. You cannot make perfection less or more. If you take something out of it, it will be the same; you add something to it, it will be the same.

You say: I KNOW THAT EXISTENCE IS PERFECT IN ITS TOTALITY, BUT WE ARE SINGLE INCARNATIONS AND IF TOTALITY IS INTELLIGENT, ITS PARTS ARE NOT.

If the parts are not intelligent, how can the totality be intelligent? So there are only two possibilities for you. One is: if you are stupid then God is stupid -- because all stupid parts, in fact, will make God more stupid rather than less. So many stupid parts will not only add stupidity but will multiply it... God will go mad.

If you say God is intelligent, then each part has to be intelligent -- only then can God be intelligent. If God is perfect then each part has to be perfect -- only then can God be perfect.

If you try to understand. this will be obvious.

And, the part is never less than the whole; it contains all the qualities of the whole -- quantitatively maybe less, but quantity does not matter. Quality matters. Qualitatively you are perfect as you are.

This is the declaration of all the mystics of all the ages -- I declare it again: You are perfect as you are. You are Gods.

The second thing you say:

YOU SAID THAT GOD NEEDS YOU AS YOU ARE, OTHERWISE HE WOULD NOT HAVE CREATED YOU.

Yes, if he is intelligent, as you yourself say, why should he Create you if you are not needed? Intelligence always creates that which is needed. That is the meaning of being intelligent! If you are created for no reason, for no purpose, for no necessity that you are going to fulfill, then God cannot be intelligent.

He is utterly intelligent "God is intelligent" is not right to say: it will be better to say "God is intelligence." This whole existence is full of intelligence.

But I can understand your problem.

You ask: But IF I HAVE BAD A HARD HORRIBLE ILLNESS FROM MY EARLY AGE AND THIS MISTAKE OF NATURE MAKES ME SUFFER CONSTANTLY, THEN WHOSE SUFFERING IS IT?

The suffering is your interpretation. You have become too much identified with it -- that is your decision. You can disidentify and the suffering disappears. Your suffering is like a nightmare: in the dream you think a great rock has fallen on your chest, it is crushing you to death. Out of fear you awake... and all that you find is nothing -- your own hands resting on your chest. But the weight of your hands triggered imagination in you: it became a rock, and you started feeling very very frightened. And because of the fear, you are awakened... and now you laugh.

Ask the Buddhas, ask the awakened ones, and they say there is no suffering in the world -- people are fast asleep and dreaming all kinds of sufferings.

And I know your difficulty: if you have a physical problem, if you are blind, how can you believe that this is only a dream? If you are crippled, how can you believe that this is only a dream? But have you not watched? -- every night you dream, and every morning you know that it was a dream and all nonsense -- and again you will dream, and in dream again you will believe that this is truth. How many dreams have you dreamt in your life? Millions of dreams! Each night you are dreaming almost without break; just for a few minutes the dreaming stops, and then again another cycle of dreaming starts.

Millions of dreams you have dreamt. And every morning you have laughed and you have said it was unreal, but you have not learnt much. Tonight again when you dream, the same fallacy will persist: you will know that this is truth -- in dream you will know this is true. The day you can remember in your dream that this is a dream, immediately the dream disappears... because you have brought awareness into your life.

It looks very difficult to trust that all that you are suffering is just a dream created by yourself -- but it is so. Because all those who have become awakened say so! Not a single awakened person has said otherwise. And in lucid moments of awareness you will also feel the same.

Lunacek, this is my suggestion for you: your problem cannot be solved only by an intellectual discussion -- your problem can be only dissolved, not solved. Your problem can only be dissolved by becoming more aware.

One of my friends, an old friend, fell from a staircase, broke both his legs. I went to see him; he was in tremendous pain. And he was a very active person although he was very old, seventy-five -- but very active, almost young, and running so much after this and that, and doing this and that, that it was impossible for him to rest on the bed. And the doctors had said that for three months at least he had to be only in bed. This was more of a calamity than the two broken legs.

When I saw him, he started crying. I had never seen that man cry -- he is a strong man, a very strong man, almost a man of steel, and has seen all kinds of things in his life, is a very seasoned man. I asked him, "You, and crying -- what is the matter with you?"

He said, "Just bless me so that I can die. I don't want to live any more -- three months just in bed! Can you imagine? This is torture. Just three days have passed and it feels almost as if for three years I have been in bed. You know me," he said, "I cannot rest. Just bless me so that I can die soon! I don't want to live any more. These three months and then the doctors say I will remain crippled my whole life -- so what is the point?"

I said to him, "You please do a meditation. I will sit by your side, you just do a simple meditation: that you are not the body."

He was dubious. He said, "What is that going to do to me? I have heard all that you say about meditation, but I cannot meditate because I cannot sit silently."

I said, "Now there is no question of sitting silently -- you are already in the bed. This is a blessing! Just close your eyes and I will teach you a meditation. And I bless you to die, because if you want to die then perfectly good. But my blessing may work, may not work, so meanwhile you meditate."

He understood the point: "There is nothing to do... so why not meditate?" A simple meditation I told him: "You simply go in, look at the body from the inside, say 'It is not me -- the body is far away, far away, going distant and more distant and more distant. I am a watcher on the hills, and the body is down there in the dark valley, and the distance is immense.' "

Half an hour passed. I had to leave, and he was in such a meditation that I didn't want to disturb him, but I didn't want to leave him either because I wanted to know what was happening, what he would say. So I had to shake him. He said, "Don't disturb me!"

I said, "But I have to leave."

He said, "You can leave, but don't disturb me -- it is so beautiful. The body is really lying so far away, miles and miles away; in the valley I have left it and I am sitting on the top of the hill, a sunlit hill. It is so beautiful, and I don't feel any pain either."

And those three months proved the most valuable time of his life. Those three months made him a totally different man. He is still crippled, cannot walk, has to remain mostly in the bed -- but you cannot find a more blissful person. He radiates bliss.

Now he says it was not a curse -- it was a blessing.

Suffering can be transformed into a blessing. Who knows? -- you are transforming your blessings into sufferings.

You say: BUT IF I HAVE HAD A HARD HORRIBLE ILLNESS FROM MY EARLY AGE AND THIS MISTAKE OF NATURE MAKES ME SUFFER CONSTANTLY, THEN WHOSE SUFFERING IS IT? DON 'T SAY GOD'S.

I WILL NEVER SAY THAT. You don't need to remind me. How can God Suffer? God is nothing but blessings, blissfulness, ecstasy, benediction. God cannot suffer: God is SATCHITANANDA -- truth, consciousness, bliss.

And I am not going to say that you are suffering either, because you are part of God, and the part is equal to the whole. And if the part suffers, then the whole suffers. Then who is suffering? Nobody is suffering: you are only dreaming. You are interpreting it in a wrong way. It is not a mistake of nature! It is a mistake of your understanding.

And I know it is very hard for a person who is in suffering, but what can I do? This is the truth and I have to say the truth -- even if it hurts, I have to say it the way it is.

You say: MY PROFESSOR OF PATHOPHYSIOLOGY SAID...

He seems to be pathological himself, your professor.

... THAT NATURE IS STUPID...

If nature is stupid, how can you be intelligent? You are part of nature! Nature is not stupid: nature is utter intelligence. But this is how the ego of man goes on and on bragging about itself.

It is because of these people that the whole of nature has been destroyed, the ecology has been destroyed, the atmosphere is polluted -- it is because of such professors. Avoid these people! Avoid these people as you avoid lepers -- don't avoid lepers but avoid professors.

Now, what a nonsense statement: Nature is stupid. Then who are you? and from where? "The ocean is stupid" is said by a wave! You see the stupidity.

MY PROFESSOR SAYS, 'NATURE IS STUPID, OTHERWISE IT WOULD NOT OPPOSE ITSELF BY PUTTING ONE PART AGAINST THE OTHER...'

That's how intelligence functions, by putting one part against the other. Intelligence is a dialectical process, otherwise nothing will exist. If there is no death, there will be no birth either -- death has to oppose birth. But this opposition is only on the surface. Deep down, they represent the single law, the primordial law, LOGOS.

Light has to be opposed by darkness, otherwise there will be no light. And love has to be opposed by hate, otherwise there will be no love either. And man has to be opposed by woman... and so on and so forth.

Just ask your professor how electricity can exist if there are not the polarities of negative and positive in it. Can he make electricity exist without this opposition of the negative and the positive? And he thinks nature is stupid? That is the only way! Can a river exist without two banks? It is impossible for the river to exist without two banks -- those two banks oppose each other and create the space for the river to flow between.

Life needs polar opposites: summer/winter, birth/death, yin/yang, Shiva/Shakti, positive/negative.

Your professor must be a little crazy, nuts. Professors are. You ask him: can he make anything happen without dialectics? Nature is dialectical -- nature knows how things have to be done. Nature has never been any other way, and will not be any other way.

Try to understand... then the dialectics will be seen everywhere. Illness and health, they can only be both together. Beauty and ugliness, success and failure, pain and pleasure, suffering and blissfulness -- they are all part of nature. Once you have understood it, a transcendence happens.

This is what Pythagoras says: The law of necessity and the law of power. The law of necessity pulls you downwards into mechanicalness; the law of power pulls you upwards into the world of freedom. I call these two laws: the law of gravitation and the law of grace. One pulls you downward, one pulls you up.

The logical mind says: Why opposites? But the logical mind is not really an understanding mind. Logic is not the true process of life: dialectics is. Logic is linear: dialectics is not linear -- dialectics moves by thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and then the synthesis becomes a thesis again, antithesis, synthesis, and so on and so forth... higher and higher dialectics goes. Logic is monotonous. If God was logical, as your professor of pathophysiology is, he would have created only man, not woman. What is the point? Or, only woman -- what is the point of creating man and creating trouble in the world? There would have been only homosexuality according to your professor -- no heterosexuality. But just think of a world utterly homosexual. It will be really ugly. It is good once in a while to meet a gay person -- it is gay! -- but the whole world homosexual, men hugging each other and saying 'darling'? That would have been far more pathological.

This is a beautiful world -- it exists in polar opposites. But those opposites are complementary, and it makes life rich because it gives a tension to life, otherwise life will be flat, monotonous, boring; there will be no joy. Joy arises only out of this tension.

Wherever there is tension, there is the possibility of joy. Whenever the tension relaxes, joy arises. You love a woman -- there is great joy -- but if you love her twenty-four hours a day, and you go on calling her sugar, sugar, sugar, you will have diabetes! A little fight, a little pillow-throwing, is very much needed -- that gives you space again.

When you fight with your woman, it is a mini divorce: you go apart. For a moment you think, "Finished! I am not going to do anything with this woman ever -- enough is enough." And she is also saying the same. You go far away, as far away as you have been before you fell in love. And when you are that far away, again love arises, because you start missing the woman, the woman starts missing you. You start coming closer. And when you come closer again, a mini honeymoon again. And this is how it goes on: in the morning you fight, by the evening you are together; in the night you fight, by the morning you are again together. This is a rhythm! this is dialectics.

Just think of two lovers holding hands for ever and ever... never a fight. It will be really tiring. They will never go far away, then there will be no joy of coming together. The joy of coming together depends on going far away from each other. Once in a while everybody wants to be alone; and then you start missing, then the search starts. When you are together, sooner or later you become tired of each other, and you start searching for that space called aloneness again. This is how it moves, the pendulum of life: right and left, left and right. This is how life progresses.

It is perfectly as it should be.

Pythagoras

VOL. 1, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-2

Love Comes Faceless