Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 1 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 3: Falling Upwards, Question 1

The first question

Question 1

OSHO, THANK YOU FOR THE DELICATE SYNTHESIS. GREAT JOY ARISES IN UNDERSTANDING THE PURPOSELESSNESS OF EXISTENCE.

Deva Nirguna,

TRUTH ALWAYS TRIGGERS A PROCESS IN YOU, even if the truth is not your own. The very hearing of it creates a parallel process in you. It is not caused by hearing it; it follows not the law of cause and effect but the law of synchronicity.

Listening to great music, music arises in you. There is no necessity: it may arise, it may not arise. There is no inevitability about it. But if you are open, it arises. If you are available, it arises. Watching a great dancer, something starts dancing in you. This is communion.

The truth of Pythagoras, the truth of the greatest synthesis ever attempted, CAN trigger a process in you, CAN start something so immense that you could not have ever dreamt about it. That is the whole purpose of satsang: being in communion with a Master. His presence, his utterances, his silences, start working on you AND sometimes even in spite of you. Sometimes you become aware of those processes, sometimes you are not even aware of them; they start working underneath your consciousness. One day they explode into great blossoming.

Pythagoras really has tried the impossible. And not only tried -- he succeeded too. But the world wants to live in division, because the world can only understand conflict. It cannot understand synthesis. Synthesis can be understood only when some synthesis inside you starts happening; otherwise, synthesis is non-understandable, will be misunderstood.

Everybody was against Pythagoras. All religions, all sects, all the so-called gurus of those days, were against Pythagoras. In fact, they should have been with him, because he was bringing all scattered fragments of truth together. But it hurts....

If I say the Koran is true, AS much true as the Vedas, if people were understanding then Mohammedans and Hindus would both be tremendously happy -- but that doesn't happen. Both become angry. The Mohammedan becomes angry because I have compared HIS holy book with the ordinary book -- Vedas? And the Hindu becomes angry because I have compared HIS holy book with an ordinary book -- the Koran? They both become angry because their egos are hurt.

And you can understand what must have happened to Pythagoras, because it is happening to me, it is happening to you. The SAME process! Hindus are against, Mohammedans are against, Jainas are against, Buddhists are against, Christians are against. Why? And I am bringing Christ and Buddha and Mahavira and Zarathustra and Lao Tzu and Krishna into the highest possible synthesis. Still they are all against it.

The reason is: they are divided within themselves. They can only understand THAT WHICH THEY ARE. YOU can never understand anything beyond your consciousness. If YOU are split, you can only understand a split world. If you are in a subtle harmony inside, then only will any harmony happening outside be understood.

It is good, Nirguna, that you felt great gratitude arising in you listening to the synthesis. It shows something has started becoming integrated in you -- something that is bringing you together, that is creating a kind of unity between the two hemispheres of your brain, the left and the right.

These two hemispheres of the brain have to be understood, and very deeply -- because much depends on that. Now scientists are also in deep agreement with the ancient mystic lore, that unless these two brains are bridged and bridged rightly, a man remains schizophrenic. They ARE bridged, but in a very very small way; just a small thread bridges them. That thread can be cut.

Sometimes it happens in an accident, in a car accident, for example -- the bridge may be damaged. It is a very delicate bridge, JUST like a thread. Once it is cut, the person becomes two persons: one person becomes two persons. He starts behaving like two persons. And strange things have been observed.

For example: the left side of the brain is able to read and to remember. The right side of the brain is not able to read at all. So a strange thing happens: you can give the person something to read, he will read it, but only one part of his brain will remember it. If you anaesthetize his left side, he will not even remember that he has read anything. He HAS read something, but he will not remember.

His one hand may be doing something, but the other hand will not cooperate, because those two hands belong to different hemispheres. The right hand belongs to the left hemisphere. That's why the right hand has become so important. The right has become the RIGHT hand, and the left hand has become the wrong hand. Why? It is very symbolic.

The left hand is connected with the right hemisphere, and the right hemisphere represents intuition, psychic powers, meditation, love, poetry -- because ALL these things are condemned, the left hand is condemned. The right hand represents logic, calculation, arithmetic, science -- because these things are praised, the right hand is praised.

Ten percent of children are born lefthanded; out of ten, one person is lefthanded. You may not be able to find so many lefthanded people, because from the very beginning we start forcing them to write with the right hand, to do things with the right hand. This is destroying a minority. This is very oppressive, because the person who is born lefthanded has to be lefthanded if he is ever to be an authentic person. He will become phony. You will force him to use the right hand and because all are rightists -- the teacher, the parents, other students in the school -- he will feel guilty if he uses the left hand. He is doing something wrong.

He is NOT doing ANYTHING wrong -- he is naturally a leftist. He has the capacity to become a poet. He has the capacity to become an intuitive person. He may develop prophetic powers. He may be able to read other people's thoughts one day. He may be able to become a great hypnotic medium. He may even be able to have power of mind over matter. He has IMMENSE capacities! but he is crushed.

The society forces him to move to the right hand. The right hand is his weak hand. He will live a very weak life, unfertile, uncreative. He may have become a great seer; now he will live just as a third-rate mathematician. The person may have been a first-rate poet, or a musician, or a painter; now he will be just a third-rate clerk in some office, or a station-master, or a deputy collector, or a politician -- something third-rate. You have been very very violent with him.

These two hemispheres are very slightly bridged; a little communication happens ordinarily. The more one becomes integrated, the deeper the communication that starts happening between these two hemispheres. In a Buddha those two hemispheres become one. He is AS logical as one can be and AS loving as one can be.

The left hemisphere, which is connected with the right hand, is under the law of necessity. And the right hemisphere, which is connected with the left hand, is under the law of power. And if both these laws become one, LOGOS arises, DHAMMA arises, TAO, TORAH, arises -- the ultimate law, the law of laws. Then the man has a tremendous beauty and grace. He is the meeting of the earth and the sky, of man and woman; he is the meeting of all that is divided in existence. And in THAT meeting, God is known.

All the secret methods of all the mystery schools are nothing but alchemical processes to create a bridge between these two hemispheres, to bring them SO close, so utterly close, that they almost become one. When logic functions as love, love functions as logic, you have attained to the highest peak. At that peak, ecstasy simply happens -- just as when spring comes, flowers start blossoming. When that synthesis, that spring, has happened in your inner world, you have come home, you have attained the one, the whole. You have become holy.

Nirguna, something is happening in you, as something is happening to all of my sannyasins. In those who are really close to me, those who are not just formally sannyasins, those who are really in love with me, those who have really said a YES to me, without any NO hiding behind it, this synthesis is happening. East and West ARE meeting, the sky and the earth ARE meeting, mind and matter are meeting.

What Pythagoras did was destroyed. His whole academy, his whole school, was burnt. Hundreds of his disciples were massacred. We are trying to do it again, we are taking the risk again -- the danger is there. The same can be our fate too. But it need not be. We can learn something from Pythagoras' experiment. He was the first pioneer. He HAD succeeded in his life; he had succeeded with many of his disciples. But maybe he had come too early; the world was not yet ready.

Now the world is scientifically ready. That time the world was not scientifically ready. East was East and West was West, and the bridge was almost impossible. Now science has brought people so close to each other that this is the climate in which spiritually also a synthesis is possible. At that time people were isolated. Once in a while a visitor might come from the West to the East... and remember, it was always a visitor from the West to the East; it was never a visitor from the East to the West. Why?

The West represents the male mind: it takes initiative. The East represents the female mind: it simply waits, it takes no initiative. It is like a man always proposes to the woman and says "I love you." It is never the woman who proposes. And if a woman proposes to you, you would like to escape from her because she is not a woman; she has more of a male mind. You will become afraid. You will be offended. You will not be able to take it easily. The woman has to wait.

That's why the West has always been sending feelers to the East. The East has simply waited; it has not gone anywhere. Once in a while a visitor may come. He will take with him the ancient lore of the East to the West, and he will always be misunderstood. It happened with Pythagoras, and after five hundred years it happened with Jesus.

Jesus had also been a visitor to the East; he learnt all in the East. And when he went back, he was not understood either; it was too foreign. The SAME way it is happening to my sannyasins: when you go to the West you are going to be misunderstood. But you are in a better position -- you are so many. A Pythagoras came alone, went back alone; a Jesus came alone, went back alone. They were great adventurers.

Jesus was killed. Pythagoras' academy was burnt, his disciples massacred. I he world was not yet so closely knit as it is today. Science and technology have brought people very close. All the barriers, at least the physical barriers, are re moved. Now the second step can be taken: psychological barriers can be removed -- that's what we are doing here.

It is good that the Pythagorean synthesis struck a chord in your heart, because that s my work too.

And the second thing, Nirguna. you say:

GREAT JOY ARISES IN UNDERSTANDING THE PURPOSELESSNESS OF EXISTENCE.

JOY ARISES only when you understand that the whole cannot have any purpose. Parts can have purpose: the whole cannot have any purpose.

Your house has a purpose: it is a shelter for you. a safety for you. The food has a purpose: it nourishes you, it keeps you alive. Your clothes are purposeful. your machines... and everything that you create is purposeful. But what purpose do you have?

Now you start moving into the world of purposelessness. Still a few things you can find. You can say, "I am here to be happy." But what purpose is there in being happy? What purpose does happiness have? You may say, "I am here to love." But then love in itself is purposeless. It is AS purposeless as a roseflower, as a dewdrop slipping on the lotus leaf in the early morning sun. It is AS purposeless as the whole.

The closer you come to the whole, the more purposelessness becomes the law. Purpose belongs to the law of necessity: purposelessness belongs to the law of power. What is the purpose of the whole? No purpose at all -- it is a sheer celebration. That's why Hindus have called it LEELA -- LEELA means a playfulness. It is just a play.

Play has no purpose. The moment play becomes purposeful it becomes a game, remember -- that is the difference between play and game. If you are simply playing cards with no stake, with no money involved, it is a play. The moment you stake money, it is no more play -- it is business. Purpose has entered. It is a game. Now you are gambling. Just a few moments before you were playing; now playing has become secondary. Now the question is how to succeed in getting more money. The thing has become serious; it is no longer weightless. It has fallen from the world of grace into the world of gravitation. It has fallen from the world of power into the world of necessity.

These two laws are tremendously beautiful. The law of necessity is equivalent to the law of gravitation. Science has recognized the law of gravitation, the law of necessity. Science has not yet recognized the higher law: the law of grace, the law of power. That's why science goes on thinking in terms of cause and effect. It is still unaware of a higher law.

Religion has discovered the higher law -- the law of grace. Gravitation pulls you down... now this should be meditated over. If there is birth, there is death -- to counterbalance it. If there is love, there is hate. If there is negative electricity, there is positive electricity. If there is a law that pulls things down, there MUST be a law that pulls things up.

It is simple logic! It need not be proved. It is VERY simple: in life everything is balanced by its polar opposite. So where is the polar opposite of gravitation? I ask. There must be one. And remember, even gravitation was not known before Newton; just for three hundred years we have known it. And it is not that the law of gravitation started functioning after Newton -- it was functioning tor ever! Newton did not invent it: he only discovered it. And now the discovery looks very ordinary.

Newton sitting under a tree, and an apple falls, and he contemplates over it: "Why does the apple always fall downwards? Why not sometimes upwards? or to the right? or to the left? Just going in any direction.... Why does it always come downwards?" And something clicked in his mind, that there must be some power that pulls it towards the earth. But apples have been falling always! Before Newton too. Apples don't bother whether Newton has discovered the law or not. Apples have simply been falling without knowing any science of falling.

And exactly the same has been happening with the law of grace. There have been people who have been falling upwards. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Pythagoras -- these people have fallen upwards. They KNOW that something pulls up -- if you allow. If you simply become effortless, if you DON'T do a thing, if you surrender, if you trust, something starts taking you upwards, you start levitating -- not physically: spiritually. Something in you starts rising higher and higher and higher and reaches to the ultimate peak of consciousness. Just as the apple falls downwards, you start falling upwards.

There is a famous Sufi parable:

A Sufi mystic who was known as a madman.... Many mystics have been known as madmen. They ARE in a sense. The world thinks they are mad, because they follow something utterly absurd in the eyes of the world. The world accumulates money, the world is in search of more and more power and prestige, and they are simply not concerned with these great things. The world wants to possess and have more and more. And there have been people who are not worried about having more and more. Certainly they look mad. They don't have a thing to their name... remember Diogenes, not having a thing to his name, but still happier than Alexander the Great, utterly joyous. Even Alexander the Great had felt jealous. It is said that he said to Diogenes, "If next time I have to come into the world, I will ask God, 'This time please make me Diogenes. I don't want to become Alexander the Great again."' Must have felt very jealous of Diogenes, the naked madman.

But what did Diogenes say? He laughed and he said, "If I have another chance to come into the world, I cannot ask to be made Alexander the Great -- because I am not stupid. And why do you want to wait for another life? You can become Diogenes right now, because to become an Alexander great effort is needed: to become a Diogenes no effort is needed. You can become immediately!" He said, "Throw you; clothes! Lie down by my side! I am taking a sunbath, you take one also. And forget all about conquering the world... you are a Diogenes THIS very moment! "

These people will look mad. He USED to look mad. Diogenes used to carry a lamp in full daylight. And whenever he met a person, he would take his lamp up and look into his face -- in full daylight! And people would ask, "What are you doing?" And he would say, "I am searching for a man -- I have not come across him yet."

And do you know what happened when he was dying? Somebody asked Diogenes, "Your whole life you have been searching for a real man. even in full daylight with a lamp -- did you find him?"

Diogenes opened his eyes and he said, "No, but I am dying happy -- at least nobody has stolen my lamp yet."

These people will look mad.

The story, the Sufi story, says:

A mad Sufi mystic stayed in the house of a disciple. The disciple was a little worried because this man was known to do strange things: "He may do something and may create some nuisance. And the neighbourhood and the people, what will they think? They will think that I am also mad, to be a disciple of such a mad man."

And it was known that even in the middle of the night he would start singing, shouting, or dancing, out of joy. So the disciple thought, "It will be better to keep him locked in the basement, so at least he doesn't start doing something in the middle of the night." So he locked him in the basement.

And just in the middle of the night, it started happening -- great rejoicing! shouting and dancing. And he was more puzzled because he heard him dancing on the roof! He rushed upwards. He asked, "But how did you manage? How did you come to the roof?"

He said, "What can I do? I opened my eyes and I saw I was falling upwards."

This is a beautiful story -- falling upwards. There is a law of falling upwards. And sometimes when you meditate, dance, sing, you will feel it: being possessed by something higher, from the above. And you are taken to higher plenitudes than you have ever known before.

That is the law of grace, or the law of power.

And when you can use both the worlds.... One belongs to science, one belongs to religion. And the world is waiting for a NEW way of looking at things, in which science and religion will become one. Call it 'religio-science' or call it 'science-religion' -- but the world is waiting for SOMETHING that will make these two laws function as one in a great synthesis.

That's what I mean when I say that I would like my sannyasins to be like Zorba the Greek and Gautam the Buddha -- both together. My effort here is to create Zorba the Buddha.

Pythagoras

VOL. 1, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-3

Falling Upwards