Osho: Part two
IT IS VERY EASY TO DIE FOR RELIGION but very difficult to live for it. Actually, it is always easy to die for some cause. All that is needed is a kind of madness. Dying happens in a moment, so even a single moment of insanity is quite enough. But to live, awareness and wakefulness are essential.
Only those who live for religion know religion. Those who martyr themselves for religion do not know it at all.
WHATEVER DRIVE THERE IS IN A MAN'S LIFE, whatever evolution there is, whatever touch of glory there is, only comes as a result of daredevil courage. What I mean by daredevil courage is accepting life's invitation to insecurity, possessing a love for the new and the unknown, finding joy in risking one's all. The man who is not prepared to take risks may exist but he is not alive.
And what is the greatest way to apply one's daredevil courage? It is to seek God, to seek the universal soul. Nothing is more insecure that the path to God. There is nothing stranger, nothing more unfamiliar, nothing more unknowable. What bigger stake, what riskier gamble, what more perilous adventure can there be than seeking the universal soul? I say unequivocably that daredevil courage is the greatest of qualities, the greatest of virtues. The man who lacks it is not meant for religion and religion is not meant for him.
YOU HAVE TO FORSAKE BOTH GOOD AND BAD TO REALIZE GOD. Only then will your consciousness rise above differences and establish itself in oneness.
THERE IS ONE MAN I have known for many years. He used to chase money; now he pursues religion. But the race is the same. The only difference is that before he was a businessman and now he is an ascetic who has renounced everything. Whenever I hear of things like this I am surprised. In the depths, is not his desire to reach God the same as his former desire to amass riches?
The ways of greed are very subtle, and is not the desire to realize God the ultimate development of greed? Man's greed is boundless; he is even greedy for salvation. But the fact remains that a man can never become liberated as long as his mind desire to acquire anything at all. The desire to acquire is the fundamental obstacle that stands in the way of liberation. And how can someone who is not free know God? What a man knows when he is liberated is God!
WHAT CONNECTION DO "I" AND "MINE" HAVE WITH TRUTH? Or with religion? How can truth be MY truth? How can religion be MY religion? Truth cannot be MY truth; MY truth cannot be truth.
ARE YOU SO POOR THAT YOU HAVE NO RELIGION? Worldly poverty is not such a big thing, but having no religion is real poverty. In spite of his gold and riches a man can be poor, but if he has the treasure of religion he can never be a pauper. The greatest thing that can happen to a man is not his worldly success, not his building of empires -- it is nothing of this sort -- it is his setting out in search of the wealth that lies hidden within him. That riches is religion. Outer wealth is nothing but soiled banknotes; inner wealth is the only real virtue. Those who seek worldly wealth are really seeking poverty but those who are seeking virtue are searching for real riches.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF RELIGION? Religion is moving from the mud to the lotus. Wherever there is mud, the lotus is there as well. But what a difference there is between them!
RELIGION IS NOT A FORMLESS CONCEPT. Religion is a concrete activity. It is not a thought, it is an experience. Living your life so that whatever causes you misery should not befall others is religion.
I DREAMED THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT HAD COME. Everyone rose from his grave to be questioned. The inquiry was conducted by God himself. Standing next to me was a pundit, a scholar I knew quite well. He had a very carefree attitude. He knew the Gita, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the whole lot. He felt he could pass any examination in religion. But as God moved down the line be became less and less sure of himself and more and more anxious. He turned to me and cried, "This is too unjust! Nothing whatsoever is being asked about the scriptures! God is only asking about life! But I know what I'll do. You know what I'll say? I shall say I know nothing but the scriptures, that I have spent my whole life trying to know them."
Scriptures and dogmas are like dry leaves. There is no sap in them. Nor can there ever be. Only the tree of the self produces green leaves and blossoms that are full of life.
ON MY SEARCH I FOUND NO GREATER SCRIPTURE THAN SILENCE. When I had dug through all the scriptures I realized how futile they all were and that silence was the only thing that had any point to it whatsoever.
IF THE TRUTH IS NOT KNOWN to you the knowledge of the scriptures is useless. If the truth is known to you the knowledge of the scriptures is also useless.
IT IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS TO DELVE INTO THE SCRIPTURES in the hope of realizing truth. The scriptures may well have grown out of truth, but they have never been known to generate the experience of truth in anyone. People are so silly -- they shelter the blackest ignorance in a living heart and dig among dead words trying to unearth the truth!
WORDS, SCRIPTURES, CREEDS AND CULTS conspire to keep the soul tied to the shore of slavery. And the man who is moored by the rope of slavery is denied the freedom of the limitless ocean. To sail the open sea you have to untie yourself from the shore. To attain freedom you have to break your chains. To catch a fish, anglers put a lump of dough on a hook and the fish is tempted by the dough and caught. The hook of mental slavery is baited with the dough of promised security.
It is always on the hook of security that people lose their freedom. This is one of the oldest conspiracies. And people who are not vigilant, who are not alert to this web of intrigue will never attain to that life and that bliss that go hand in hand with freedom of consciousness. Life and bliss are both hidden in that freedom.
Nothing is of greater value than freedom. No other experience or acquisition can compare. This is because it is only through freedom that truth can be realized. Whoever is opposed to the freedom of man's soul is an enemy of mankind.
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