The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Talks on Kabir

God is there but you cannot see because your eyes are blinded by the concepts given to you. God is not a Jew, so if you have a Jewish idea of God you will not find him. I have heard a beautiful story about a Sufi mystic, Farid:
One night he dreams that by the grace of Allah, he has reached Paradise. And the whole of Paradise is decorated, millions of lights.and flowers everywhere -- some celebration is going on -- and great music. He enquires, "What is going on?"

And they say, "This is God's birthday -- we are celebrating it. You have come at the right time."

So he stands underneath a tree to see what is happening, because a great procession starts moving on the road. A man is sitting on a horse; he enquires, "Who is this man?" and they say, "Don't you know him? He is Hajrat Mohammed."

And then millions and millions of people behind him, and he asks, "Who are these people?" and he is replied to. "They are Mohammedans, followers of Mohammed."

And then comes Jesus, and millions are following him. And then comes Krishna on his golden chariot, and millions again are following him. And so on and so forth... the procession continues, continues, continues.

And then finally, in the end, on an old donkey an old man is coming. And nobody is behind him; he is just alone. Farid starts laughing looking at this man -- it is hilarious: nobody following him. And why should he be going on his donkey? He asks, "Who are you, sir? I have seen Mohammed, Christ, Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha -- who are you? You look like a kind of joke! And nobody following you."

And the old man is very sad and he says, "Yes, I am God. This is my birthday. But some people have become Mohammedans, some have become Christians, some have become Jews, some have become Hindus -- nobody is left to be with me."

Just out of shock, Farid woke up. He told his disciples the next day, "Now I am no more a Mohammedan. The dream has been a great revelation. Now I am no more part of any organized religion -- I am simply myself. I would like to be with God, at least one person following him."

TRUE, GARIMA, STICK WITH THAT INSIGHT. If you are looking for something you will not be able to see, because the very idea of looking for something means that you have an idea of what you are looking for. To look for something is a kind of blindness.

Seeing happens only when you are not looking for anything in particular; you are just there, open, available. So whatsoever is is revealed. Don't look for God if you want to see him. Just wait -- let and wait. God is a happening! If you are silent, open, loving towards your own being, conscious, it is going to happen. Any moment, when you are in the right tuning with existence, it will happen.

God is there: you are there: just right tuning. And that's what I am teaching to you: right tuning. Dropping all ideologies helps you to be rightly tuned. And once you are in tune with existence, that is bliss. You have come home....

Question 2

OSHO, IS IT TIME THAT I SHOULD BECOME A SANNYASIN?
IT IS ALREADY LATE! Naresh, you have already waited too long. I have known you for years, you have known me for years. For what are you waiting? The meeting should happen now. Still you are asking:
IS IT TIME THAT I SHOULD BECOME A SANNYASIN?

Are you dead? If you have any life in you, then this is the time. NOW is the time! Remember Kabir -- just the other day Kabir was saying: Now, wake up -- wake up in the now, wake up here! Don't postpone.

"Where do you think you are going?" asked the motorcycle cop who finally stopped him.

"I am coming home -- hic -- from a New Year's Eve party!"

"Are you kidding?" asked the cop. "New Year's was three weeks ago!"

"I know," said Branigan. "That's why I figured I better be getting home now."
Is it not time, Naresh, to be getting home now? You have waited already too long, too many lives. Sannyas is nothing but a passionate jump into the enquiry for the truth, a passionate search from where we come and to where we are going and who we are. That's what sannyas is all about.

But you seem to be almost in a kind of sleep, and that's how everybody else is. The worldly dreams still seem to be important to you, hence the question. The world still seems to intoxicate you; money, power, prestige, are still haunting you. And you cannot be a sannyasin unless you are utterly frustrated with the world. And remember, I am not teaching escapism from the world: I teach transcendence, not escape. Be in the world, but don't be of it.

A sannyasin is a person who lives in the world but lives meditatively, and meditation creates a distance. Then you can go on doing all kinds of things but you don't become intoxicated, you don't become identified with them. To live in awareness, without any intoxication with money, power, prestige, is the way of the sannyasin.
Hallihan and Flannigan were having a few at a new tavern in town. After an hour of heavy imbibing, Hallihan asked the bartender for the washroom.

"Go to the door, left of the elevator," said the barkeeper, "then walk down two steps and there you are."

Hallihan forgot to turn left. He opened the elevator door, took ONE step and fell down the shaft.

Ten minutes later, Flannigan followed Hallihan and saw him lying at the bottom of the shaft.

"Look out for the SECOND step," shouted up Hallihan. "It's a son of a bitch!"
And you have taken many second steps, many many times. You have fallen many many times. Are you not yet frustrated, Naresh? Are you not yet finished with the world? Are you still carrying some hope deep down in your heart? Are you still expecting that the world is going to deliver something to you? It has never happened -- to no one has it happened. And it is not going to happen to you.

The world only promises, it never delivers the goods. That's its illusoriness; that's why in the East we call it maya. 'Maya' does not mean that it is not there -- it is very much there, but it only promises. It never gives anything.

I have heard a story:
A man worshipped for many many years -- he must have tortured God as much as possible. Morning, afternoon, evening, he was praying and praying and crying and weeping. And, finally, God has to appear, and he said, "What do you want? Be finished! Just take it and forgive me and forget all about me.

And the man said, "I want something, a power, so that whatsoever I need is immediately fulfilled."

So God gave him a box, a golden box -- exactly like the magic box that I give to you -- and told him, "Whenever you are in need you can ask. Whatsoever you ask, the box will immediately give it to you."

The man forgot all about God, he even forgot to thank him. God waited a little... but the man was no more interested in him. He was looking at the box and he started asking, "Give me ten thousand rupees!" Suddenly ten thousand rupees appeared, and he was very happy.

And it continued: whatsoever he wanted used to come out of the box. Then one day, one SADHU -- one wandering monk -- stayed with the man. The sadhu, the wandering monk, also had a box -- bigger than the man's -- exactly the same shape. The man became interested. He said, "What is this?"

The sadhu said, "This is a magic box. You ask anything. it gives you double."

"Double!" The man asked, "If I ask ten thousand rupees, He said, "It gives twenty thousand."

He fell at the feet of the monk and said, "You are a monk, you have renounced the world -- can't you exchange? I have a small box: it gives only whatsoever you ask."

So they changed the boxes. It was late at night, so the man thought, "In the morning I will try out this new box." And in the morning he tried; he asked for ten thousand rupees... and the box said, "Why not twenty thousand?" And the man said, "Okay, twenty thousand." And the box said, "Why not forty thousand?" And the man said, "Okay, forty thousand." And the box said, "Why not eighty thousand?"

Then he became afraid, because nothing was coming out! He rushed to see the monk, but he had left; he had disappeared in the night.

Naresh, are you not yet finished? Have you not seen it happening many times? Each time you are living an illusion, hoping, dreaming, sooner or later disillusion comes in, frustration comes in. But rather than seeing the reality of this world, you immediately jump on another illusion -- you immediately start dreaming again.

Sannyas is seeing the reality of the world, that it never fulfills, that it cannot fulfill, that it is beyond its capacity to fulfill... one turns in. One has been a beggar begging from this door and that door; when one turns in, begging disappears -- one becomes an emperor. Then all is yours.

And you need not even ask for it -- it is simply yours. This whole existence is yours, its whole beauty, its whole splendour, its starry nights, its sunsets and sunrises, its flowers and birds -- all is yours. Not in the sense that you possess it, but in the sense that you can enjoy it.

A sannyasin learns how to enjoy, and the worldly mall learns only how to possess. Remember these two things; they are basic. The worldly man only thinks of how to possess more -- he never enjoys because he is concerned with pos-sessing more and more and more. The sannyasin enjoys, whatsoever he has he enjoys -- and he enjoys the whole existence -- which need not be possessed.

Do you think first you have to possess the starry night, then you will enjoy it? Do you think first you have to possess all the birds, then you will enjoy their songs? This existence need not be possessed! And you can still enjoy. It is YOURS if you want to enjoy -- it is not yours if you want to possess. To possess it is aggressive; it is aggression on God. To enjoy it is prayerful.

Question 3

OSHO, WILL YOU RECOGNIZE ME AT THE FINAL JUDGEMENT DAY?
Suresh,
IT ALL DEPENDS ON YOU: remember to be in orange and with the mala, because it is going to be difficult to recognize you. Just think of all the men and all the women that have existed... they will all be there. There is going to be much difficulty in recognizing people, so just you remember that thing.
A timid, conservative, unmarried shopkeeper suddenly came into a small fortune. Overnight, this mild-mannered, mincing little man had all the money he could possibly use.

Bravely he snapped his fingers, clicked his heels, and decided to become a swinger. He bought expensive, mod clothes, had his hair styled, rented a lavish beach villa in Florida, and got a dark, virile tan.

Driving home from the Rolls Royce dealer in his new car, wearing his flashiest sports clothes and swingiest sunglasses, he was suddenly struck dead by a lightning bolt. Right there in the Florida sun -- a fatal lightning bolt.

Up at the Pearly Gates, the shopkeeper angrily faced Saint Peter. "Why would you pick on me like that? I have been a good man all my life. The Lord has always watched over me."

"He was trying to watch over you," explained Saint Peter. "He just didn't recognize you."
So, Suresh, please remember it, don't forget: be in orange and with the mala so that I can recognize you.

But why are you worried about the Last Judgement Day? I teach you about the immediate and you ask about the Last Judgement Day! I teach you the immediate is the ultimate and you ask about the Last Judgement Day. In reality there can be no day which can be the last. The world never begins, never ends -- it is a continuum.

Secondly, the very word 'judgement' is ugly. God is not a judge, God is a lover -- and the lover cannot be a judge. Jesus said to his disciples: Judge ye not! Why? Because the moment you judge you start destroying the other. Who are you to judge? The moment you judge you start comparing, and who are you to compare?

Each individual is unique, and each individual brings variety to existence. The world will not be better if there are only saints and saints and saints. It will be one of the most boring worlds if there are only saints and saints and saints. The sinners also contribute something: they make it a little salty, they bring a little taste to life.

God is not a Judge, god is a lover, and how can love judge? Be assured that in the eyes of God there is no sinner, no saint -- in the eyes of God all are alike. And when his sun rises, it rises for the sinners too, as much as for the saints. And when his roses bloom, they give fragrance to the saints as much as to the sinners. No distinction is ever made. Just simple observation will show to you that existence makes no distinctions. All right and wrong, all good and bad, are human creations, are man-made concepts and ideas.

And each society has created its own ideas of good and bad, and they go on changing. They are utilitarian, remember. One thing can be a sin in one society and may not be a sin in another society. The same thing can be a great virtue in One society, and may be thought just the opposite in another society.

If a person beats his own body so that blood oozes out, what will you call him? Will you call him a saint or a sinner? It depends... because there has been a Christian sect that believes in beating your body so that blood comes out, and the more blood you can bring out of your body, the greater a saint you are.

In Russia, before Communism, there was a sect, a great sect of Christians, who used to cut their genital organs. Women used to cut their breasts -- and they were thought to be great saints. What do you think about them? You will think them pathological, mentally ill, deranged.

There are ideas and ideas, but all ideas are human. Don't be worried. There are people who are worried about small things -- they have been MADE to worry. Somebody smokes and he is afraid that he is going to be thrown into hell. If you have smoked tao much, one thing is certain, that you will not be sent to hell because there is too much smoke there, and you have already done it to yourself.

Smoking may be bad for your health but is not a sin; you cannot be thrown into hell for smoking. But there are people who think even drinking tea... in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram drinking tea was a sin. If you were caught drinking tea, there was a great fuss about it. Mahatma Gandhi might have gone for a three-day fast to purify his soul and his disciples' souls because people are drinking tea.

And Buddhist monks down the ages have been drinking tea. Tea is part of their meditation -- and there seems to be something in it, because tea has some chemicals which can keep you awake more easily. It can be a help in meditation. If you are trying to be alert, tea can be a help.

In fact, tea was discovered by Buddhist monks; it is their discovery, because it was discovered in a monastery in China called Ta, that's why it is called tea. That 'ta' can be pronounced also as 'cha'; that's why in Marathi it is called 'cha' and in Hindi it is called 'chai'. But it is from the monastery of Ta.

And the man who is reputed to have grown the first tea plants was nobody else but Bodhidharma, the great Bodhidharma. The story is beautiful:
He was meditating, and such a meditator happens only once in a while. For nine years he sat facing the wall -- just the wall and for nine years looking at the wall and doing nothing else. And sometimes he used to fall asleep -- naturally, if you look at the wall that long, what else is there to do? And he did not want to go to sleep.

So he tore out his eyelids and his eyelashes and threw them so that now there was no way to close his eyes. And the story is that out of those eyelids, those pieces of skin, and the eye-lashes, the first teaplant grew.

Buddhists drink tea with religious ritual. In Japan, they have tea ceremonies. Tea is not an ordinary thing for them, because it keeps you awake, it gives you energy to remain

more alert. They have made a very prayerful, graceful ritual out of it: the tea ceremony. In each Zen monastery there is a separate tea temple, the most beautiful place -- maybe surrounded by a lake, rocks, sand, trees. And when you go into the temple, you have to go in a certain manner, in a certain posture you have to sit there, and it takes hours.

The tea will be prepared, the samovar will start humming, and all will be sitting in silence listening to the humming of the samovar. And slowly the flavour of the tea will reach your nostrils, and you have to drink that too. And then the tea is served -- with great grace, with great beauty, art. And the tea is served in beautiful cups, hand-made with great love and care. And then everybody starts sipping the tea. And it is done very prayerfully and everybody remains silent, no gossiping, no chattering -- as if there is nobody. Then they bow down to each other with great respect, and disperse without saying a word.

In one country, tea is so religious, so spiritual, and in Mahatma Gandhi's ashram it was a sin. It depends. These are all human ideas. You should not be worried about these things.

My message is simple: live alert, and live spontaneously, and live totally -- and forget all about the Last Judgement Day. I recognize you today, and that's enough. Today is enough unto itself.

Chapter #9

Chapter title: In Search of the Miraculous

19 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: FISH09

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 99 mins

The first question

Question 1

OSHO, I AM A SCIENTIST WORKING ON THE QUESTION OF HOW LIFE ORIGINATED FROM NON-LIVING MATTER. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS STUDY OF HOW NON-LIFE IS TRANSFORMED INTO LIVING MATTER IS VITAL TO UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. THE REASON IS THAT THE STUDY IS A CLUE TO HOW OUR EMOTIONS AND SPIRITUALITY DEVELOPED IN THE FIRST PLACE. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

RELIGION AND SCIENCE ARE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSITE, and because they are diametrically opposite they are complementaries. Religion cannot support science, science cannot support religion. They are bound to oppose each other -- in their very opposition is their complementariness. Hence, anything that science is going to discover is of no value to religion. In fact, EACH scientific discovery makes the existence of religion more and more difficult.

Science tries to demystify existence, hence the question 'how?' -- how did life arise out of matter? Religion is basically a different approach: it does not want to demystify existence; its whole approach is to reveal the mystery of it. It is not a search for the answer: it is diving deep in the question itself k does not ask any questions; it takes life for granted. The question is not how life arose: the question is how life should be lived, the question is how life should be celebrated.

The scientific question will be: What is love? How docs love arise? What is the causality? And the religious question will be: How to drown yourself in love? How to be in love? How to be love itself?

Science will come to certain clues; those clues look stupid in the eyes of a mystic. If you ask about love, science will answer with something which is nothing but chemistry: hormones, chemicals. And the grandeur and the splendour of love are reduced -- reduced to a very mundane world. What does love have to do with chemistry? Love certainly has something to do with alchemy, but nothing to do with chemistry. It is a transforming force, but it cannot be reduced to hormones.

Life cannot be reduced to any answer. Once life is reduced to a certain answer life becomes meaningless, it is no more worth living. It is like coming across a lotus flower. The poet will enjoy the beauty of it; he will not be bothered where it comes from. He will simply enjoy the fragrance, the colour, the sun shining over it, the dewdrops on the lotus petals. And the mystic will dance around it, because he is not seeing only the lotus flower but he is seeing something of the transcendental in it. Hidden behind the lotus, its beauty, its splendour, its majesty, its magic, are the hands of God. The mystic not only feels the roseflower or the lotus flower, he also feels the mysterious presence of the unknown force called God surrounding it, protecting it, caring for it, caressing it.

The poet simply sees the lotus flower, the mystic goes beyond, he goes higher -- he takes the roseflower or the lotus flower to the ultimate peak. And the scientist? -- he will think about where it comes from. It comes from the mud. The scientist will start moving deeper and deeper into the mud; he will start enquiring about the mud and the elements that are in the mud.

Just look at these three approaches: the scientist goes lower than the lotus, the mystic goes higher than the lotus, the poet remains with the lotus. In the ultimate analysis the scientist will think that the lotus is nothing but mud -- a form of mud -- and the mystic will think the lotus is nothing but a manifestation of God. And for the poet, a lotus is simply a lotus. Now, how can these three approaches meet?

The mystic cannot agree with the scientist -- in fact, the mystic will think that the scientist is destroying something tremendously important. By all his logical answers, objective answers, he is destroying the subjectivity of the lotus. The mystic may agree a little bit with the poet, but only a little bit, not the whole way. He will nod to the poet: he will say, "You are on the right track, you have taken the first step. but don't get stuck there -- go on. The lotus is not enough: you have to find the face of God in the lotus. And if you cannot find the face of God in the lotus, where else are you going to find it?"

Adolph Smith, your question is important -- but don't remain in this confusion that if you can find some clue as to now matter becomes life you will be bringing some understanding between religion and science... you will be talking about mud! And the poet will not be convinced by you, because he knows the lotus. And what to say about the mystic? He will simply feel pity for you.

Everything can either be reduced to its beginnings -- that's what science goes on doing -- or it can be raised to the ultimate peak; that's what the work of religion is. And poetry is just the bridge between the two. The poetic approach is in a way closer to both science and religion. If you really want to understand religion, you have taken a wrong route.

Religion does not think that life needs any answers. Life needs to be lived in its totality, life needs to be celebrated. Life needs to be penetrated -- that is the only way to know it. Not in the lab, not going deep into life cells, not by analysing the elements; those are constituents of life, but life is more than the sum total of its parts.

Somebody is playing on a guitar, beautiful music. The scientist will become interested in the guitar, not in the music. He will think, "From where is it coming?" He may become interested in the fingers of the musician and in the instrument. He will analyse the instrument and he will find some wood some strings, this and that -- but that is NOT music! And if he analyses the fingers of the musician he will find some blood, some bones, skin -- and that is not music! Music is something more. The hands of the musician and the guitar are simply an opportunity for the beyond to descend to the earth.