The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Talks on Kabir

The poet will listen to the music; he will not be worried about the musician and the musical instrument. He will be drunk with the music. But the mystic will dance with abandon, because in music he will hear the ultimate music. The poet will forget about the musician and the instrument, and the mystic will even forget about the music, because it reminds him of something deep in his own being. It reminds him of what Kabir calls the music of SOHAM -- I am that. He will forget all that is happening outside; it has triggered a process in his being. He is transported into another world.

Existence remains alive through the tension of the polar opposites: the negative and the positive, man and woman, birth and death, darkness and light, love and hate -- religion and science. These are the polar opposites. Life needs them. Without them life will become a stagnant pool, it will not be a dialectical process any more. Life is dialectics; it moves through the thesis and the antithesis, and again the synthesis becomes a thesis and creates antithesis. That's how life goes on progressing.

Religion and science don't need to be synthesized -- they need to be purified. Science should be pure science, utterly scientific; and religion should be pure religion, utterly mystic.

I would like you to be reminded of a great statement of a Christian mystic, Tertullian. Somebody asked him, "Why do you believe in God?" And he said, CREDO QUIA ABSURDUM -- I believe in God because he is absurd."

Now, what kind of answer is this? But this is the answer of a mystic, not the answer of a scientist. The scientist will try to prove, will answer WHY he believes; he will argue. But Tertullian simply says, "Because God is absurd, hence I believe. I believe in the mysterious, in the miraculous, in the unanswerable, in the unknowable."

If you have any interest in religion... and you can be both! I am not saying that a man who is a scientist cannot be religious -- a man who is a scientist can be religious -- but then he will have to create a dialectics in his own being. He will have to be very conscious. When he is working in the lab he has to forget all about religion; religion should not interfere in his scientific work. And when he leaves the lab and sits in his meditation chamber he should forget all about analysis, experimentation, observation -- there he should be a lover, in prayer, in meditation.

A scientist can be both. And my approach is this, that I would like many many people to be both scientists and religious. And if some person can be all three, that is my vision of a real, true sannyasin: a scientist, a poet, a mystic. In him humanity will have blossomed to its ultimate possibilities. The potential in him will have been transformed into actuality. He will have bloomed in all possible ways. He will be a multi-dimensional man.

And to be a scientist does not mean that you have to be a physicist or a chemist or this and that -- to be a scientist means having a scientific approach. There are problems which can be tackled only by science. When somebody comes with an illness to me, I tell him to go to Navanit, to Darshan, to Amrit, to Hamid -- go to the doctors! Your illness needs a scientific approach.

In India it happens that ill people go to the saints for their blessings, and the East has remained ill, poor, because of this nonsense. If you are poor, don't go to the saints; go to the technologists, go to the scientists, go to the economists, enquire "Why are we poor?" But you go to the saints and enquire "Why are we poor?" You are foolish and so are your saints. And they answer you, why you are poor; they tell you, they have to, because when you question them they cannot show their ignorance. They tell you because in your past lives you have been committing so many sins, that's why you are suffering. You ask a foolish question and you will get a foolish answer.

Go to the scientist when it is a question about the material world. And if you have fallen in love, then don't go to a scientist -- avoid him! Even if he meets you on the way, escape, because he will destroy your whole love. He will say, "It is all nonsense. It is just the attraction between female and male hormones -- don't be befooled. Those hormones are deceiving you." Don't go to the scientist; if you want to kiss your woman, don't go to the scientist. He will say, "This is dangerous. All kinds of infections are possible. And millions of germs are transferred in a single kiss." He will make you so afraid that even if you kiss, you will not be totally there in it. And you will start carrying Dettol and things like that with you -- so kiss and then immediately wash, or before you kiss, wash.

Don't go to the scientist when you are in love -- go to the poet. He knows about love.

And when you want to know the ultimate mystery, the poet cannot be of much help either; he remains on the surface. When you want to know the ultimate mystery, go to a mystic, become a disciple to a Master, because those secrets can only be imbibed in deep trust, surrender, love.

OSHO TODAY YOU SAID TO BE CONSTANT IS TO BE STUPID. THE TRUTH CANNOT CHANGE IT REMAINS FOR EVER CONSTANT. NOW WHAT?

Consistency is a logical phenomenon. When I say: Don't be consistent, I mean you need not remain confined to your past -- that's what consistency is. You have done something today; tomorrow life will change, and you have to repeat the same thing to be consistent. Tomorrow will not be today; today is not your yesterday. The answers that were adequate yesterday are no more adequate today. Consistency means that it is always yesterday that has to dominate, it is always the past that has to dominate the present. That's what I mean by 'consistency'. Then you will never grow, because your youth has to be consistent with your childhood, and your old age has to be consistent with your youth -- that means you will remain childish your whole life.

And that's how people are. The average mental age of human beings is only twelve years. This is what happens if you enforce consistency. In childhood, a few answers were given to you; they were good for the time being, but only for the time being. More than that you would not have understood. But as you grow, those answers become out of date, those answers become confinements, imprisonments, those answers become chains. You have to constantly throw them so that you can remain fresh, so that you can respond to the reality as it is.

But this is how, Zareen, it goes on happening: I say one thing, you understand something else. I say one thing, you hear something totally different. Your minds are so full of your own thoughts that I say, "Don't be consistent," and you hear, "Don't be constant."

"No, no!"

"Why not?"

"I am-a too busy. I work-a in the barbershop all-a day now."

Zareen, you have heard something which I have not said. Your question has come out of your own idea. You know, at Least you believe you know, that the truth cannot change. Who told you? And how do you know? Do you know truth? You have heard it being told to you that truth never changes; it remains for ever constant. Is it your experience? Have you known anything in life which remains always constant? Anything, I say, have you known in life which remains constant?

Everything is changing if you look at life. If you watch life, then Heraclitus is right: you cannot step in the same river twice, because the river is constantly flowing, changing. Old Heraclitus says: The ONLY thing that never changes is change. Only change is constant, otherwise everything is changing.

In fact, life is not a noun but a verb. If one day we want to be really scientific about our language, we will have to drop all nouns. A really scientific language will consist only of verbs. You see these trees all around and you think, "Beautiful trees!" But to call a tree 'a tree' is not true, because a tree is not something static -- it is a movement. By the time you utter the word 'tree' it has changed. It is no more the same tree about which you were talking One dead leaf has fallen, a new leaf is just growing, a bud is opening. The tree is growing higher -- each moment! Otherwise how is it going to grow?

To be exactly true about it, it is better to call it 'treeing' rather than 'a tree'. But we even call a river 'a river' -- a river is a rivering. It is a CONSTANT change! Life is not really life but only living -- there is no life as such but only living. Our languages give us a very wrong notion of the world. There is nothing like love, but loving.

Always remember... we have to use nouns because otherwise it will be very difficult to explain things to each other. For centuries we have used nouns. But whenever you use the word 'love', remember it is 'loving' -- it is a process. It is not a thing, constant.

If you have loved, Zareen, you will know: morning it has one colour, afternoon it has another colour, by the evening it is a totally different phenomenon. Sometimes the river is very deep and sometimes it is very shallow. And sometimes it makes much noise, and sometimes it is very silent. So is love. Sometimes it is sad, and sometimes it is a rejoicing. It changes its moods constantly. So the only constant thing is change. But you say:
THE TRUTH cannot change...

WHO HAS ORDAINED IT, THAT TRUTH CANNOT CHANGE? What do you mean by it? Have you known anything in life that never changes? The child becomes the young man, the young man becomes the old man, and the old man is gone one day -- dust unto dust. You go on seeing that everything is constant change, but there seems to be a fear deep down in the human heart: the fear is death. If change is there, then death is bound to happen. Change brings death in.

So we want to believe in something permanent, absolutely permanent. It may be truth, it may be God, it may be soul, but something is needed for the fearful heart to cling to so that death can be defied. At least one can believe, "There is something permanent in which I can have a shelter, which can become my security."

Do you know truth? Do you know God? Do you know the soul? No, you know only death -- which happens every moment, all around. But we go on defying death; we don't want to look at it, because it reminds us that we are going to die. We would like something that remains for ever and for ever. And we would like to be part of it so that we can also remain for ever and for ever.

But what is permanent in you? Your body changes -- you can ask medical science: your body changes constantly. Just ten years ago they used to think that the body changes totally in seven years' time, becomes completely new, not even a single cell remains of the old; but now further research has shown that the body changes totally in one year. The body is continuously renewing itself.

That's why when you cut your hair and your nails it does not hurt -- why? The hair is part of your body and the nails too, and you are cutting them and it doesn't hurt? The reason is that your hair is not alive. These are the dead cells of the body that are being thrown out of the body. So are the nails -- just dead cells being thrown out of the body to make place for the new ones to happen. That's why it doesn't hurt if you cut them.

In a single year, your body is no more the same.

Buddha used to say again and again that life is like a flame. You burn a candle, you light a candle in the evening; the whole night it burns. In the morning you are just going to put it out -- a question can be asked of you: "Is it the same flame you started in the evening that you are putting out?" In a sense it is the same flame, because it continued the whole night; but in truth it is not the same flame, because the flame has been constantly changing, becoming smoke, and a new flame is replacing it. And the replacement is so quick that the old going into smoke and the new coming into existence is so fast that there is no gap between the two -- hence you cannot see it, hence you cannot see that it is not the same flame. Then Buddha had to invent a new idea.

The scientists now call it 'continuum', 'continuity' -- it is neither the same nor not the same, it is a continuity, a continuum. Buddha calls it SANTATI -- the first flame gives birth to another and that gives birth to another, and so on and so forth, one flame goes on giving birth to another. The whole night the birth process continued. So it comes into the same line, but it is not the same. You cannot say that it is different, you cannot say it is the same. In a sense it is different, in a sense it is the same.

Have you known, Zareen, anything in life which is really permanent? -- anything? Your body changes, your mind changes continuously, your emotions go on changing. About WHAT truth are you talking?

Yes, there is one truth which never changes, but that has to be experienced. Don't take it as a belief. And that truth is not something outside you; that truth is hidden in you -- that truth is your capacity to witness. Only the witness never changes, everything else goes on changing. There is a consciousness inside you that goes on watching and watching all the changes -- the childhood comes and goes, the youth comes and goes, the old age comes and goes, and there is a witness inside who is simply watching.

All meditation is nothing but an effort to know this witness. There is no God outside you who is permanent, never changing; there is no truth outside you which is for ever. Yes, there is a certain reality inside you, at the deepest core of your being... but to find it, Zareen, you will have to go deep in meditation. When all thoughts disappear, and all desires are gone, and when there is nothing to witness, then you become aware of the witness. Then witnessing turns upon itself. Having nothing else to see, it starts seeing itself If something remains there as an object, it remains focussed on the object. Meditation is a process of taking all objects away from you; all contents of the mind are to be taken away. Slowly slowly, one day... the interval, the gap. Sudden emptiness. When there is nothing to see, no content to focus on, then the miracle happens. The witnessing energy, finding nothing else to obstruct it, turns in a circle back upon itself. This is what Jesus calls 'metanoia', which has been wrongly translated as 'repent'. It should be translated as 'return', not 'repent'; it should be translated as 'revolution', a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn -- and then suddenly you see yourself. And this witness has no name. It is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan; it is neither man nor woman: it is just pure consciousness.

Yes, this pure consciousness is absolutely the same. Except this, everything else changes. And when I was talking to you about consistency I was not talking about the witness, I was talking about your ideologies, about your knowledge, about your experiences. They have all to be dropped every day: die every day to the past so you can remain fresh, so that you can respond to the reality as it is in the moment, not according to the past.

And listening to me, be alert, be very alert about each single word; otherwise, I will say one thing and you will understand something else. And you will go on thinking that I have said it.

"No," said the cat, "but if you give us the first few bars we can pick up on it."

Question 3

OSHO, WHAT IS IMPORTANT?
Sambodh,
IT DEPENDS ON YOU. If you ask me, to me it is all the same. You can say that everything is important, or you can say nothing is important. Both mean the same.

Everything is ordinary, or everything is extraordinary. Whatsoever you want to choose, whichever word appeals to you -- everything is important, everything, not excluding anything at all; or nothing is important. Both mean the same, because the moment everything is important, or everything is not important, the very word 'important' loses meaning. The meaning remains only if there are some things which are important and some things which are not important, a few things ordinary and a few things extraordinary. Then the word carries meaning. But if everything is exactly either important or unimportant, then the word loses meaning.

My own suggestion is you can choose either, because the ultimate result will be the same.

If you have a negative mind, then the Buddhist answer will be perfectly right. Buddha says: "Nothing is important." Then there is nothing to make any fuss about. When hungry, eat; when thirsty, drink; when sleepy, sleep -- nothing is important. And this will give you a kind of relaxedness, a calmness -- nothing is important, so whether you succeed or fail it is all the same, whether you become famous or notorious, it is all the same, whether anybody knows you or nobody knows you doesn't matter. It will give you a very relaxed, still, tranquil state of being -- and that is the purpose!

Or you can choose Shankara's answer. He says: "Everything is important, because all is God, even the dust is divine." That too is perfectly right; you can choose that. Then, too, when hungry, eat, because it is important; and when thirsty, drink, because it is important; and when sleepy, sleep, because God is feeling sleepy -- the God within you.

These are the two answers, the basic answers: positive and negative. Just watch your own mind... whichever appeals to you. There are people who are basically attracted towards the positive, or towards the negative. Feel your own attraction, what attracts you more. And whichever attracts you more, that can become your path: NO can become your path, res can become your path.

Kabir's path is that of YES. Buddha's path is that of NO. But, really, YES and no are not significant. What is significant is totality. If you say yes with your total being it is totality that liberates. If you say no with totality, it is totality that liberates. But it all depends on you.

There are not some things labelled as important and other things labelled as unimportant. A roseflower may be important to a poet and may be utterly unimportant to somebody who is only interested in money. For him, a note, a hundred-rupee note, is more important. He will ask, "What is the use of the roseflower?" In fact, he will be very much worried why people go on singing songs of rose flowers -- "Why don't they sing songs of hundred-rupee notes?"

"Yes," responds the new arrival.

"Oxford?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"No."

OSHO WHAT TO DO WITH THE FEELING OF HELPLESSNESS AT THE FRUSTRATION IN FINDING THAT NOTHING IS ULTIMATELY SATISFYING -- ALL IS NOT ENOUGH?

In that very experiencing, in that very understanding, you will be relaxed. Why ask that anything should be ultimately satisfying? Why not be satisfied with whatsoever life gives you? -- even if it is only for the moment. Why be greedy? Alla, you seem to be very greedy. You seem to be of that old, rotten type of spiritual person -- greedy. He wants everything for ever, for ever. If he falls in love with a woman, he wants her to remain of the same age for ever, for ever. He himself will be growing old -- that is another thing. But the woman has to remain young.

It is these greedy people who have created the ideas of paradise, FIRDAUS. In their paradise, women never grow old. All women in paradise are stuck at the age of sixteen. Must be getting tired... for millions and millions of years stuck at sixteen. But it says nothing about the men -- it may be because the scriptures are written by men. If women were writing scriptures then they would write something else: men will be stuck somewhere at eighteen.

And the same people who go on condemning all kinds of things here go on promising the same things a thousandfold, for eternity, in paradise. What kind of logic is this? Alcohol is prohibited here by the Mohammedans, but in their firdaus, in their paradise, rivers of alcohol flow -- rivers! You need not go to a pub; you need not only drink, you can swim, you can dive.

This is strange! -- but not really. The greedy mind is there. The greedy mind is ready to sacrifice the momentary joy of being in a pub, of drinking a little bit, for the ultimate joy of drinking and drinking forever.

These same religious people who go on condemning the feminine body -- all the religions have committed that crime -- that shows simply only one thing, that the people who were writing those scriptures were deeply sexually repressed people. It shows nothing else. It says nothing about the women, it simply shows something about the scripture writers, that they were deeply repressed people -- they were afraid of women.

But here they are afraid, and here they go on telling everybody: "Beware! Woman is the door to hell!" And the same people provide you with beautiful women in heaven -- the most beautiful. Do you know? -- in paradise women don't perspire, they don't need deodorants. Their bodies have a perfume of flowers -- a natural perfume, not created by some artificially manufactured perfume. Just naturally like flowers -- roses. Their bodies are made of gold. What greed! And what are you going to do with a woman whose body is made of gold? You will be stuck! But the greed, the greedy mind fantasizing.