The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Talks on Kabir

Do you know, down the ages, the soldiers have not been allowed to have sexual relationships? Why? Because if soldiers are allowed to have sexual relationships they don't gather enough anger in them, enough violence in them. Their sex becomes a release, they become soft, and a soft person cannot fight. Starve the soldier of sex and he is bound to fight better. In fact, his violence will be a substitute for his sexuality.

And Sigmund Freud is again right when he says that all our weapons are nothing but phallic symbols: the sword, the knife, the bayonet -- they are nothing but phallic symbols. The soldier has not been allowed to enter into somebody's body. into some woman's body. Now he is going crazy to enter; now he can do anything. A great perverted desire has entered into his being now. Repressed sex -- he would like to enter into somebody's body through a bayonet, through a sword...

Down the ages, the soldier was forced to repress his sexual desires.

In this century we have seen one thing happening. American soldiers are the most well-equipped soldiers in the world -- scientifically, technologically, they are the most well-equipped soldiers, but they proved weaker than any other soldier. In Vietnam, a poor country, for years on end they tried and had to accept defeat. Why? For the first time in history the American soldier is sexually satisfied -- that is the problem. The first soldier in history who is sexually satisfied, who is not starved sexually. He cannot win. A poor country like Vietnam, a small country like Vietnam -- it is a miracle; if you don't understand the psychology, it is a miracle. With all the technology, with all the modern science, with all the power... and the American soldier could not do anything.

But this is not new; this is an ancient truth. The whole history of India proves it. India is a big country, one of the biggest, next only to China, the second biggest country in the world, and it was conquered many times by small countries. Turks, Mongols, Greeks -- anybody came and this big country was immediately defeated, conquered. What was the reason? And those people who had come to conquer were poor people, starving.

My own analysis of Indian history is that in the past India w as not sexually repressed. Those were the days when temples like Khajuraho, Konarak, Puri, were built -- India was not sexually repressed. In spite of the few so-called mahatmas, the greater part of the country was sexually satisfied; there was a softness, a loving quality, a grace. It was difficult for India to fight. For what? Just think of yourself: if you want to fight, you will have to starve yourself sexually for a few days. You can ask Mohammed Ali and other boxers: before they fight, for a few days they have to become celibates. That's a must! You can ask the Olympic competitors: before they participate in Olympic competitions, for a few days they have to starve themselves sexually. It gives a thrust, it gives great violence -- it makes you capable of fighting. You run faster, you attack faster, because the energy is boiling within. Hence the soldier has been repressed.

Just allow all the armies of the world to be sexually satisfied and there will be peace. Just allow people sexual satisfaction, and there will be less Hindu/Mohammedan riots, less Christian and Mohammedan crusades -- all that nonsense will disappear. If love spreads, war will disappear -- both cannot exist together.

Kabir is exactly right. He says:
I PULLED BACK MY SEXUAL LONGINGS,

AND NOW I DISCOVER THAT I'M ANGRY A LOT.

And remember, sex can be transformed because it is a natural energy; anger is not so natural, one step removed from nature. Now it will be difficult to change anger. First anger will have to be changed into sex, only then can anything be done -- that's what my work here is. And that's what I am being condemned for all over the world.

I am trying to change your anger into sex -- first that has to be done. That is the way of inner change. First all your perversions have to disappear, and you have to become a natural human being. You have to become a natural animal, to be exact. And then only can you become divine. The animal can be transformed into the divine, but your animal is also very perverted, your animal is not sane -- your animal has become insane. First the insanity has to be transformed, changed. Change anger!

That's why I send people first to encounter groups and then to Tantra. First they have to go into some encounter group type phenomenon; some process where their anger can be expressed, relaxed. Then only can they move into some process of Tantra, into some inner alchemy that can use sexual energy as a vehicle.

But people who are angry will not understand it. Anger does not allow understanding. Now if you want to become a politician, you have to repress your sex -- otherwise you will not be able to compete, you will not be able to reach New Delhi -- impossible. It is not an accident that Morarji Desai has reached there -- fifty years of sexual repression is bound to help him become the prime minister of the country. So much rage! It is difficult to compete with such people; they go madly into competition. They don't look sideways, they simply go ahead; they don't care what happens. By fair or foul means, but they have to reach the top.

Politicians can succeed only if they are sexually repressed people. Adolf Hitler was sexually repressed, very repressed. Had he been in deep love with a single woman there would have been no Second World War. Had he loved a single human being deeply, the whole history of humanity would have been different. But he was very sexually suppressed.

He was as big a mahatma as Morarji Desai -- in fact a little bigger. He was a vegetarian, you will be surprised to know. To find a vegetarian in Germany is difficult! but he was a vegetarian. He was not a smoker; he was against drinking any kind of intoxicating beverages. He used to go early to bed and would get up early in the morning. He avoided all kinds of loving relationships -- what to say about love? -- he had not even a single friend. There was not a single man vv-ho could call him friend. He never allowed that much closeness. He was afraid, continuously afraid of his sexuality.

This man became the cause of the greatest war the world has known. My own feeling is that had he smoked a little bit, had he become drunk once in a while, had he fallen in love with a woman, the whole history of humanity would have been different. Then he would have been soft, then he would have been more human, more accepting of his own limita-tions, and hence more accepting of others' limitations. He would have been more humane.

Says Kabir:
I PULLED BACK MY SEXUAL LONGINGS,

AND NOW I DISCOVER THAT I'M ANGRY A LOT.

THAT I AM GREEDY ALL DAY.

SO HE REPRESSED HIS ANGER -- hm? -- that s what one will logically do. You repress sex, anger bubbles up; you repress anger. But he is a close observer, a very minute observer. He says: The moment I repressed my anger I became greedy.

This too is proved: if you watch human history you will find a thousand and one proofs for it. For example, in India Mahavira taught non-violence, and the result has been that all the followers of Mahavira became the most greedy people in the world -- they are the Jews of India. The Jainas are the Jews of India. Why did they become so greedy?

Mahavira taught them to be non-violent. Obviously, they started repressing anger; that is the only way that seems possible to the stupid mind: Repress anger! Don't be violent. And they tried really hard; in every possible way they tried not to be violent. They even stopped agriculture because it is a kind of violence: you will have to pull the plants and cut the crop, and that is violence because plants have life. So Jainas stopped agriculture completely.

Now, they cannot go to the army, they cannot be KSHATRIYAS -- they cannot become warriors -- because of their ideology of non-violence, and they cannot even be agriculturalists, gardeners; that is impossible. They would not like to become SUDRAS -- the untouchables -- who clean the roads, the sweepers and the cobblers, because that is too humiliating. And brahmins won't allow them to function as brahmins -- brahmins are very jealous about that. They have been in power for centuries and they don't allow anybody: nobody can become a brahmin; one has to be a brahmin only by birth. You may become a great, learned man -- that doesn't matter -- but you can't be a brahmin. There is no way of becoming a brahmin; you have to be born one only. You have to be very careful when you choose your parents; that is the only opportunity to become a brahmin.

So Jainas could not be brahmins, would not like to become SUDRAS were not able to become warriors -- then what was left for them? Only business -- they became business people. And all their repressed anger became their greed. They became great money-maniacs. Their number is very small; in India their number is so small, not more than thirty LAKHS. In a country of sixty CRORES thirty LAKHS IS nothing. But they possess more money than anybody else. You will not find a Jaina beggar anywhere; they are all rich people.

Mahavira wanted them to be non-violent, and what really happened was totally different: they became greedy. Repress your anger and you will be greedy.

THAT I AM GREEDY ALL DAY.

AND NOW I AM PROUD OF MYSELF.

So he repressed his greed and the ultimate result is: he has become a great egoist; he finds himself being very proud. "Look! I have repressed sex, repressed anger, repressed greed -- I have done this, I have done that. I have done impossible things!" Now a great 'I' arises, the ego becomes strengthened.

That's wh you will find the most crystallized egos in the monks and the nuns. You will not find such crystallized egos anywhere else. The more a person renounces, the more he represses, the more egoistic he becomes. Indians are very egoistic and the reason? -- they have all tried in some way or other to be religious. And the only way seems to be repression -- and repression brings ego.

A non-repressed person becomes a non-egoist; he cannot carry the ego. There is no prop to support it. He becomes humble, he becomes simple, he becomes ordinary, he has no claim -- he knows he is nothing. This whole process that Kabir is describing is beautiful.

Repression is not the way: transformation is the way. Don't repress anything. If sexuality is there, don't repress it otherwise you will create a new complexity -- which will be more difficult to tackle. And if you repress anger, greed is even more difficult then, and if you repress greed, arises ego, pride, which is the MOST difficult thing to drop.

Move back: from pride to greed, from greed to anger, from anger to sex. And if you can come to the natural, spontaneous sexuality, things will be very simple. Things will be so simple that you cannot imagine. Then you energy is natural, and natural energy creates no hindrance in transformation. Hence I say: from sex to superconsciousness. Not from anger, not from greed, not from ego, but from sex to superconsciousness.

The transformation can happen only if first you accept your natural being. Whatsoever is natural is good. Yes, more is possible, but the more will be possible only if you accept your nature with totality -- if you welcome it, if you have no guilt about it. To be guilty, to feel guilty, is to be irreligious. In the past you have been told just the opposite: Feel guilty and you are religious. I say to you: Feel guilty and you will never be religious. Drop all guilt!

You are whatsoever God has made you. You are whatso-ever existence has made you. Sex is not your creation: it is God's gift. Something tremendously valuable is hidden in it -- it is just a shell of your samadhi. If the seed is broken, the shell is broken, the flower will bloom -- but not by repression. You will have to learn inner gardening, you will have to become a gardener, you will have to learn how to use dirty fertilizers, manure, and transform manure into roses.

Religion is the most delicate art.

THE WORLD, says Kabir,

IT STILL HOLDS ON TO ONE THING.

AND THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM IS: you call leave one thing, but you cling to another. You leave that and you cling to another. You go on changing things, but the clinging remains. The clinging has to disappear. How can the clinging disappear? Only by understanding, awareness, meditation; not by doing anything about it. If you do, you will create a new clinging.

An ancient story:
A man was very much afraid of ghosts, and the problem was more troublesome because he had to pass through a cemetery every day while going to work and coming back from work. And sometimes, if he had to come in the night -- overtime work or something and he was delayed -- then it was really a problem to pass through the cemetery. It was only a three, four minute walk, but it was almost a death to him.

He went to a fakir and he said, "Do something. I have heard you do miracles. And I don't ask much -- I ask only a simple thing: give me somehow some protection so that I can pass through the cemetery without fear."

He said, "This is so simple, there is no problem in it. Take this locket and keep it always with you -- it will protect you from ghosts. No ghost can ever trouble you."

He tried and, really, no ghost troubled him. In fact, there are no ghosts; it was only his fear. With the locket in hand, he went through the cemetery, from this side to that, from that side to this. He tried at different times, even in the middle of the night -- and it worked. And he said, "It is really powerful. this locket! This man is a miracle man."

The whole miracle was this: that there were no ghosts -- there are no ghosts anywhere. But now this idea that he had a protection helped him.

But then a new problem arose: he started becoming afraid that somebody might steal it, or some day he might forget it somewhere, or he might have put it outside and be taking a bath and ghosts might come there.... So he had to carry it everywhere -- it became an obsession. The wife would say, "It looks embarrassing. People ask me, 'Why does your husband go on carrying this locket in his hand, this stupid locket? What is the matter with him? He never leaves it.'" Even in the night when he went to sleep he would keep it in his hand. Even once or twice in the night he would wake up to see whether the locket was in his hand or not, because it might have fallen in his sleep, and ghosts might jump on his chest: "And they must be waiting to take revenge!"

Now one problem is solved, another problem has arisen -- and far more complicated, because the ghosts used to torture him only once in a while when he was late or he had to pass through the cemetery. In twenty-four hours, just for one or two minutes the problem was there. Now it was a twenty-four-hour problem -- the locket: "If it is lost, if somebody takes it away, if I forget it somewhere.... " Even in sleep it was difficult to sleep totally. He had to keep a little alert. He started becoming ill because the sleep was not good, and he was so constantly afraid.

He went to another fakir who said, "I will give you another thing. Keep this box; this locket is creating trouble -- this box is far more powerful. You can even keep it six feet away from you and its power works."

He said, "This is far better. At least I can go into my bathroom leaving it outside."

But now the new problem arose. The locket he was always keeping in his hand; now he was taking the bath inside and the box was outside..."If children, just in playing, take it away or something happens?!" Now it was even more difficult: that six foot distance.

WITH THE WORLD

IT STILL HOLDS ON TO ONE THING.

And unless you drop ALL clinging -- ALL clinging, I say -- unless you are ready to be nothing, empty, nobody, with no protection, with no security, no safety, unless you are ready to be in that kind of space... which will look like death in the beginning. And it is a kind of death: the old dies, but then the new arises. And the new can arise only when the old is gone. The old has to cease for the new to be. Only when all clinging disappears -- you are not clinging even to the name of God, you are not clinging even to the Master, you are not clinging to the scripture, you are simply in a state of nonclinging -- then suddenly from your own inner source a great light wells up, a great bliss wells up. You are transformed.

Mind is not dropped -- it is a ghost. And if you try methods to drop it, you will cling to the methods. Then those methods will torture you. But you will remain always in bondage.
KABIR SAYS: LISTEN MY FRIEND,

THERE ARE VERY FEW THAT FIND THE PATH!

A FEW PEOPLE REMAIN INDULGENT, remain animals; a few people start repressing the animal, become obsessed with repressions, perversions. Only rarely does it happen that a person is neither indulgent, nor repressive -- only when a person is neither does he find the secret key to the door of the divine.

The original is:

SHABD MEN SURAT SAMAI.

Kabir says: I have become a sannyasin, a renunciate, I have dropped the world, but that doesn't matter. Now I cling to God, now God has become my world.
MAN BAIRAGI MAYA TYAGI,

SHABD MEN SURAT SAMAI.

Now the name of God -- SHABD -- has become my treasure, now I cling to it. Now the idea of God has become the center of my clinging.
KAHAIN KABIR SUNO BHAI SADHO,

YAH GAM BIRLE PAI.

Very few people there are who have found the secret path. Out of a hundred, ninety remain indulgent in the animal; they never move beyond the animal. Out of the remaining ten, nine become repressive and pathological. Only one out of a hundred finds the true way. What is the true way?

The true way is that of understanding your mind, not of dropping it. The true way is: sitting silently and watching your mind -- all its cunning ways, subtle ways, all its strategies -- just watch, just be a witness to your mind. And, slowly slowly, by witnessing it you will understand what games it has been playing with you. You stop it from one door, it comes from another door; you stop it from that door, it makes a third door -- and it goes on and on, ad nauseam.

Watch.... Don't renounce the world, and don't try to drop the mind. Just become more alert. In that alertness, suddenly mind disappears, and with the mind disappears the whole world. And when there is no mind and no world, God is.
The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty

Chapter #14

Chapter title: Life is a Lovesong

24 April 1979 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: FISH14

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 102 mins

The first question

Question 1

OSHO, I KEEP THINKING OF MY LIFE IN TERMS OF GOAL OR DESTINATION, WAITING TO WAKE UP SOME DAY AND FIND MYSELF ENLIGHTENED, AND I WORRY THAT OTHERS WILL REACH BEFORE ME. TODAY IS A TENSION. WHY IS ETERNITY SO DIFFICULT TO FEEL AND REMEMBER? YOU KEEP REMINDING ME BUT I KEEP FORGETTING AND LOSE PATIENCE. WHY AM I SUCH A FOOD? AND THEN I THINK 'SO WHAT?' AND THEN I WANT TO SCREAM 'NO MORE!' BUT GO ON.

Because of these ideologies you cannot allow yourself to relax in the moment. They go on goading you... you have to attain something, you have to achieve something. Your whole education system is a strategy of poisoning your consciousness; it is a strategy of driving you crazy after goals, it is a strategy of creating ambition in you. And ambition is neurosis. But this has been done for so long that it has become part and parcel of the human mind.

That's why you go on thinking in terms of goal or destination. It is not you: it is the society that goes on thinking in you, through you; it is your parents, it is your priests, it is your politicians, it is your pedagogues, who go on thinking through you, and you are identified with them. You don't know that you are separate.

The first thing that you will have to learn is to be a witness to all that goes on in the mind, because the mind is a social phenomenon -- it is not a God-given gift. It is social exploitation; it is society that makes a mind in you, and through that mind controls you, keeps you imprisoned, chained, reduces you to a slave. And you are not the mind! You are the witness who can see the mind very easily. You can see the thoughts moving in your consciousness -- those thoughts are the content of the consciousness but they are not consciousness itself.

And this is what meditation is all about: creating a distance between you and your mind. Once the distance is there, you will be surprised that the whole mind structure is your imprisonment -- you are free from it because you are separate from it. Once you start enjoying the freedom from the mind all goals will disappear, all destinations will disappear.

Mind can only live in goals, because mind can only exist in the future. Mind cannot exist herenow -- try to be herenow and try for the mind to continue. You will find it impossible. Either the mind continues, then you are not herenow; or, you are herenow and the mind is no more there. Mind has no present tense at all; either it is past or it is future -- it is always in the non-existential. And God is that which exists. God is not a goal, nirvana is not a goal, enlightenment is not a goal, it is not an achievement -- just the contrary. When you have forgotten ALL goals, when you have dropped the whole achieving mind, enlightenment is -- enlightenment is a state of no-mind.

And enlightenment is nothing special. It is the most ordinary, natural phenomenon. It looks special because you make a goal out of it. Buddha is the most ordinary human being -- ordinary in the sense that he has no mind, he exists in the sheer present. He has no ego, how can he be special? He cannot compare himself with anybody else, he cannot be inferior or superior.

In the present moment, he is not -- but a totally different kind of presence happens, which does not belong to the person; it is only a presence, not a person at all. And how can he be special? -- because in the present moment he finds that there is no purpose in life. The whole purpose is mind-imposed.

The trees are there for no purpose at all, and the stars are there for no purpose at all. Purpose is a man-created concept. Rivers are not flowing for any purpose, and the oceans are there not for any purpose. Except for man there is nothing like purpose anywhere else. Life simply is. Existence utterly is -- it is not a means to some end; it is an end unto itself That's what I mean when I say there is no purpose.