The "Religious" Mind

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Culture & Politics » soc.culture.china » The "Religious" Mind

The "Religious" Mind [message #225067]

Sa, 15 Juli 2006 01:28

Existence is multidimensional. From each point... as if it is a sun with
millions of rays moving towards infinity. Each ray can lead you to infinity,
but if you choose one, of course you have to leave others; and you can
choose only one. You cannot even ride on two horses, what to say about two
dimensions? You cannot ride on two boats, what to say about two
dimensions? - because they are going to diverge more and more, more and
more; as you go further, there will be an infinite unbridgeable gap between
them. At the source they are one. From there you can choose any one, but
once you have chosen a line then others are dropped.

I have been drifting my whole life. You have to be alert. And if you
can remind me that somewhere I have drifted, I can catch hold of a dimension
that has been left behind. But you should not expect that I will stop
drifting, because in catching hold of the other dimension, again I will be
leaving many more.

On each step there is a problem of choosing, because I am an
existential person, I am not a thinker. It is not a logical syllogism that I
am propounding to you. It is my experience that I am trying to share with
you - and experience is so vast that I can only show you a little part of
it. But you are always welcome to remind me. Yes, I remember I had drifted
on many points; perhaps a few I can manage to catch back again.

One was religion - religion at the lowest level of mankind, the
instinctive level. All primitive tribes, aboriginals, are still living under
that first kind of religion, which theologians call "magic."

It believes that if you sacrifice to a god, if you do a certain
ritual, a certain dance, a certain prayer, then the god is satisfied with
you and rewards will be coming.

For example, when it is not raining - these are the problems of
primitive people - when it is not raining, what will the primitive tribe do?
It will arrange a ritual, perhaps a sacrifice of a living human being -
their god is very bloodthirsty. Or, if the tribe has evolved a little, then
instead of a man it will choose an animal. If the tribe has evolved a little
more then it will choose not even an animal, not even a man, but something
similar.

Now, for example, in India they break a coconut. The coconut is very
similar to the skull of a man. It has a little beard, a mustache, two eyes,
a little nose. In fact, in Hindi the skull is called khopri and the narial
'a coconut' is called khopra. The similarity is so much that both have the
same name. Breaking a skull was the ritual originally, but now it would be
criminal. They have found a good substitute, a coconut, but the idea is the
same. They think whatever makes them feel pleasure also makes their god feel
pleasure in the same way. A naked, beautiful girl will be placed before the
god, all kinds of foods will be prepared and placed before the god, and they
will go into a mad dance: it is a way of pleasing the god.

God is displeased, that's why rains are not coming. If he is pleased,
rains will be coming - and rains, sooner or later, do come; then their
ritual is proved valid, the rains have come. Once in a while it happens that
rains don't come at all. Then the god is really very badly displeased and
needs more sacrifice, more ritual.

This is the lowest kind of religion - call it magic-religion - the
belief that just by chanting a few words, doing a few actions, you can
change the course of existence. It is simply stupid. Existence has no need
of your sacrifices, existence has no need of your dances - and nothing
reaches to existence. But the instinctive man, the primitive man, cannot do
more than that. That is the limit of his understanding.

That primitive man has not died completely, even in so-called
civilized people. You also think in the same logic. You don't sacrifice
somebody, but even civilized people, cultured, educated people, when they
are in a difficulty, immediately their primitive man comes up. Your wife is
sick and the doctors say, "All that we could do, we have done. Now only a
miracle can save her." Even the doctor is becoming primitive.

He is telling you, "Only a miracle, only something magical....
Medicine has failed, science had failed; whatever we could do, we have done.
Now if she is saved it will be through the grace of God or the grace of a
saint, so now you go to the temple, to the mosque, to the synagogue, to the
church, or go to some priest or go to some sage." The doctor has fallen into
primitive religion.

And the man, of course, is absolutely willing to go anywhere, to do
anything, because he wants to save his wife. This is not the time for him to
think over philosophical matters - whether it is right or wrong, whether it
is primitive or civilized, whether it is stupid or intelligent. This is not
the time. He runs! He had never been to a saint but now he goes and falls at
his feet and prays, "Save my wife!"

The primitive man is still within you because the unconscious is still
within you.

The primitive man disappears only with the disappearance of the
unconscious. When your unconscious and conscious become one, your whole mind
becomes consciousness; then there is no way to fall back to the primitive
man. Otherwise, nine times more than the civilized man is the primitive man
inside you. Any time your conscious mind starts failing, your intellect
starts failing, you fall into the mumbo-jumbo of the primitive.

Religion of the intellect - the second category, the higher category -
is pseudo-religion. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,
Mohammedanism - these are all products of the intellect. They are not
magico-religious. They have theologies: they have thought about existence,
its creation, why it has been created; how one can get out of this wheel of
life and birth. They have been thinking about it, pondering over it for
thousands of years, and each religion has developed a theology.

The word theology means logic about God. It is a contradiction in
terms. God is not a logical proposition: you cannot prove it by logic, you
cannot disprove it by logic. Logic is utterly irrelevant to God. But
pseudo-religions cannot do more than that, they can only think about. And
they have great imagination to portray God. Their scriptures say God created
man in His own image. The reality is just the reverse: man creates God in
his own image. That's why there are so many gods - because there are so many
men, so many races, so many different faces - eyes, nose... so many
different kinds.

You cannot think of a Negro inventing a white god. You may not have
thought about why your devil looks like a Negro, why your devil is black.
The Negro's god will be black; and of course the devil has to be pure white.
And the white man has proved devilish enough. The Negroes have not only an
argument in favor of it, but history also, giving all the evidences of what
the white man has done to the colored people of the world. It must have been
the greatest evil that has happened in history.

How can a Chinese think of God in any other way than as a Chinese?
When Marco Polo went to China, he was the first Western man to reach China.
China was under the great empire of Kublai Khan, son of Genghis Khan.
Perhaps Kublai was one of the greatest emperors in the world because he
ruled over all China, middle Asia, the Far East.

When Marco Polo reached China, he wanted an audience. Kublai Khan was
a man of great intelligence. His prime minister said, "A man who looks like
a monkey wants to see you. It will be absolutely unprecedented - no emperor
has ever given audience to a monkey." A white man looked like a monkey to
them.

Kublai Khan said, "No need to be worried. If he can speak he cannot be
absolutely a monkey; there is something human. You bring him in." And he
became interested in Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a very intelligent young
man, and he became very intimate with Kublai Khan. When he came back to
Europe he reported to the pope, "In China they worship a different God, who
looks like a Chinese, and they think of us Europeans as monkeys."

To us they look a little strange. They have a very little beard - a
few hairs, you can count them - flat noses, very outstanding cheekbones. You
cannot think of a more ugly face - but they think that is beauty. A man or a
woman who does not have those outstanding cheekbones will find it hard to
get married; so would a man with a nose that is typical of the Aryan races:
Indians, Germans, English, French, Scandinavians, Dutch, Russians.... These
are all one race, and to them a pointed nose, a long nose, is thought to be
beautiful. But in China that is ugly; and they cannot make their God ugly.

Marco Polo said, "This makes me think that perhaps we are all
imagining about God. Nobody knows how He looks."

The pope was very angry and he said, "You must be imagining things.
You are creating a fiction so that you can be thought of as a great explorer
of a new land. I cannot believe that anything bigger than Christianity
exists anywhere."

Marco Polo said, "Buddhism is far bigger; it has millions of monks,
thousands of temples and monasteries. Beside it your Christianity is
nothing." But he was alone. What proof did he have? He had brought a few
things which were taken away from him and burned to destroy the evidence.

This is the pseudo-religious mind. The pseudo-religious mind believes
in its own imagination, in its own thinking, and is afraid of anything that
goes against it or is even a little different from it. Otherwise, religions
would not have been fighting for thousands of years.

This is something strange: all religions teach love, and all religions
end in hatred.

All religions teach the brotherhood of man, but they only create
enemies of each other. All religions teach that every man has a potential
right to reach God, but practically they say: Only our religion is the true
religion. Yes, every man can reach God but he has to reach through our way:
Unless you follow Jesus Christ you have no chance. But the same is said by
Krishna: "If you surrender to me, leaving everything aside, I will take care
of you, you need not worry." And the same is true about all other religions.
They seem to be competing shopkeepers - everybody is trying to sell his
thing: his holy book, his messiah, his god.

Pseudo-religion is always basically afraid, because deep down the
pseudo-religious person knows that it is only his imagination, he has no
actual experience. He himself is not convinced; hence, he needs to convince
others. He goes on sending missionaries to other countries to convince,
convert more and more people into Christianity, into Mohammedanism. Why? Why
this great urge to convert? Psychologically it is of tremendous importance
to understand.

The person who wants to convert anybody is a person who is suspicious
of his truth. He is really trying, by converting people, to convince himself
that he is right. If he can convert so many people that gives him enough
support: "So many people cannot be fools. I may be a fool but so many people
cannot be fools. Such intelligent people... and they have come to believe in
my belief My belief is bound to be true."

Christianity seems to be the most bogus of all religions because it is
more interested in converting people than any other religion. In fact,
Judaism and Hinduism, which are the two ancientmost religions, are not
interested in converting anybody. You have to understand the psychology of
it.

Why are Jews not interested in sending missionaries and converting
people to Judaism? A Jew is born, not converted. Have you seen any converted
Jew anywhere? It is simply absurd. Jews will not take anybody through
conversion. If God has not made you a Jew then there is no other way; they
are the chosen people of God. By converting all kinds of rubbish, can you
improve upon God's choice? If God has not made you a Jew that means that you
are not meant to be a Jew; you are already rejected. So for thousands of
years they have never thought about converting people into Jews.

The Hindus have the same idea - that they are the only people to whom
God has chosen to give the first holy book in the world. Certainly their Rig
Veda is the ancientmost scripture in the world and certainly it is the
scripture of the most ancient religion. They have four castes: the brahmin,
the priest; the kshatriya, the warrior; the vaishya, the business man; and
the sudra, the untouchable. Now, it was a problem: how could they convert
anybody? And in which caste were they going to put him?

Hinduism is not one piece, it is four castes.

The brahmin is the highest. You cannot convert anybody into a brahmin.
He represents God, hence the name. The name of God in India is Brahma, and
brahmin means one chosen by Brahma, appointed by God Himself. There is no
way for anybody to become a brahmin. It is decided by birth, because birth
is decided by God, it is not in man's hands to decide such things.

Now, the kshatriya also will not allow anybody in. He is the second
most important, and it is a traditional thing for him to be a warrior; just
anybody - X, Y, Z - cannot be a warrior. It needs a long tradition,
training. You have to have the blood of a warrior, you cannot be converted.

The only people who can absorb you are the untouchables. The business
people are the third, but they are higher than the untouchables. Only the
untouchables can absorb you, but without the permission of the brahmin they
cannot do anything. Conversion - such a religious phenomenon - is beyond
their capacity. They are outcasts themselves.

Hindus and Jews are born so. That's why both these religions are the
most egoistic. Naturally, other religions have to rely on conversions,
otherwise from where are they going to get their customers, their clients?
God has made Jews, God has made Hindus; now the whole world is divided into
two chosen people of God. From where is Jesus going to get his people? From
where is Buddha going to get his people? They had to depend on conversion.
From where is Mohammed going to get Mohammedans?

These are latecomers. The old shops have credibility; they are already
established, and established by God Himself. These others are newcomers in
the market. Naturally they have to attract clients from the old shops;
otherwise no customer is going to come to them. And they have to create new
allurements, cheaper prices, better rewards. And you can see that....

The god of the Jews is a very tough guy.

But the god of Christians is pure love. You don't know... it is such a
simple mathematics: the god of the Jews can be a tough guy, but Jesus has to
convert people, so he has to create a better image of God, more polished,
more refined, more humane, so he can make the Jewish god outdated.

Whom is he going to convert? Rich people certainly are not going to be
converted because they are already established, respectable, on the highest
level of the society. They are not going to follow a vagabond. They are not
going to become a laughingstock - for what? Hence all those beatitudes of
Jesus: "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God..."
because you can only get hold of the poor. The poor are already angry,
jealous of the rich, and here comes a man who says, "My God is love. And my
God allows only poor people in heaven; rich people have no place there."

This is simple business tactics - nothing profound in it. But nobody
has bothered to watch how new religions have tried to pull customers from
the old shops to their own shop. They are all in favor of the poor.
Strange - Jews don't have a single statement in which the rich are condemned
and the poor are raised high just because of their poverty. Jews have not a
single statement in which poverty is something sacred; Hindus also don't.
The rich man, according to Hinduism, is rich because he has been religious,
virtuous, in his past lives. It is a reward from God. And the poor man is
poor because he has been evil, unreligious, in his past lives. He has been
punished for it. Poverty is a punishment, richness is a reward. Hindus or
Jews, who are established already - why should they bother about the poor
and the downtrodden? But Buddha, Jesus, Mahavira, Mohammed - their whole
interest is in the poor, the downtrodden.

It is a simple thing: these are the people who can be converted, these
are the people who are vulnerable. They have nothing to lose and everything
to gain. For example, if a sudra becomes a follower of Buddha, immediately
he is no longer untouchable. If a sudra becomes a Christian he is no longer
untouchable. This is a very strange world.

I had a friend who was the principal of a theological college in
Jabalpur, Principal Mackwan. I was saying this thing to him - "Why are you
Christians interested only in the poor?"

He said, "Please come to my house" - I was sitting in his office. He
said, "My house is just behind the college; come to my house; I want to show
you something."

He showed me an old man and woman's picture. They were certainly
beggars, in rags, dirty; you could even see it in their faces - so hungry.
You could see that all their lives they had suffered; it was written in the
lines on their forehead. He said, "Can you recognize who these are?"

I said, "How can I recognize them? - I have never seen these people,
but they look like beggars."

He said, "They were beggars. He is my father, she is my mother. And
not only were they beggars, they were sudras, untouchables. They became
converted, in their old age, to Christianity because they were so old, tired
of begging; and now they were concerned about their children - particularly
this boy who is now principal of Leonard Theological College. What would
happen to him if they died? He would also become a beggar."

Because they were sick they entered a Christian hospital, because no
other hospital will take poor people and give them free medicine, food,
care, doctors. So they entered, they had to enter, a Christian hospital.

And there the whole methodology is: with the medicine to go on giving
as much of The Bible as possible; with each injection a little Bible.

With food, the doctor talks about it, the nurse talks about it; the
priest comes every day to inquire about their health, how they are.

For the first time they felt that they were human beings. Nobody had
ever asked them about their health. They were treated like dogs, not like
human beings. And had they remained Hindus they would have died like dogs,
dying on the street corner. You don't know, because that is not the way in
the West. In the West, dogs have a better death, a better life, because any
dog who is not owned by somebody is to be killed. The dog has to be owned by
somebody, a collar proclaiming the ownership. But in the East you cannot
kill anybody. There may be a dog spreading sickness and disease, but you
cannot kill it - killing is sin.

It happened.... I am drifting - just remember!

In Lucknow there is a temple of Hanuman, the monkey god. Strangely
enough that temple is surrounded by big trees, and all the trees are full of
monkeys - you will never see so many monkeys together. Perhaps it is for the
simple reason that whatsoever is offered to the monkey god those monkeys
eat, so by and by they have become permanent residents there. And the temple
has such fame that people come to it from far and wide, from faraway places
because it is thought that whatever you wish there it will be fulfilled. So
they wish something and they take the oath before the monkey god that: "If
our wish is fulfilled then we are going to bring fifty-one rupees worth of
sweets" - or anything they want to bring, or whatsoever they can afford.

So every day so much food is being offered - and it is not anything to
do with the monkey god. If a hundred people come to ask, at least one-third
of them - just by simple arithmetical rules - one-third of them are going to
get their wishes fulfilled. Even if they had not come they would not have
been losers, but now they believe that the wish has been fulfilled because
of the monkey god. The two-thirds whose wishes have not been fulfilled have
moved to some other temple - naturally, because this monkey god does not
seem to be kind towards them.

You cannot ask any reason or anything, but it is sure that your wish
is not fulfilled, so you move to some other temple. And there are hundreds
of temples in India with wish-fulfilling trees. You just go and ask... and
you just have to give a small bribe. But the one-third of the people whose
wishes have been fulfilled.... And what kind of wishes people make: "That my
son passes in his matriculation examination; or "That my son gets the job he
has applied for"; or "That my daughter gets a husband because I don't have
much money to give"; or "My wife is sick, please make her healthy again"...
just simple, mundane, human trivia.

They are not asking for some miracles, "That when I pass through the
ocean it should separate like it did for Moses." Then they would know
whether the monkey god can do anything or not. But that your son passes his
matriculation... and thousands of people are passing matriculation without
the help of the monkey god. In fact the monkey god was not a matriculate
himself! And even if he does the examination, he is not going to pass; you
cannot hope he will pass.

But these people feel that their wishes are fulfilled so they
bring.... So monkeys have slowly gathered - the whole road, on both sides,
is full of monkeys. And for a strange reason, monkeys and dogs are all
against uniforms. Perhaps in their past lives they have been
revolutionaries: any kind of uniform - postmen in India have a uniform, the
policeman has a uniform, the army, the sannyasins.... Anybody in a uniform,
and dogs and, monkeys are against them.

Perhaps seeing so many people in different clothes different styles,
and then suddenly seeing somebody in uniform, they feel a danger: "This man
does not look like a man, something is wrong somewhere"... and they are on
the attack. It is not the discovery of Machiavelli that attack is the best
way to defend, that if you want to defend yourself, then attack. Don't wait
for the other party to attack, because then you will be already late in
defending. Don't give them that chance.

So monkeys and dogs attack uniformed people. It is simply my feeling
that they are afraid; these people look a little strange, not just like
other human beings. Millions of human beings are there, and they are not
attacking them. And they don't attack these people either if they are not in
uniform; they attack the uniform. The uniform gives them some idea that
something is fishy about this man.

So it started at the temple that the monkeys began to attack
policemen, postmen, army people... and the monkeys were in thousands.
Perhaps somebody had triggered their anger; nobody knows how it started,
because they have been there for hundreds of years, many generations. The
temple is very ancient and they had never done this, but just ten years ago,
one day suddenly a riot broke out between monkeys and all uniformed people.
It became very dangerous because so many monkeys... even one monkey is
enough for you to freak out, but when many monkeys, hundreds, are just
roaming on the road.... The road was blocked, nobody was passing on the
road. It was a main road, so Lucknow was divided into two parts; the monkeys
wouldn't allow anybody to cross.

It became a question in the assembly of the state of Uttar Pradesh -
Lucknow is the capital - that "these monkeys have to be shot. They have
disturbed the peace of the capital. People cannot go to the other side,
people cannot come to this side. Offices are closed because many people live
on that side; many offices are on that side and people live on this side.
Somebody who had gone to that side for some work had been detained, he could
not come back here. Something has to be done immediately."

One man stood up and he said, "If a single monkey is shot then there
is going to be great bloodshed, be cause the monkey is a Hindu god: you are
shooting a Hindu god. It will not be tolerated." He was a Hindu chauvinist
belonging to a Hindu chauvinist party. And although the whole parliament was
privately in favor of their being shot - what else could be done? - the
resolution had to fail because they knew that what this man was saying was
going to happen. Immediately there would be a massacre.
And that's what they want.

All politicians want some trouble somewhere, because only then are
they needed. If everything goes right, if there is no news, nothing is going
wrong, the politicians start feeling lost.

I have not been in India for four years now. Now the journalists are
missing me. Strange people! - they were all against me; when I was there,
they were all against me. They were writing against me, not even bothering
whether it was true or untrue; ninety percent of it was absolutely untrue.
They were writing it but it was news, sellable news. Now they are missing me
because the news that they were making around me they cannot make any
longer, and there is nobody to replace me.

Journalists, politicians - these types of people are in search of some
spot which can become dangerous, some man who can prove dangerous, some
situation which can become a problem. Then they will all try to make it a
problem as quickly as possible.
The resolution could not pass; for almost two weeks the road remained
blocked. Monkeys don't have long memories; they must have forgotten and they
cooled down slowly slowly. First the devotees started coming with sweets and
offering the sweet to the monkey god, and then the traffic started again....

But you cannot kill. You cannot kill dogs; killing is not allowed. But
these religions have been killing each other. They cannot kill a dog, they
cannot kill a monkey, but they can kill a man. That is very strange. I have
been asking Hindus, Mohammedans, "You cannot kill animals but you can kill
men without any problem, as if man has no life?" No, the thing is business.
Man can be converted to be a Mohammedan - a dog cannot be. Dogs are beyond
the reach of your preachers and missionaries.

Professor Mackwan told me, "This is my father and mother. They would
have died like dogs and the municipal truck would have thrown them out of
the city with all the garbage that it carries every day, because there is
nobody to carry a beggar to the funeral pyre. Who bothers about a beggar?
Beggars are not men, not human beings."

And then he took me to another picture of his daughter and his
son-in-law. I was looking at three generations: the father and mother,
almost below human beings; Mackwan, who has gained status and is now in a
very respectable post, highly salaried. Now brahmins come and shake hands
with him, not knowing at all that he is the son of two beggars who were
sudras. I know his daughter, one of the most beautiful women I have seen;
she is married to an American.

Looking at the three generations... such a change. You cannot connect
the daughter with the grandmother and how can you connect the son-in-law
with her grandfather? There seems to be no bridge. The son-in-law is a
well-known scholar, professor - six months teaching in India, six months
teaching in America. Saroj, the daughter herself is a professor. They are
all well-educated; the son is a principal. They have moved in a completely
different direction by being converted to Christianity. I could not object.
I said, "Your father and mother did well."

Hindus and Jews are established. Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists
are not established. They try to convert people; but in their conversion,
deep down what is going on? The established religion has a past to support,
thousands of years of past, which means millions of people have been on the
path; you are not alone.

But when you follow Jesus you know only that this guy has got these
fantastic ideas.

Who knows? - you are following a fool or really a son of God? He can
be either this or that; there is no third alternative. Either he is a
perfect idiot....

In fact Fyodor Dostoevsky has written a book, The Idiot; that is the
title of his book. But the idiot, the character, is almost Jesus-like: very
innocent, simple, who has never done any harm to anybody. In fact, he is
better than Jesus. But Dostoevsky has titled the book The Idiot.

Jesus needs converted people. He himself may be feeling shaky about
what he is saying and about whether it is true or not. In fact, why did he
want Jews to accept him, his messiah-hood? Why was he so insistent that they
had to crucify him? He must have nagged them, tortured them with the idea.
They must have got so fed up that they decided, "This man won't leave us in
peace - he has to be crucified, otherwise he will go on torturing us."

And he was getting more and more fanatic. He started calling the great
temple of the Jews, "my Father's house," and "... I have come to clean my
Father's house." And he really wanted to clean it of all the priests and all
the rabbis: What is the need of all these people when the only begotten son
is there?

I had become a nuisance. He must have been thinking in some silent
moment, "Perhaps I am just mad. I have not been able to convince a single
rabbi."

In fact, I have never tried to convert anybody, but there are a few
rabbi sannyasins. That is strange! And not ordinary rabbis, famous rabbis.
And I have not been in any way trying to convert anybody because I don't
have any doubt. Why should I bother about converting anybody? I don't have
to convince myself that I am right. I am!

If not even a single person is with me, I will be as right as I am
now. My rightness does not grow with the growing number of people around me
does not increase with the increasing number of people around me. My
rightness is from my experience.

Jesus seems to be worried, and all Christians have carried his
sickness in their minds. They are all worried. I cannot think that the pope
really believes that he represents God, it is impossible - unless you are
mad, then everything is possible.

Pseudo-religions are continually trying to convert people or they are
so ancient that the question of conversion had never arisen. They are the
beginners; from the very beginning they caught hold of the customers.
Because of this idea of converting people there are constant fights,
crusades, jihads, holy wars.

And pseudo-religions go on creating more and more theology; nobody
reads it.

I have never seen in my life anybody reading a theological book. I
have visited hundreds of libraries but I have never seen anybody, in any
library, reading a theological book. I have looked into university libraries
and government libraries and asked the librarians one question, "I would
like to know whether any book from the theological section is taken out by
people?"

They said, "You are the first person to inquire about it. The
theological section? - nobody bothers. People are interested only in novels.
Who is going to bore himself with a theological book?" One took me to the
theological section. That was the only section where you could see that all
the books were untouched by human hands, so clean. Hundreds of theologians
continually creating more and more books.... For what? - because the basic
questions have not been answered yet. They go on improving upon the books,
but whatsoever they do, the fundamental questions remain at the same place,
because intellect has no answer for them.

A simple thing has not occurred to them, that if in five or ten
thousand years of theological thinking you have not been able to demolish a
single question, now it is time to stop: perhaps you are not moving in the
right direction.

Religion in the second stage of consciousness, of the conscious mind,
intellect, is theology. I call it pseudo-religion - just words about truth,
God, love, but no experience to support it.

When religion reaches the third, the highest peak, then only is it
religiousness.
So the first I call magico-religious
The second I call pseudo-religion.
And the third I call religiousness.
Then it is a quality, then it has no adjective to it.
Then it has no tradition.
Then it has no scripture, then it has no theology.
Then the origin is not in the past.
And paradise is not in the future.
Then both are within you.
Then you have a fresh experience, and that experience will express
itself in lovingness, friendliness, compassion.
This religion will not bother about God:
Its concern will be compassion.
This religiousness will not bother about heaven and hell.
Its concern will be how to share its blissfulness.
This religion is not interested at all in converting you to believe
certain dogmas; its only interest is to say to you, "I have found it. If you
are interested, I can share my experience. There is no condition that you,
have to accept it, there is no condition that you have to believe me. It is
simply my joy to share it with you. Then it is for your consideration
whether you want to do something with it or not. Either way I am happy and
grateful that you allowed me to share something so intimate."

A religious man, functioning from the highest point of consciousness
intuition is just like the fragrance of a flower.

There is no question of your being converted. Even if nobody passes by
the side of the rose, the fragrance will still be spreading around,
moving... somewhere, somebody may get it. And even if nobody gets it, it
doesn't matter; it is simply natural for the flower to explode into
fragrance.

Osho,
From Misery to Enlightenment Chapter 6

Copyright © 2006 Osho International Foundation
http://www.osho.com/Main.cfm?Area=Magazine&Language=Engl ish

Re: The "Religious" Mind [message #225124 ]

Fr, 14 Juli 2006 14:46

mbplee

dd wrote:

> Existence is multidimensional. From each point... as if it is a sun with
> millions of rays moving towards infinity. Each ray can lead you to infini=
ty,
> but if you choose one, of course you have to leave others; and you can
> choose only one. You cannot even ride on two horses, what to say about two
> dimensions? You cannot ride on two boats, what to say about two
> dimensions? - because they are going to diverge more and more, more and
> more; as you go further, there will be an infinite unbridgeable gap betwe=
en
> them. At the source they are one. From there you can choose any one, but
> once you have chosen a line then others are dropped.
>
> I have been drifting my whole life. You have to be alert. And if you
> can remind me that somewhere I have drifted, I can catch hold of a dimens=
ion
> that has been left behind. But you should not expect that I will stop
> drifting, because in catching hold of the other dimension, again I will be
> leaving many more.
>
> On each step there is a problem of choosing, because I am an
> existential person, I am not a thinker. It is not a logical syllogism tha=
t I
> am propounding to you. It is my experience that I am trying to share with
> you - and experience is so vast that I can only show you a little part of
> it. But you are always welcome to remind me. Yes, I remember I had drifted
> on many points; perhaps a few I can manage to catch back again.
>
> One was religion - religion at the lowest level of mankind, the
> instinctive level. All primitive tribes, aboriginals, are still living un=
der
> that first kind of religion, which theologians call "magic."
>
>
> It believes that if you sacrifice to a god, if you do a certain
> ritual, a certain dance, a certain prayer, then the god is satisfied with
> you and rewards will be coming.
>
> For example, when it is not raining - these are the problems of
> primitive people - when it is not raining, what will the primitive tribe =
do?
> It will arrange a ritual, perhaps a sacrifice of a living human being -
> their god is very bloodthirsty. Or, if the tribe has evolved a little, th=
en
> instead of a man it will choose an animal. If the tribe has evolved a lit=
tle
> more then it will choose not even an animal, not even a man, but something
> similar.
>
> Now, for example, in India they break a coconut. The coconut is very
> similar to the skull of a man. It has a little beard, a mustache, two eye=
s,
> a little nose. In fact, in Hindi the skull is called khopri and the narial
> 'a coconut' is called khopra. The similarity is so much that both have the
> same name. Breaking a skull was the ritual originally, but now it would be
> criminal. They have found a good substitute, a coconut, but the idea is t=
he
> same. They think whatever makes them feel pleasure also makes their god f=
eel
> pleasure in the same way. A naked, beautiful girl will be placed before t=
he
> god, all kinds of foods will be prepared and placed before the god, and t=
hey
> will go into a mad dance: it is a way of pleasing the god.
>
> God is displeased, that's why rains are not coming. If he is please=
d,
> rains will be coming - and rains, sooner or later, do come; then their
> ritual is proved valid, the rains have come. Once in a while it happens t=
hat
> rains don't come at all. Then the god is really very badly displeased and
> needs more sacrifice, more ritual.
>
> This is the lowest kind of religion - call it magic-religion - the
> belief that just by chanting a few words, doing a few actions, you can
> change the course of existence. It is simply stupid. Existence has no need
> of your sacrifices, existence has no need of your dances - and nothing
> reaches to existence. But the instinctive man, the primitive man, cannot =
do
> more than that. That is the limit of his understanding.
>
> That primitive man has not died completely, even in so-called
> civilized people. You also think in the same logic. You don't sacrifice
> somebody, but even civilized people, cultured, educated people, when they
> are in a difficulty, immediately their primitive man comes up. Your wife =
is
> sick and the doctors say, "All that we could do, we have done. Now only a
> miracle can save her." Even the doctor is becoming primitive.
>
> He is telling you, "Only a miracle, only something magical....
> Medicine has failed, science had failed; whatever we could do, we have do=
ne.
> Now if she is saved it will be through the grace of God or the grace of a
> saint, so now you go to the temple, to the mosque, to the synagogue, to t=
he
> church, or go to some priest or go to some sage." The doctor has fallen i=
nto
> primitive religion.
>
> And the man, of course, is absolutely willing to go anywhere, to do
> anything, because he wants to save his wife. This is not the time for him=
to
> think over philosophical matters - whether it is right or wrong, whether =
it
> is primitive or civilized, whether it is stupid or intelligent. This is n=
ot
> the time. He runs! He had never been to a saint but now he goes and falls=
at
> his feet and prays, "Save my wife!"
>
>
> The primitive man is still within you because the unconscious is st=
ill
> within you.
>
> The primitive man disappears only with the disappearance of the
> unconscious. When your unconscious and conscious become one, your whole m=
ind
> becomes consciousness; then there is no way to fall back to the primitive
> man. Otherwise, nine times more than the civilized man is the primitive m=
an
> inside you. Any time your conscious mind starts failing, your intellect
> starts failing, you fall into the mumbo-jumbo of the primitive.
>
> Religion of the intellect - the second category, the higher categor=
y -
> is pseudo-religion. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,
> Mohammedanism - these are all products of the intellect. They are not
> magico-religious. They have theologies: they have thought about existence,
> its creation, why it has been created; how one can get out of this wheel =
of
> life and birth. They have been thinking about it, pondering over it for
> thousands of years, and each religion has developed a theology.
>
> The word theology means logic about God. It is a contradiction in
> terms. God is not a logical proposition: you cannot prove it by logic, you
> cannot disprove it by logic. Logic is utterly irrelevant to God. But
> pseudo-religions cannot do more than that, they can only think about. And
> they have great imagination to portray God. Their scriptures say God crea=
ted
> man in His own image. The reality is just the reverse: man creates God in
> his own image. That's why there are so many gods - because there are so m=
any
> men, so many races, so many different faces - eyes, nose... so many
> different kinds.
>
> You cannot think of a Negro inventing a white god. You may not have
> thought about why your devil looks like a Negro, why your devil is black.
> The Negro's god will be black; and of course the devil has to be pure whi=
te.
> And the white man has proved devilish enough. The Negroes have not only an
> argument in favor of it, but history also, giving all the evidences of wh=
at
> the white man has done to the colored people of the world. It must have b=
een
> the greatest evil that has happened in history.
>
> How can a Chinese think of God in any other way than as a Chinese?
> When Marco Polo went to China, he was the first Western man to reach Chin=
a=2E
> China was under the great empire of Kublai Khan, son of Genghis Khan.
> Perhaps Kublai was one of the greatest emperors in the world because he
> ruled over all China, middle Asia, the Far East.
>
> When Marco Polo reached China, he wanted an audience. Kublai Khan w=
as
> a man of great intelligence. His prime minister said, "A man who looks li=
ke
> a monkey wants to see you. It will be absolutely unprecedented - no emper=
or
> has ever given audience to a monkey." A white man looked like a monkey to
> them.
>
> Kublai Khan said, "No need to be worried. If he can speak he cannot=
be
> absolutely a monkey; there is something human. You bring him in." And he
> became interested in Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a very intelligent young
> man, and he became very intimate with Kublai Khan. When he came back to
> Europe he reported to the pope, "In China they worship a different God, w=
ho
> looks like a Chinese, and they think of us Europeans as monkeys."
>
> To us they look a little strange. They have a very little beard - a
> few hairs, you can count them - flat noses, very outstanding cheekbones. =
You
> cannot think of a more ugly face - but they think that is beauty. A man o=
r a
> woman who does not have those outstanding cheekbones will find it hard to
> get married; so would a man with a nose that is typical of the Aryan race=
s:
> Indians, Germans, English, French, Scandinavians, Dutch, Russians.... The=
se
> are all one race, and to them a pointed nose, a long nose, is thought to =
be
> beautiful. But in China that is ugly; and they cannot make their God ugly.
>
> Marco Polo said, "This makes me think that perhaps we are all
> imagining about God. Nobody knows how He looks."
>
> The pope was very angry and he said, "You must be imagining things.
> You are creating a fiction so that you can be thought of as a great explo=
rer
> of a new land. I cannot believe that anything bigger than Christianity
> exists anywhere."
>
> Marco Polo said, "Buddhism is far bigger; it has millions of monks,
> thousands of temples and monasteries. Beside it your Christianity is
> nothing." But he was alone. What proof did he have? He had brought a few
> things which were taken away from him and burned to destroy the evidence.
>
> This is the pseudo-religious mind. The pseudo-religious mind believ=
es
> in its own imagination, in its own thinking, and is afraid of anything th=
at
> goes against it or is even a little different from it. Otherwise, religio=
ns
> would not have been fighting for thousands of years.
>
>
> This is something strange: all religions teach love, and all religi=
ons
> end in hatred.
>
> All religions teach the brotherhood of man, but they only create
> enemies of each other. All religions teach that every man has a potential
> right to reach God, but practically they say: Only our religion is the tr=
ue
> religion. Yes, every man can reach God but he has to reach through our wa=
y:
> Unless you follow Jesus Christ you have no chance. But the same is said by
> Krishna: "If you surrender to me, leaving everything aside, I will take c=
are
> of you, you need not worry." And the same is true about all other religio=
ns.
> They seem to be competing shopkeepers - everybody is trying to sell his
> thing: his holy book, his messiah, his god.
>
> Pseudo-religion is always basically afraid, because deep down the
> pseudo-religious person knows that it is only his imagination, he has no
> actual experience. He himself is not convinced; hence, he needs to convin=
ce
> others. He goes on sending missionaries to other countries to convince,
> convert more and more people into Christianity, into Mohammedanism. Why? =
Why
> this great urge to convert? Psychologically it is of tremendous importance
> to understand.
>
> The person who wants to convert anybody is a person who is suspicio=
us
> of his truth. He is really trying, by converting people, to convince hims=
elf
> that he is right. If he can convert so many people that gives him enough
> support: "So many people cannot be fools. I may be a fool but so many peo=
ple
> cannot be fools. Such intelligent people... and they have come to believe=
in
> my belief My belief is bound to be true."
>
> Christianity seems to be the most bogus of all religions because it=
is
> more interested in converting people than any other religion. In fact,
> Judaism and Hinduism, which are the two ancientmost religions, are not
> interested in converting anybody. You have to understand the psychology of
> it.
>
> Why are Jews not interested in sending missionaries and converting
> people to Judaism? A Jew is born, not converted. Have you seen any conver=
ted
> Jew anywhere? It is simply absurd. Jews will not take anybody through
> conversion. If God has not made you a Jew then there is no other way; they
> are the chosen people of God. By converting all kinds of rubbish, can you
> improve upon God's choice? If God has not made you a Jew that means that =
you
> are not meant to be a Jew; you are already rejected. So for thousands of
> years they have never thought about converting people into Jews.
>
> The Hindus have the same idea - that they are the only people to wh=
om
> God has chosen to give the first holy book in the world. Certainly their =
Rig
> Veda is the ancientmost scripture in the world and certainly it is the
> scripture of the most ancient religion. They have four castes: the brahmi=
n,
> the priest; the kshatriya, the warrior; the vaishya, the business man; and
> the sudra, the untouchable. Now, it was a problem: how could they convert
> anybody? And in which caste were they going to put him?
>
>
> Hinduism is not one piece, it is four castes.
>
> The brahmin is the highest. You cannot convert anybody into a brahm=
in.
> He represents God, hence the name. The name of God in India is Brahma, and
> brahmin means one chosen by Brahma, appointed by God Himself. There is no
> way for anybody to become a brahmin. It is decided by birth, because birth
> is decided by God, it is not in man's hands to decide such things.
>
> Now, the kshatriya also will not allow anybody in. He is the second
> most important, and it is a traditional thing for him to be a warrior; ju=
st
> anybody - X, Y, Z - cannot be a warrior. It needs a long tradition,
> training. You have to have the blood of a warrior, you cannot be converte=
d=2E
>
> The only people who can absorb you are the untouchables. The busine=
ss
> people are the third, but they are higher than the untouchables. Only the
> untouchables can absorb you, but without the permission of the brahmin th=
ey
> cannot do anything. Conversion - such a religious phenomenon - is beyond
> their capacity. They are outcasts themselves.
>
> Hindus and Jews are born so. That's why both these religions are the
> most egoistic. Naturally, other religions have to rely on conversions,
> otherwise from where are they going to get their customers, their clients?
> God has made Jews, God has made Hindus; now the whole world is divided in=
to
> two chosen people of God. From where is Jesus going to get his people? Fr=
om
> where is Buddha going to get his people? They had to depend on conversion.
> From where is Mohammed going to get Mohammedans?
>
> These are latecomers. The old shops have credibility; they are alre=
ady
> established, and established by God Himself. These others are newcomers in
> the market. Naturally they have to attract clients from the old shops;
> otherwise no customer is going to come to them. And they have to create n=
ew
> allurements, cheaper prices, better rewards. And you can see that....
>
>
> The god of the Jews is a very tough guy.
>
> But the god of Christians is pure love. You don't know... it is suc=
h a
> simple mathematics: the god of the Jews can be a tough guy, but Jesus has=
to
> convert people, so he has to create a better image of God, more polished,
> more refined, more humane, so he can make the Jewish god outdated.
>
> Whom is he going to convert? Rich people certainly are not going to=
be
> converted because they are already established, respectable, on the highe=
st
> level of the society. They are not going to follow a vagabond. They are n=
ot
> going to become a laughingstock - for what? Hence all those beatitudes of
> Jesus: "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God..."
> because you can only get hold of the poor. The poor are already angry,
> jealous of the rich, and here comes a man who says, "My God is love. And =
my
> God allows only poor people in heaven; rich people have no place there."
>
> This is simple business tactics - nothing profound in it. But nobody
> has bothered to watch how new religions have tried to pull customers from
> the old shops to their own shop. They are all in favor of the poor.
> Strange - Jews don't have a single statement in which the rich are condem=
ned
> and the poor are raised high just because of their poverty. Jews have not=
a
> single statement in which poverty is something sacred; Hindus also don't.
> The rich man, according to Hinduism, is rich because he has been religiou=
s,
> virtuous, in his past lives. It is a reward from God. And the poor man is
> poor because he has been evil, unreligious, in his past lives. He has been
> punished for it. Poverty is a punishment, richness is a reward. Hindus or
> Jews, who are established already - why should they bother about the poor
> and the downtrodden? But Buddha, Jesus, Mahavira, Mohammed - their whole
> interest is in the poor, the downtrodden.
>
> It is a simple thing: these are the people who can be converted, th=
ese
> are the people who are vulnerable. They have nothing to lose and everythi=
ng
> to gain. For example, if a sudra becomes a follower of Buddha, immediately
> he is no longer untouchable. If a sudra becomes a Christian he is no long=
er
> untouchable. This is a very strange world.
>
> I had a friend who was the principal of a theological college in
> Jabalpur, Principal Mackwan. I was saying this thing to him - "Why are you
> Christians interested only in the poor?"
>
> He said, "Please come to my house" - I was sitting in his office. He
> said, "My house is just behind the college; come to my house; I want to s=
how
> you something."
>
> He showed me an old man and woman's picture. They were certainly
> beggars, in rags, dirty; you could even see it in their faces - so hungry.
> You could see that all their lives they had suffered; it was written in t=
he
> lines on their forehead. He said, "Can you recognize who these are?"
>
> I said, "How can I recognize them? - I have never seen these people,
> but they look like beggars."
>
> He said, "They were beggars. He is my father, she is my mother. And
> not only were they beggars, they were sudras, untouchables. They became
> converted, in their old age, to Christianity because they were so old, ti=
red
> of begging; and now they were concerned about their children - particular=
ly
> this boy who is now principal of Leonard Theological College. What would
> happen to him if they died? He would also become a beggar."
>
> Because they were sick they entered a Christian hospital, because no
> other hospital will take poor people and give them free medicine, food,
> care, doctors. So they entered, they had to enter, a Christian hospital.
>
>
> And there the whole methodology is: with the medicine to go on givi=
ng
> as much of The Bible as possible; with each injection a little Bible.
>
> With food, the doctor talks about it, the nurse talks about it; the
> priest comes every day to inquire about their health, how they are.
>
> For the first time they felt that they were human beings. Nobody had
> ever asked them about their health. They were treated like dogs, not like
> human beings. And had they remained Hindus they would have died like dogs,
> dying on the street corner. You don't know, because that is not the way in
> the West. In the West, dogs have a better death, a better life, because a=
ny
> dog who is not owned by somebody is to be killed. The dog has to be owned=
by
> somebody, a collar proclaiming the ownership. But in the East you cannot
> kill anybody. There may be a dog spreading sickness and disease, but you
> cannot kill it - killing is sin.
>
> It happened.... I am drifting - just remember!
>
> In Lucknow there is a temple of Hanuman, the monkey god. Strangely
> enough that temple is surrounded by big trees, and all the trees are full=
of
> monkeys - you will never see so many monkeys together. Perhaps it is for =
the
> simple reason that whatsoever is offered to the monkey god those monkeys
> eat, so by and by they have become permanent residents there. And the tem=
ple
> has such fame that people come to it from far and wide, from faraway plac=
es
> because it is thought that whatever you wish there it will be fulfilled. =
So
> they wish something and they take the oath before the monkey god that: "If
> our wish is fulfilled then we are going to bring fifty-one rupees worth of
> sweets" - or anything they want to bring, or whatsoever they can afford.
>
> So every day so much food is being offered - and it is not anything=
to
> do with the monkey god. If a hundred people come to ask, at least one-thi=
rd
> of them - just by simple arithmetical rules - one-third of them are going=
to
> get their wishes fulfilled. Even if they had not come they would not have
> been losers, but now they believe that the wish has been fulfilled because
> of the monkey god. The two-thirds whose wishes have not been fulfilled ha=
ve
> moved to some other temple - naturally, because this monkey god does not
> seem to be kind towards them.
>
> You cannot ask any reason or anything, but it is sure that your wish
> is not fulfilled, so you move to some other temple. And there are hundreds
> of temples in India with wish-fulfilling trees. You just go and ask... and
> you just have to give a small bribe. But the one-third of the people whose
> wishes have been fulfilled.... And what kind of wishes people make: "That=
my
> son passes in his matriculation examination; or "That my son gets the job=
he
> has applied for"; or "That my daughter gets a husband because I don't have
> much money to give"; or "My wife is sick, please make her healthy again".=
..=2E
> just simple, mundane, human trivia.
>
> They are not asking for some miracles, "That when I pass through the
> ocean it should separate like it did for Moses." Then they would know
> whether the monkey god can do anything or not. But that your son passes h=
is
> matriculation... and thousands of people are passing matriculation without
> the help of the monkey god. In fact the monkey god was not a matriculate
> himself! And even if he does the examination, he is not going to pass; you
> cannot hope he will pass.
>
> But these people feel that their wishes are fulfilled so they
> bring.... So monkeys have slowly gathered - the whole road, on both sides,
> is full of monkeys. And for a strange reason, monkeys and dogs are all
> against uniforms. Perhaps in their past lives they have been
> revolutionaries: any kind of uniform - postmen in India have a uniform, t=
he
> policeman has a uniform, the army, the sannyasins.... Anybody in a unifor=
m,
> and dogs and, monkeys are against them.
>
> Perhaps seeing so many people in different clothes different styles,
> and then suddenly seeing somebody in uniform, they feel a danger: "This m=
an
> does not look like a man, something is wrong somewhere"... and they are on
> the attack. It is not the discovery of Machiavelli that attack is the best
> way to defend, that if you want to defend yourself, then attack. Don't wa=
it
> for the other party to attack, because then you will be already late in
> defending. Don't give them that chance.
>
> So monkeys and dogs attack uniformed people. It is simply my feeling
> that they are afraid; these people look a little strange, not just like
> other human beings. Millions of human beings are there, and they are not
> attacking them. And they don't attack these people either if they are not=
in
> uniform; they attack the uniform. The uniform gives them some idea that
> something is fishy about this man.
>
> So it started at the temple that the monkeys began to attack
> policemen, postmen, army people... and the monkeys were in thousands.
> Perhaps somebody had triggered their anger; nobody knows how it started,
> because they have been there for hundreds of years, many generations. The
> temple is very ancient and they had never done this, but just ten years a=
go,
> one day suddenly a riot broke out between monkeys and all uniformed peopl=
e=2E
> It became very dangerous because so many monkeys... even one monkey is
> enough for you to freak out, but when many monkeys, hundreds, are just
> roaming on the road.... The road was blocked, nobody was passing on the
> road. It was a main road, so Lucknow was divided into two parts; the monk=
eys
> wouldn't allow anybody to cross.
>
> It became a question in the assembly of the state of Uttar Pradesh -
> Lucknow is the capital - that "these monkeys have to be shot. They have
> disturbed the peace of the capital. People cannot go to the other side,
> people cannot come to this side. Offices are closed because many people l=
ive
> on that side; many offices are on that side and people live on this side.
> Somebody who had gone to that side for some work had been detained, he co=
uld
> not come back here. Something has to be done immediately."
>
> One man stood up and he said, "If a single monkey is shot then there
> is going to be great bloodshed, be cause the monkey is a Hindu god: you a=
re
> shooting a Hindu god. It will not be tolerated." He was a Hindu chauvinist
> belonging to a Hindu chauvinist party. And although the whole parliament =
was
> privately in favor of their being shot - what else could be done? - the
> resolution had to fail because they knew that what this man was saying was
> going to happen. Immediately there would be a massacre.
> And that's what they want.
>
>
> All politicians want some trouble somewhere, because only then are
> they needed. If everything goes right, if there is no news, nothing is go=
ing
> wrong, the politicians start feeling lost.
>
> I have not been in India for four years now. Now the journalists are
> missing me. Strange people! - they were all against me; when I was there,
> they were all against me. They were writing against me, not even bothering
> whether it was true or untrue; ninety percent of it was absolutely untrue.
> They were writing it but it was news, sellable news. Now they are missing=
me
> because the news that they were making around me they cannot make any
> longer, and there is nobody to replace me.
>
> Journalists, politicians - these types of people are in search of s=
ome
> spot which can become dangerous, some man who can prove dangerous, some
> situation which can become a problem. Then they will all try to make it a
> problem as quickly as possible.
> The resolution could not pass; for almost two weeks the road remain=
ed
> blocked. Monkeys don't have long memories; they must have forgotten and t=
hey
> cooled down slowly slowly. First the devotees started coming with sweets =
and
> offering the sweet to the monkey god, and then the traffic started again.=
..=2E.
>
> But you cannot kill. You cannot kill dogs; killing is not allowed. =
But
> these religions have been killing each other. They cannot kill a dog, they
> cannot kill a monkey, but they can kill a man. That is very strange. I ha=
ve
> been asking Hindus, Mohammedans, "You cannot kill animals but you can kill
> men without any problem, as if man has no life?" No, the thing is busines=
s=2E
> Man can be converted to be a Mohammedan - a dog cannot be. Dogs are beyond
> the reach of your preachers and missionaries.
>
> Professor Mackwan told me, "This is my father and mother. They would
> have died like dogs and the municipal truck would have thrown them out of
> the city with all the garbage that it carries every day, because there is
> nobody to carry a beggar to the funeral pyre. Who bothers about a beggar?
> Beggars are not men, not human beings."
>
> And then he took me to another picture of his daughter and his
> son-in-law. I was looking at three generations: the father and mother,
> almost below human beings; Mackwan, who has gained status and is now in a
> very respectable post, highly salaried. Now brahmins come and shake hands
> with him, not knowing at all that he is the son of two beggars who were
> sudras. I know his daughter, one of the most beautiful women I have seen;
> she is married to an American.
>
> Looking at the three generations... such a change. You cannot conne=
ct
> the daughter with the grandmother and how can you connect the son-in-law
> with her grandfather? There seems to be no bridge. The son-in-law is a
> well-known scholar, professor - six months teaching in India, six months
> teaching in America. Saroj, the daughter herself is a professor. They are
> all well-educated; the son is a principal. They have moved in a completely
> different direction by being converted to Christianity. I could not objec=
t=2E
> I said, "Your father and mother did well."
>
> Hindus and Jews are established. Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists
> are not established. They try to convert people; but in their conversion,
> deep down what is going on? The established religion has a past to suppor=
t,
> thousands of years of past, which means millions of people have been on t=
he
> path; you are not alone.
>
>
> But when you follow Jesus you know only that this guy has got these
> fantastic ideas.
>
> Who knows? - you are following a fool or really a son of God? He can
> be either this or that; there is no third alternative. Either he is a
> perfect idiot....
>
> In fact Fyodor Dostoevsky has written a book, The Idiot; that is the
> title of his book. But the idiot, the character, is almost Jesus-like: ve=
ry
> innocent, simple, who has never done any harm to anybody. In fact, he is
> better than Jesus. But Dostoevsky has titled the book The Idiot.
>
> Jesus needs converted people. He himself may be feeling shaky about
> what he is saying and about whether it is true or not. In fact, why did he
> want Jews to accept him, his messiah-hood? Why was he so insistent that t=
hey
> had to crucify him? He must have nagged them, tortured them with the idea.
> They must have got so fed up that they decided, "This man won't leave us =
in
> peace - he has to be crucified, otherwise he will go on torturing us."
>
> And he was getting more and more fanatic. He started calling the gr=
eat
> temple of the Jews, "my Father's house," and "... I have come to clean my
> Father's house." And he really wanted to clean it of all the priests and =
all
> the rabbis: What is the need of all these people when the only begotten s=
on
> is there?
>
> I had become a nuisance. He must have been thinking in some silent
> moment, "Perhaps I am just mad. I have not been able to convince a single
> rabbi."
>
> In fact, I have never tried to convert anybody, but there are a few
> rabbi sannyasins. That is strange! And not ordinary rabbis, famous rabbis.
> And I have not been in any way trying to convert anybody because I don't
> have any doubt. Why should I bother about converting anybody? I don't have
> to convince myself that I am right. I am!
>
> If not even a single person is with me, I will be as right as I am
> now. My rightness does not grow with the growing number of people around =
me
> does not increase with the increasing number of people around me. My
> rightness is from my experience.
>
> Jesus seems to be worried, and all Christians have carried his
> sickness in their minds. They are all worried. I cannot think that the po=
pe
> really believes that he represents God, it is impossible - unless you are
> mad, then everything is possible.
>
> Pseudo-religions are continually trying to convert people or they a=
re
> so ancient that the question of conversion had never arisen. They are the
> beginners; from the very beginning they caught hold of the customers.
> Because of this idea of converting people there are constant fights,
> crusades, jihads, holy wars.
>
>
> And pseudo-religions go on creating more and more theology; nobody
> reads it.
>
> I have never seen in my life anybody reading a theological book. I
> have visited hundreds of libraries but I have never seen anybody, in any
> library, reading a theological book. I have looked into university librar=
ies
> and government libraries and asked the librarians one question, "I would
> like to know whether any book from the theological section is taken out by
> people?"
>
> They said, "You are the first person to inquire about it. The
> theological section? - nobody bothers. People are interested only in nove=
ls.
> Who is going to bore himself with a theological book?" One took me to the
> theological section. That was the only section where you could see that a=
ll
> the books were untouched by human hands, so clean. Hundreds of theologians
> continually creating more and more books.... For what? - because the basic
> questions have not been answered yet. They go on improving upon the books,
> but whatsoever they do, the fundamental questions remain at the same plac=
e,
> because intellect has no answer for them.
>
> A simple thing has not occurred to them, that if in five or ten
> thousand years of theological thinking you have not been able to demolish=
a
> single question, now it is time to stop: perhaps you are not moving in the
> right direction.
>
> Religion in the second stage of consciousness, of the conscious min=
d,
> intellect, is theology. I call it pseudo-religion - just words about trut=
h,
> God, love, but no experience to support it.
>
> When religion reaches the third, the highest peak, then only is it
> religiousness.
> So the first I call magico-religious
> The second I call pseudo-religion.
> And the third I call religiousness.
> Then it is a quality, then it has no adjective to it.
> Then it has no tradition.
> Then it has no scripture, then it has no theology.
> Then the origin is not in the past.
> And paradise is not in the future.
> Then both are within you.
> Then you have a fresh experience, and that experience will express
> itself in lovingness, friendliness, compassion.
> This religion will not bother about God:
> Its concern will be compassion.
> This religiousness will not bother about heaven and hell.
> Its concern will be how to share its blissfulness.
> This religion is not interested at all in converting you to believe
> certain dogmas; its only interest is to say to you, "I have found it. If =
you
> are interested, I can share my experience. There is no condition that you,
> have to accept it, there is no condition that you have to believe me. It =
is
> simply my joy to share it with you. Then it is for your consideration
> whether you want to do something with it or not. Either way I am happy and
> grateful that you allowed me to share something so intimate."
>
> A religious man, functioning from the highest point of consciousness
> intuition is just like the fragrance of a flower.
>
> There is no question of your being converted. Even if nobody passes=
by
> the side of the rose, the fragrance will still be spreading around,
> moving... somewhere, somebody may get it. And even if nobody gets it, it
> doesn't matter; it is simply natural for the flower to explode into
> fragrance.
>
>
> Osho,
> From Misery to Enlightenment Chapter 6
>
>
> Copyright =A9 2006 Osho International Foundation
> http://www.osho.com/Main.cfm?Area=3DMagazine&Language=3D English

Re: The "Religious" Mind [message #225337 ]

Sa, 15 Juli 2006 09:12

Bald eagle

Who are you...your true self ?

In the vast space of billions of universes, and
the universe's existence for million of light years,
what is the meaning of your life (for max 99 years
on a tiny planet called earth) ?

Mankind itself is insignificant when measured in
relation to the space and time of the universe....who
are you and who am I!
Do you think that our ideas, our religious belief, our
great achievements will make any difference to the colossal
events in the universe ?
We are NOTHING !

"dd" <dd [at] d.com> wrote in message news:44b75570 [at] news.starhub.net.sg...
> Existence is multidimensional. From each point... as if it is a sun with
> millions of rays moving towards infinity. Each ray can lead you to
> infinity,
> but if you choose one, of course you have to leave others; and you can
> choose only one. You cannot even ride on two horses, what to say about two
> dimensions? You cannot ride on two boats, what to say about two
> dimensions? - because they are going to diverge more and more, more and
> more; as you go further, there will be an infinite unbridgeable gap
> between
> them. At the source they are one. From there you can choose any one, but
> once you have chosen a line then others are dropped.
>
> I have been drifting my whole life. You have to be alert. And if you
> can remind me that somewhere I have drifted, I can catch hold of a
> dimension
> that has been left behind. But you should not expect that I will stop
> drifting, because in catching hold of the other dimension, again I will be
> leaving many more.
>
> On each step there is a problem of choosing, because I am an
> existential person, I am not a thinker. It is not a logical syllogism that
> I
> am propounding to you. It is my experience that I am trying to share with
> you - and experience is so vast that I can only show you a little part of
> it. But you are always welcome to remind me. Yes, I remember I had drifted
> on many points; perhaps a few I can manage to catch back again.
>
> One was religion - religion at the lowest level of mankind, the
> instinctive level. All primitive tribes, aboriginals, are still living
> under
> that first kind of religion, which theologians call "magic."
>
>
> It believes that if you sacrifice to a god, if you do a certain
> ritual, a certain dance, a certain prayer, then the god is satisfied with
> you and rewards will be coming.
>
> For example, when it is not raining - these are the problems of
> primitive people - when it is not raining, what will the primitive tribe
> do?
> It will arrange a ritual, perhaps a sacrifice of a living human being -
> their god is very bloodthirsty. Or, if the tribe has evolved a little,
> then
> instead of a man it will choose an animal. If the tribe has evolved a
> little
> more then it will choose not even an animal, not even a man, but something
> similar.
>
> Now, for example, in India they break a coconut. The coconut is very
> similar to the skull of a man. It has a little beard, a mustache, two
> eyes,
> a little nose. In fact, in Hindi the skull is called khopri and the narial
> 'a coconut' is called khopra. The similarity is so much that both have the
> same name. Breaking a skull was the ritual originally, but now it would be
> criminal. They have found a good substitute, a coconut, but the idea is
> the
> same. They think whatever makes them feel pleasure also makes their god
> feel
> pleasure in the same way. A naked, beautiful girl will be placed before
> the
> god, all kinds of foods will be prepared and placed before the god, and
> they
> will go into a mad dance: it is a way of pleasing the god.
>
> God is displeased, that's why rains are not coming. If he is pleased,
> rains will be coming - and rains, sooner or later, do come; then their
> ritual is proved valid, the rains have come. Once in a while it happens
> that
> rains don't come at all. Then the god is really very badly displeased and
> needs more sacrifice, more ritual.
>
> This is the lowest kind of religion - call it magic-religion - the
> belief that just by chanting a few words, doing a few actions, you can
> change the course of existence. It is simply stupid. Existence has no need
> of your sacrifices, existence has no need of your dances - and nothing
> reaches to existence. But the instinctive man, the primitive man, cannot
> do
> more than that. That is the limit of his understanding.
>
> That primitive man has not died completely, even in so-called
> civilized people. You also think in the same logic. You don't sacrifice
> somebody, but even civilized people, cultured, educated people, when they
> are in a difficulty, immediately their primitive man comes up. Your wife
> is
> sick and the doctors say, "All that we could do, we have done. Now only a
> miracle can save her." Even the doctor is becoming primitive.
>
> He is telling you, "Only a miracle, only something magical....
> Medicine has failed, science had failed; whatever we could do, we have
> done.
> Now if she is saved it will be through the grace of God or the grace of a
> saint, so now you go to the temple, to the mosque, to the synagogue, to
> the
> church, or go to some priest or go to some sage." The doctor has fallen
> into
> primitive religion.
>
> And the man, of course, is absolutely willing to go anywhere, to do
> anything, because he wants to save his wife. This is not the time for him
> to
> think over philosophical matters - whether it is right or wrong, whether
> it
> is primitive or civilized, whether it is stupid or intelligent. This is
> not
> the time. He runs! He had never been to a saint but now he goes and falls
> at
> his feet and prays, "Save my wife!"
>
>
> The primitive man is still within you because the unconscious is
> still
> within you.
>
> The primitive man disappears only with the disappearance of the
> unconscious. When your unconscious and conscious become one, your whole
> mind
> becomes consciousness; then there is no way to fall back to the primitive
> man. Otherwise, nine times more than the civilized man is the primitive
> man
> inside you. Any time your conscious mind starts failing, your intellect
> starts failing, you fall into the mumbo-jumbo of the primitive.
>
> Religion of the intellect - the second category, the higher
> category -
> is pseudo-religion. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,
> Mohammedanism - these are all products of the intellect. They are not
> magico-religious. They have theologies: they have thought about existence,
> its creation, why it has been created; how one can get out of this wheel
> of
> life and birth. They have been thinking about it, pondering over it for
> thousands of years, and each religion has developed a theology.
>
> The word theology means logic about God. It is a contradiction in
> terms. God is not a logical proposition: you cannot prove it by logic, you
> cannot disprove it by logic. Logic is utterly irrelevant to God. But
> pseudo-religions cannot do more than that, they can only think about. And
> they have great imagination to portray God. Their scriptures say God
> created
> man in His own image. The reality is just the reverse: man creates God in
> his own image. That's why there are so many gods - because there are so
> many
> men, so many races, so many different faces - eyes, nose... so many
> different kinds.
>
> You cannot think of a Negro inventing a white god. You may not have
> thought about why your devil looks like a Negro, why your devil is black.
> The Negro's god will be black; and of course the devil has to be pure
> white.
> And the white man has proved devilish enough. The Negroes have not only an
> argument in favor of it, but history also, giving all the evidences of
> what
> the white man has done to the colored people of the world. It must have
> been
> the greatest evil that has happened in history.
>
> How can a Chinese think of God in any other way than as a Chinese?
> When Marco Polo went to China, he was the first Western man to reach
> China.
> China was under the great empire of Kublai Khan, son of Genghis Khan.
> Perhaps Kublai was one of the greatest emperors in the world because he
> ruled over all China, middle Asia, the Far East.
>
> When Marco Polo reached China, he wanted an audience. Kublai Khan was
> a man of great intelligence. His prime minister said, "A man who looks
> like
> a monkey wants to see you. It will be absolutely unprecedented - no
> emperor
> has ever given audience to a monkey." A white man looked like a monkey to
> them.
>
> Kublai Khan said, "No need to be worried. If he can speak he cannot
> be
> absolutely a monkey; there is something human. You bring him in." And he
> became interested in Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a very intelligent young
> man, and he became very intimate with Kublai Khan. When he came back to
> Europe he reported to the pope, "In China they worship a different God,
> who
> looks like a Chinese, and they think of us Europeans as monkeys."
>
> To us they look a little strange. They have a very little beard - a
> few hairs, you can count them - flat noses, very outstanding cheekbones.
> You
> cannot think of a more ugly face - but they think that is beauty. A man or
> a
> woman who does not have those outstanding cheekbones will find it hard to
> get married; so would a man with a nose that is typical of the Aryan
> races:
> Indians, Germans, English, French, Scandinavians, Dutch, Russians....
> These
> are all one race, and to them a pointed nose, a long nose, is thought to
> be
> beautiful. But in China that is ugly; and they cannot make their God ugly.
>
> Marco Polo said, "This makes me think that perhaps we are all
> imagining about God. Nobody knows how He looks."
>
> The pope was very angry and he said, "You must be imagining things.
> You are creating a fiction so that you can be thought of as a great
> explorer
> of a new land. I cannot believe that anything bigger than Christianity
> exists anywhere."
>
> Marco Polo said, "Buddhism is far bigger; it has millions of monks,
> thousands of temples and monasteries. Beside it your Christianity is
> nothing." But he was alone. What proof did he have? He had brought a few
> things which were taken away from him and burned to destroy the evidence.
>
> This is the pseudo-religious mind. The pseudo-religious mind believes
> in its own imagination, in its own thinking, and is afraid of anything
> that
> goes against it or is even a little different from it. Otherwise,
> religions
> would not have been fighting for thousands of years.
>
>
> This is something strange: all religions teach love, and all
> religions
> end in hatred.
>
> All religions teach the brotherhood of man, but they only create
> enemies of each other. All religions teach that every man has a potential
> right to reach God, but practically they say: Only our religion is the
> true
> religion. Yes, every man can reach God but he has to reach through our
> way:
> Unless you follow Jesus Christ you have no chance. But the same is said by
> Krishna: "If you surrender to me, leaving everything aside, I will take
> care
> of you, you need not worry." And the same is true about all other
> religions.
> They seem to be competing shopkeepers - everybody is trying to sell his
> thing: his holy book, his messiah, his god.
>
> Pseudo-religion is always basically afraid, because deep down the
> pseudo-religious person knows that it is only his imagination, he has no
> actual experience. He himself is not convinced; hence, he needs to
> convince
> others. He goes on sending missionaries to other countries to convince,
> convert more and more people into Christianity, into Mohammedanism. Why?
> Why
> this great urge to convert? Psychologically it is of tremendous importance
> to understand.
>
> The person who wants to convert anybody is a person who is suspicious
> of his truth. He is really trying, by converting people, to convince
> himself
> that he is right. If he can convert so many people that gives him enough
> support: "So many people cannot be fools. I may be a fool but so many
> people
> cannot be fools. Such intelligent people... and they have come to believe
> in
> my belief My belief is bound to be true."
>
> Christianity seems to be the most bogus of all religions because it
> is
> more interested in converting people than any other religion. In fact,
> Judaism and Hinduism, which are the two ancientmost religions, are not
> interested in converting anybody. You have to understand the psychology of
> it.
>
> Why are Jews not interested in sending missionaries and converting
> people to Judaism? A Jew is born, not converted. Have you seen any
> converted
> Jew anywhere? It is simply absurd. Jews will not take anybody through
> conversion. If God has not made you a Jew then there is no other way; they
> are the chosen people of God. By converting all kinds of rubbish, can you
> improve upon God's choice? If God has not made you a Jew that means that
> you
> are not meant to be a Jew; you are already rejected. So for thousands of
> years they have never thought about converting people into Jews.
>
> The Hindus have the same idea - that they are the only people to whom
> God has chosen to give the first holy book in the world. Certainly their
> Rig
> Veda is the ancientmost scripture in the world and certainly it is the
> scripture of the most ancient religion. They have four castes: the
> brahmin,
> the priest; the kshatriya, the warrior; the vaishya, the business man; and
> the sudra, the untouchable. Now, it was a problem: how could they convert
> anybody? And in which caste were they going to put him?
>
>
> Hinduism is not one piece, it is four castes.
>
> The brahmin is the highest. You cannot convert anybody into a
> brahmin.
> He represents God, hence the name. The name of God in India is Brahma, and
> brahmin means one chosen by Brahma, appointed by God Himself. There is no
> way for anybody to become a brahmin. It is decided by birth, because birth
> is decided by God, it is not in man's hands to decide such things.
>
> Now, the kshatriya also will not allow anybody in. He is the second
> most important, and it is a traditional thing for him to be a warrior;
> just
> anybody - X, Y, Z - cannot be a warrior. It needs a long tradition,
> training. You have to have the blood of a warrior, you cannot be
> converted.
>
> The only people who can absorb you are the untouchables. The business
> people are the third, but they are higher than the untouchables. Only the
> untouchables can absorb you, but without the permission of the brahmin
> they
> cannot do anything. Conversion - such a religious phenomenon - is beyond
> their capacity. They are outcasts themselves.
>
> Hindus and Jews are born so. That's why both these religions are the
> most egoistic. Naturally, other religions have to rely on conversions,
> otherwise from where are they going to get their customers, their clients?
> God has made Jews, God has made Hindus; now the whole world is divided
> into
> two chosen people of God. From where is Jesus going to get his people?
> From
> where is Buddha going to get his people? They had to depend on conversion.
> From where is Mohammed going to get Mohammedans?
>
> These are latecomers. The old shops have credibility; they are
> already
> established, and established by God Himself. These others are newcomers in
> the market. Naturally they have to attract clients from the old shops;
> otherwise no customer is going to come to them. And they have to create
> new
> allurements, cheaper prices, better rewards. And you can see that....
>
>
> The god of the Jews is a very tough guy.
>
> But the god of Christians is pure love. You don't know... it is such
> a
> simple mathematics: the god of the Jews can be a tough guy, but Jesus has
> to
> convert people, so he has to create a better image of God, more polished,
> more refined, more humane, so he can make the Jewish god outdated.
>
> Whom is he going to convert? Rich people certainly are not going to
> be
> converted because they are already established, respectable, on the
> highest
> level of the society. They are not going to follow a vagabond. They are
> not
> going to become a laughingstock - for what? Hence all those beatitudes of
> Jesus: "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God..."
> because you can only get hold of the poor. The poor are already angry,
> jealous of the rich, and here comes a man who says, "My God is love. And
> my
> God allows only poor people in heaven; rich people have no place there."
>
> This is simple business tactics - nothing profound in it. But nobody
> has bothered to watch how new religions have tried to pull customers from
> the old shops to their own shop. They are all in favor of the poor.
> Strange - Jews don't have a single statement in which the rich are
> condemned
> and the poor are raised high just because of their poverty. Jews have not
> a
> single statement in which poverty is something sacred; Hindus also don't.
> The rich man, according to Hinduism, is rich because he has been
> religious,
> virtuous, in his past lives. It is a reward from God. And the poor man is
> poor because he has been evil, unreligious, in his past lives. He has been
> punished for it. Poverty is a punishment, richness is a reward. Hindus or
> Jews, who are established already - why should they bother about the poor
> and the downtrodden? But Buddha, Jesus, Mahavira, Mohammed - their whole
> interest is in the poor, the downtrodden.
>
> It is a simple thing: these are the people who can be converted,
> these
> are the people who are vulnerable. They have nothing to lose and
> everything
> to gain. For example, if a sudra becomes a follower of Buddha, immediately
> he is no longer untouchable. If a sudra becomes a Christian he is no
> longer
> untouchable. This is a very strange world.
>
> I had a friend who was the principal of a theological college in
> Jabalpur, Principal Mackwan. I was saying this thing to him - "Why are you
> Christians interested only in the poor?"
>
> He said, "Please come to my house" - I was sitting in his office. He
> said, "My house is just behind the college; come to my house; I want to
> show
> you something."
>
> He showed me an old man and woman's picture. They were certainly
> beggars, in rags, dirty; you could even see it in their faces - so hungry.
> You could see that all their lives they had suffered; it was written in
> the
> lines on their forehead. He said, "Can you recognize who these are?"
>
> I said, "How can I recognize them? - I have never seen these people,
> but they look like beggars."
>
> He said, "They were beggars. He is my father, she is my mother. And
> not only were they beggars, they were sudras, untouchables. They became
> converted, in their old age, to Christianity because they were so old,
> tired
> of begging; and now they were concerned about their children -
> particularly
> this boy who is now principal of Leonard Theological College. What would
> happen to him if they died? He would also become a beggar."
>
> Because they were sick they entered a Christian hospital, because no
> other hospital will take poor people and give them free medicine, food,
> care, doctors. So they entered, they had to enter, a Christian hospital.
>
>
> And there the whole methodology is: with the medicine to go on giving
> as much of The Bible as possible; with each injection a little Bible.
>
> With food, the doctor talks about it, the nurse talks about it; the
> priest comes every day to inquire about their health, how they are.
>
> For the first time they felt that they were human beings. Nobody had
> ever asked them about their health. They were treated like dogs, not like
> human beings. And had they remained Hindus they would have died like dogs,
> dying on the street corner. You don't know, because that is not the way in
> the West. In the West, dogs have a better death, a better life, because
> any
> dog who is not owned by somebody is to be killed. The dog has to be owned
> by
> somebody, a collar proclaiming the ownership. But in the East you cannot
> kill anybody. There may be a dog spreading sickness and disease, but you
> cannot kill it - killing is sin.
>
> It happened.... I am drifting - just remember!
>
> In Lucknow there is a temple of Hanuman, the monkey god. Strangely
> enough that temple is surrounded by big trees, and all the trees are full
> of
> monkeys - you will never see so many monkeys together. Perhaps it is for
> the
> simple reason that whatsoever is offered to the monkey god those monkeys
> eat, so by and by they have become permanent residents there. And the
> temple
> has such fame that people come to it from far and wide, from faraway
> places
> because it is thought that whatever you wish there it will be fulfilled.
> So
> they wish something and they take the oath before the monkey god that: "If
> our wish is fulfilled then we are going to bring fifty-one rupees worth of
> sweets" - or anything they want to bring, or whatsoever they can afford.
>
> So every day so much food is being offered - and it is not anything
> to
> do with the monkey god. If a hundred people come to ask, at least
> one-third
> of them - just by simple arithmetical rules - one-third of them are going
> to
> get their wishes fulfilled. Even if they had not come they would not have
> been losers, but now they believe that the wish has been fulfilled because
> of the monkey god. The two-thirds whose wishes have not been fulfilled
> have
> moved to some other temple - naturally, because this monkey god does not
> seem to be kind towards them.
>
> You cannot ask any reason or anything, but it is sure that your wish
> is not fulfilled, so you move to some other temple. And there are hundreds
> of temples in India with wish-fulfilling trees. You just go and ask... and
> you just have to give a small bribe. But the one-third of the people whose
> wishes have been fulfilled.... And what kind of wishes people make: "That
> my
> son passes in his matriculation examination; or "That my son gets the job
> he
> has applied for"; or "That my daughter gets a husband because I don't have
> much money to give"; or "My wife is sick, please make her healthy
> again"...
> just simple, mundane, human trivia.
>
> They are not asking for some miracles, "That when I pass through the
> ocean it should separate like it did for Moses." Then they would know
> whether the monkey god can do anything or not. But that your son passes
> his
> matriculation... and thousands of people are passing matriculation without
> the help of the monkey god. In fact the monkey god was not a matriculate
> himself! And even if he does the examination, he is not going to pass; you
> cannot hope he will pass.
>
> But these people feel that their wishes are fulfilled so they
> bring.... So monkeys have slowly gathered - the whole road, on both sides,
> is full of monkeys. And for a strange reason, monkeys and dogs are all
> against uniforms. Perhaps in their past lives they have been
> revolutionaries: any kind of uniform - postmen in India have a uniform,
> the
> policeman has a uniform, the army, the sannyasins.... Anybody in a
> uniform,
> and dogs and, monkeys are against them.
>
> Perhaps seeing so many people in different clothes different styles,
> and then suddenly seeing somebody in uniform, they feel a danger: "This
> man
> does not look like a man, something is wrong somewhere"... and they are on
> the attack. It is not the discovery of Machiavelli that attack is the best
> way to defend, that if you want to defend yourself, then attack. Don't
> wait
> for the other party to attack, because then you will be already late in
> defending. Don't give them that chance.
>
> So monkeys and dogs attack uniformed people. It is simply my feeling
> that they are afraid; these people look a little strange, not just like
> other human beings. Millions of human beings are there, and they are not
> attacking them. And they don't attack these people either if they are not
> in
> uniform; they attack the uniform. The uniform gives them some idea that
> something is fishy about this man.
>
> So it started at the temple that the monkeys began to attack
> policemen, postmen, army people... and the monkeys were in thousands.
> Perhaps somebody had triggered their anger; nobody knows how it started,
> because they have been there for hundreds of years, many generations. The
> temple is very ancient and they had never done this, but just ten years
> ago,
> one day suddenly a riot broke out between monkeys and all uniformed
> people.
> It became very dangerous because so many monkeys... even one monkey is
> enough for you to freak out, but when many monkeys, hundreds, are just
> roaming on the road.... The road was blocked, nobody was passing on the
> road. It was a main road, so Lucknow was divided into two parts; the
> monkeys
> wouldn't allow anybody to cross.
>
> It became a question in the assembly of the state of Uttar Pradesh -
> Lucknow is the capital - that "these monkeys have to be shot. They have
> disturbed the peace of the capital. People cannot go to the other side,
> people cannot come to this side. Offices are closed because many people
> live
> on that side; many offices are on that side and people live on this side.
> Somebody who had gone to that side for some work had been detained, he
> could
> not come back here. Something has to be done immediately."
>
> One man stood up and he said, "If a single monkey is shot then there
> is going to be great bloodshed, be cause the monkey is a Hindu god: you
> are
> shooting a Hindu god. It will not be tolerated." He was a Hindu chauvinist
> belonging to a Hindu chauvinist party. And although the whole parliament
> was
> privately in favor of their being shot - what else could be done? - the
> resolution had to fail because they knew that what this man was saying was
> going to happen. Immediately there would be a massacre.
> And that's what they want.
>
>
> All politicians want some trouble somewhere, because only then are
> they needed. If everything goes right, if there is no news, nothing is
> going
> wrong, the politicians start feeling lost.
>
> I have not been in India for four years now. Now the journalists are
> missing me. Strange people! - they were all against me; when I was there,
> they were all against me. They were writing against me, not even bothering
> whether it was true or untrue; ninety percent of it was absolutely untrue.
> They were writing it but it was news, sellable news. Now they are missing
> me
> because the news that they were making around me they cannot make any
> longer, and there is nobody to replace me.
>
> Journalists, politicians - these types of people are in search of
> some
> spot which can become dangerous, some man who can prove dangerous, some
> situation which can become a problem. Then they will all try to make it a
> problem as quickly as possible.
> The resolution could not pass; for almost two weeks the road remained
> blocked. Monkeys don't have long memories; they must have forgotten and
> they
> cooled down slowly slowly. First the devotees started coming with sweets
> and
> offering the sweet to the monkey god, and then the traffic started
> again....
>
> But you cannot kill. You cannot kill dogs; killing is not allowed.
> But
> these religions have been killing each other. They cannot kill a dog, they
> cannot kill a monkey, but they can kill a man. That is very strange. I
> have
> been asking Hindus, Mohammedans, "You cannot kill animals but you can kill
> men without any problem, as if man has no life?" No, the thing is
> business.
> Man can be converted to be a Mohammedan - a dog cannot be. Dogs are beyond
> the reach of your preachers and missionaries.
>
> Professor Mackwan told me, "This is my father and mother. They would
> have died like dogs and the municipal truck would have thrown them out of
> the city with all the garbage that it carries every day, because there is
> nobody to carry a beggar to the funeral pyre. Who bothers about a beggar?
> Beggars are not men, not human beings."
>
> And then he took me to another picture of his daughter and his
> son-in-law. I was looking at three generations: the father and mother,
> almost below human beings; Mackwan, who has gained status and is now in a
> very respectable post, highly salaried. Now brahmins come and shake hands
> with him, not knowing at all that he is the son of two beggars who were
> sudras. I know his daughter, one of the most beautiful women I have seen;
> she is married to an American.
>
> Looking at the three generations... such a change. You cannot connect
> the daughter with the grandmother and how can you connect the son-in-law
> with her grandfather? There seems to be no bridge. The son-in-law is a
> well-known scholar, professor - six months teaching in India, six months
> teaching in America. Saroj, the daughter herself is a professor. They are
> all well-educated; the son is a principal. They have moved in a completely
> different direction by being converted to Christianity. I could not
> object.
> I said, "Your father and mother did well."
>
> Hindus and Jews are established. Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists
> are not established. They try to convert people; but in their conversion,
> deep down what is going on? The established religion has a past to
> support,
> thousands of years of past, which means millions of people have been on
> the
> path; you are not alone.
>
>
> But when you follow Jesus you know only that this guy has got these
> fantastic ideas.
>
> Who knows? - you are following a fool or really a son of God? He can
> be either this or that; there is no third alternative. Either he is a
> perfect idiot....
>
> In fact Fyodor Dostoevsky has written a book, The Idiot; that is the
> title of his book. But the idiot, the character, is almost Jesus-like:
> very
> innocent, simple, who has never done any harm to anybody. In fact, he is
> better than Jesus. But Dostoevsky has titled the book The Idiot.
>
> Jesus needs converted people. He himself may be feeling shaky about
> what he is saying and about whether it is true or not. In fact, why did he
> want Jews to accept him, his messiah-hood? Why was he so insistent that
> they
> had to crucify him? He must have nagged them, tortured them with the idea.
> They must have got so fed up that they decided, "This man won't leave us
> in
> peace - he has to be crucified, otherwise he will go on torturing us."
>
> And he was getting more and more fanatic. He started calling the
> great
> temple of the Jews, "my Father's house," and "... I have come to clean my
> Father's house." And he really wanted to clean it of all the priests and
> all
> the rabbis: What is the need of all these people when the only begotten
> son
> is there?
>
> I had become a nuisance. He must have been thinking in some silent
> moment, "Perhaps I am just mad. I have not been able to convince a single
> rabbi."
>
> In fact, I have never tried to convert anybody, but there are a few
> rabbi sannyasins. That is strange! And not ordinary rabbis, famous rabbis.
> And I have not been in any way trying to convert anybody because I don't
> have any doubt. Why should I bother about converting anybody? I don't have
> to convince myself that I am right. I am!
>
> If not even a single person is with me, I will be as right as I am
> now. My rightness does not grow with the growing number of people around
> me
> does not increase with the increasing number of people around me. My
> rightness is from my experience.
>
> Jesus seems to be worried, and all Christians have carried his
> sickness in their minds. They are all worried. I cannot think that the
> pope
> really believes that he represents God, it is impossible - unless you are
> mad, then everything is possible.
>
> Pseudo-religions are continually trying to convert people or they are
> so ancient that the question of conversion had never arisen. They are the
> beginners; from the very beginning they caught hold of the customers.
> Because of this idea of converting people there are constant fights,
> crusades, jihads, holy wars.
>
>
> And pseudo-religions go on creating more and more theology; nobody
> reads it.
>
> I have never seen in my life anybody reading a theological book. I
> have visited hundreds of libraries but I have never seen anybody, in any
> library, reading a theological book. I have looked into university
> libraries
> and government libraries and asked the librarians one question, "I would
> like to know whether any book from the theological section is taken out by
> people?"
>
> They said, "You are the first person to inquire about it. The
> theological section? - nobody bothers. People are interested only in
> novels.
> Who is going to bore himself with a theological book?" One took me to the
> theological section. That was the only section where you could see that
> all
> the books were untouched by human hands, so clean. Hundreds of theologians
> continually creating more and more books.... For what? - because the basic
> questions have not been answered yet. They go on improving upon the books,
> but whatsoever they do, the fundamental questions remain at the same
> place,
> because intellect has no answer for them.
>
> A simple thing has not occurred to them, that if in five or ten
> thousand years of theological thinking you have not been able to demolish
> a
> single question, now it is time to stop: perhaps you are not moving in the
> right direction.
>
> Religion in the second stage of consciousness, of the conscious mind,
> intellect, is theology. I call it pseudo-religion - just words about
> truth,
> God, love, but no experience to support it.
>
> When religion reaches the third, the highest peak, then only is it
> religiousness.
> So the first I call magico-religious
> The second I call pseudo-religion.
> And the third I call religiousness.
> Then it is a quality, then it has no adjective to it.
> Then it has no tradition.
> Then it has no scripture, then it has no theology.
> Then the origin is not in the past.
> And paradise is not in the future.
> Then both are within you.
> Then you have a fresh experience, and that experience will express
> itself in lovingness, friendliness, compassion.
> This religion will not bother about God:
> Its concern will be compassion.
> This religiousness will not bother about heaven and hell.
> Its concern will be how to share its blissfulness.
> This religion is not interested at all in converting you to believe
> certain dogmas; its only interest is to say to you, "I have found it. If
> you
> are interested, I can share my experience. There is no condition that you,
> have to accept it, there is no condition that you have to believe me. It
> is
> simply my joy to share it with you. Then it is for your consideration
> whether you want to do something with it or not. Either way I am happy and
> grateful that you allowed me to share something so intimate."
>
> A religious man, functioning from the highest point of consciousness
> intuition is just like the fragrance of a flower.
>
> There is no question of your being converted. Even if nobody passes
> by
> the side of the rose, the fragrance will still be spreading around,
> moving... somewhere, somebody may get it. And even if nobody gets it, it
> doesn't matter; it is simply natural for the flower to explode into
> fragrance.
>
>
> Osho,
> From Misery to Enlightenment Chapter 6
>
>
> Copyright © 2006 Osho International Foundation
> http://www.osho.com/Main.cfm?Area=Magazine&Language=Engl ish
>
>

Re: The "Religious" Mind [message #225341 ]

Sa, 15 Juli 2006 09:42

Ventura

Since there were so many countless of billions of universes, I am sure there must be equally
countless of solar systems and planet earths followed by countless of Gods and Jesuses, and
Mohammadses and Buddhases. So what is a US, a China or a Russia? There must also be countless of
USes, Chinases and Russiases??.......:):) I don't care two hood if there are
His-Bolases........:):)

"Bald eagle" <Baldeagle [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message news:44b89576 [at] news.starhub.net.sg...
> Who are you...your true self ?
>
> In the vast space of billions of universes, and
> the universe's existence for million of light years,
> what is the meaning of your life (for max 99 years
> on a tiny planet called earth) ?
>
> Mankind itself is insignificant when measured in
> relation to the space and time of the universe....who
> are you and who am I!
> Do you think that our ideas, our religious belief, our
> great achievements will make any difference to the colossal
> events in the universe ?
> We are NOTHING !
>
> "dd" <dd [at] d.com> wrote in message news:44b75570 [at] news.starhub.net.sg...
>> Existence is multidimensional. From each point... as if it is a sun with
>> millions of rays moving towards infinity. Each ray can lead you to infinity,
>> but if you choose one, of course you have to leave others; and you can
>> choose only one. You cannot even ride on two horses, what to say about two
>> dimensions? You cannot ride on two boats, what to say about two
>> dimensions? - because they are going to diverge more and more, more and
>> more; as you go further, there will be an infinite unbridgeable gap between
>> them. At the source they are one. From there you can choose any one, but
>> once you have chosen a line then others are dropped.
>>
>> I have been drifting my whole life. You have to be alert. And if you
>> can remind me that somewhere I have drifted, I can catch hold of a dimension
>> that has been left behind. But you should not expect that I will stop
>> drifting, because in catching hold of the other dimension, again I will be
>> leaving many more.
>>
>> On each step there is a problem of choosing, because I am an
>> existential person, I am not a thinker. It is not a logical syllogism that I
>> am propounding to you. It is my experience that I am trying to share with
>> you - and experience is so vast that I can only show you a little part of
>> it. But you are always welcome to remind me. Yes, I remember I had drifted
>> on many points; perhaps a few I can manage to catch back again.
>>
>> One was religion - religion at the lowest level of mankind, the
>> instinctive level. All primitive tribes, aboriginals, are still living under
>> that first kind of religion, which theologians call "magic."
>>
>>
>> It believes that if you sacrifice to a god, if you do a certain
>> ritual, a certain dance, a certain prayer, then the god is satisfied with
>> you and rewards will be coming.
>>
>> For example, when it is not raining - these are the problems of
>> primitive people - when it is not raining, what will the primitive tribe do?
>> It will arrange a ritual, perhaps a sacrifice of a living human being -
>> their god is very bloodthirsty. Or, if the tribe has evolved a little, then
>> instead of a man it will choose an animal. If the tribe has evolved a little
>> more then it will choose not even an animal, not even a man, but something
>> similar.
>>
>> Now, for example, in India they break a coconut. The coconut is very
>> similar to the skull of a man. It has a little beard, a mustache, two eyes,
>> a little nose. In fact, in Hindi the skull is called khopri and the narial
>> 'a coconut' is called khopra. The similarity is so much that both have the
>> same name. Breaking a skull was the ritual originally, but now it would be
>> criminal. They have found a good substitute, a coconut, but the idea is the
>> same. They think whatever makes them feel pleasure also makes their god feel
>> pleasure in the same way. A naked, beautiful girl will be placed before the
>> god, all kinds of foods will be prepared and placed before the god, and they
>> will go into a mad dance: it is a way of pleasing the god.
>>
>> God is displeased, that's why rains are not coming. If he is pleased,
>> rains will be coming - and rains, sooner or later, do come; then their
>> ritual is proved valid, the rains have come. Once in a while it happens that
>> rains don't come at all. Then the god is really very badly displeased and
>> needs more sacrifice, more ritual.
>>
>> This is the lowest kind of religion - call it magic-religion - the
>> belief that just by chanting a few words, doing a few actions, you can
>> change the course of existence. It is simply stupid. Existence has no need
>> of your sacrifices, existence has no need of your dances - and nothing
>> reaches to existence. But the instinctive man, the primitive man, cannot do
>> more than that. That is the limit of his understanding.
>>
>> That primitive man has not died completely, even in so-called
>> civilized people. You also think in the same logic. You don't sacrifice
>> somebody, but even civilized people, cultured, educated people, when they
>> are in a difficulty, immediately their primitive man comes up. Your wife is
>> sick and the doctors say, "All that we could do, we have done. Now only a
>> miracle can save her." Even the doctor is becoming primitive.
>>
>> He is telling you, "Only a miracle, only something magical....
>> Medicine has failed, science had failed; whatever we could do, we have done.
>> Now if she is saved it will be through the grace of God or the grace of a
>> saint, so now you go to the temple, to the mosque, to the synagogue, to the
>> church, or go to some priest or go to some sage." The doctor has fallen into
>> primitive religion.
>>
>> And the man, of course, is absolutely willing to go anywhere, to do
>> anything, because he wants to save his wife. This is not the time for him to
>> think over philosophical matters - whether it is right or wrong, whether it
>> is primitive or civilized, whether it is stupid or intelligent. This is not
>> the time. He runs! He had never been to a saint but now he goes and falls at
>> his feet and prays, "Save my wife!"
>>
>>
>> The primitive man is still within you because the unconscious is still
>> within you.
>>
>> The primitive man disappears only with the disappearance of the
>> unconscious. When your unconscious and conscious become one, your whole mind
>> becomes consciousness; then there is no way to fall back to the primitive
>> man. Otherwise, nine times more than the civilized man is the primitive man
>> inside you. Any time your conscious mind starts failing, your intellect
>> starts failing, you fall into the mumbo-jumbo of the primitive.
>>
>> Religion of the intellect - the second category, the higher category -
>> is pseudo-religion. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,
>> Mohammedanism - these are all products of the intellect. They are not
>> magico-religious. They have theologies: they have thought about existence,
>> its creation, why it has been created; how one can get out of this wheel of
>> life and birth. They have been thinking about it, pondering over it for
>> thousands of years, and each religion has developed a theology.
>>
>> The word theology means logic about God. It is a contradiction in
>> terms. God is not a logical proposition: you cannot prove it by logic, you
>> cannot disprove it by logic. Logic is utterly irrelevant to God. But
>> pseudo-religions cannot do more than that, they can only think about. And
>> they have great imagination to portray God. Their scriptures say God created
>> man in His own image. The reality is just the reverse: man creates God in
>> his own image. That's why there are so many gods - because there are so many
>> men, so many races, so many different faces - eyes, nose... so many
>> different kinds.
>>
>> You cannot think of a Negro inventing a white god. You may not have
>> thought about why your devil looks like a Negro, why your devil is black.
>> The Negro's god will be black; and of course the devil has to be pure white.
>> And the white man has proved devilish enough. The Negroes have not only an
>> argument in favor of it, but history also, giving all the evidences of what
>> the white man has done to the colored people of the world. It must have been
>> the greatest evil that has happened in history.
>>
>> How can a Chinese think of God in any other way than as a Chinese?
>> When Marco Polo went to China, he was the first Western man to reach China.
>> China was under the great empire of Kublai Khan, son of Genghis Khan.
>> Perhaps Kublai was one of the greatest emperors in the world because he
>> ruled over all China, middle Asia, the Far East.
>>
>> When Marco Polo reached China, he wanted an audience. Kublai Khan was
>> a man of great intelligence. His prime minister said, "A man who looks like
>> a monkey wants to see you. It will be absolutely unprecedented - no emperor
>> has ever given audience to a monkey." A white man looked like a monkey to
>> them.
>>
>> Kublai Khan said, "No need to be worried. If he can speak he cannot be
>> absolutely a monkey; there is something human. You bring him in." And he
>> became interested in Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a very intelligent young
>> man, and he became very intimate with Kublai Khan. When he came back to
>> Europe he reported to the pope, "In China they worship a different God, who
>> looks like a Chinese, and they think of us Europeans as monkeys."
>>
>> To us they look a little strange. They have a very little beard - a
>> few hairs, you can count them - flat noses, very outstanding cheekbones. You
>> cannot think of a more ugly face - but they think that is beauty. A man or a
>> woman who does not have those outstanding cheekbones will find it hard to
>> get married; so would a man with a nose that is typical of the Aryan races:
>> Indians, Germans, English, French, Scandinavians, Dutch, Russians.... These
>> are all one race, and to them a pointed nose, a long nose, is thought to be
>> beautiful. But in China that is ugly; and they cannot make their God ugly.
>>
>> Marco Polo said, "This makes me think that perhaps we are all
>> imagining about God. Nobody knows how He looks."
>>
>> The pope was very angry and he said, "You must be imagining things.
>> You are creating a fiction so that you can be thought of as a great explorer
>> of a new land. I cannot believe that anything bigger than Christianity
>> exists anywhere."
>>
>> Marco Polo said, "Buddhism is far bigger; it has millions of monks,
>> thousands of temples and monasteries. Beside it your Christianity is
>> nothing." But he was alone. What proof did he have? He had brought a few
>> things which were taken away from him and burned to destroy the evidence.
>>
>> This is the pseudo-religious mind. The pseudo-religious mind believes
>> in its own imagination, in its own thinking, and is afraid of anything that
>> goes against it or is even a little different from it. Otherwise, religions
>> would not have been fighting for thousands of years.
>>
>>
>> This is something strange: all religions teach love, and all religions
>> end in hatred.
>>
>> All religions teach the brotherhood of man, but they only create
>> enemies of each other. All religions teach that every man has a potential
>> right to reach God, but practically they say: Only our religion is the true
>> religion. Yes, every man can reach God but he has to reach through our way:
>> Unless you follow Jesus Christ you have no chance. But the same is said by
>> Krishna: "If you surrender to me, leaving everything aside, I will take care
>> of you, you need not worry." And the same is true about all other religions.
>> They seem to be competing shopkeepers - everybody is trying to sell his
>> thing: his holy book, his messiah, his god.
>>
>> Pseudo-religion is always basically afraid, because deep down the
>> pseudo-religious person knows that it is only his imagination, he has no
>> actual experience. He himself is not convinced; hence, he needs to convince
>> others. He goes on sending missionaries to other countries to convince,
>> convert more and more people into Christianity, into Mohammedanism. Why? Why
>> this great urge to convert? Psychologically it is of tremendous importance
>> to understand.
>>
>> The person who wants to convert anybody is a person who is suspicious
>> of his truth. He is really trying, by converting people, to convince himself
>> that he is right. If he can convert so many people that gives him enough
>> support: "So many people cannot be fools. I may be a fool but so many people
>> cannot be fools. Such intelligent people... and they have come to believe in
>> my belief My belief is bound to be true."
>>
>> Christianity seems to be the most bogus of all religions because it is
>> more interested in converting people than any other religion. In fact,
>> Judaism and Hinduism, which are the two ancientmost religions, are not
>> interested in converting anybody. You have to understand the psychology of
>> it.
>>
>> Why are Jews not interested in sending missionaries and converting
>> people to Judaism? A Jew is born, not converted. Have you seen any converted
>> Jew anywhere? It is simply absurd. Jews will not take anybody through
>> conversion. If God has not made you a Jew then there is no other way; they
>> are the chosen people of God. By converting all kinds of rubbish, can you
>> improve upon God's choice? If God has not made you a Jew that means that you
>> are not meant to be a Jew; you are already rejected. So for thousands of
>> years they have never thought about converting people into Jews.
>>
>> The Hindus have the same idea - that they are the only people to whom
>> God has chosen to give the first holy book in the world. Certainly their Rig
>> Veda is the ancientmost scripture in the world and certainly it is the
>> scripture of the most ancient religion. They have four castes: the brahmin,
>> the priest; the kshatriya, the warrior; the vaishya, the business man; and
>> the sudra, the untouchable. Now, it was a problem: how could they convert
>> anybody? And in which caste were they going to put him?
>>
>>
>> Hinduism is not one piece, it is four castes.
>>
>> The brahmin is the highest. You cannot convert anybody into a brahmin.
>> He represents God, hence the name. The name of God in India is Brahma, and
>> brahmin means one chosen by Brahma, appointed by God Himself. There is no
>> way for anybody to become a brahmin. It is decided by birth, because birth
>> is decided by God, it is not in man's hands to decide such things.
>>
>> Now, the kshatriya also will not allow anybody in. He is the second
>> most important, and it is a traditional thing for him to be a warrior; just
>> anybody - X, Y, Z - cannot be a warrior. It needs a long tradition,
>> training. You have to have the blood of a warrior, you cannot be converted.
>>
>> The only people who can absorb you are the untouchables. The business
>> people are the third, but they are higher than the untouchables. Only the
>> untouchables can absorb you, but without the permission of the brahmin they
>> cannot do anything. Conversion - such a religious phenomenon - is beyond
>> their capacity. They are outcasts themselves.
>>
>> Hindus and Jews are born so. That's why both these religions are the
>> most egoistic. Naturally, other religions have to rely on conversions,
>> otherwise from where are they going to get their customers, their clients?
>> God has made Jews, God has made Hindus; now the whole world is divided into
>> two chosen people of God. From where is Jesus going to get his people? From
>> where is Buddha going to get his people? They had to depend on conversion.
>> From where is Mohammed going to get Mohammedans?
>>
>> These are latecomers. The old shops have credibility; they are already
>> established, and established by God Himself. These others are newcomers in
>> the market. Naturally they have to attract clients from the old shops;
>> otherwise no customer is going to come to them. And they have to create new
>> allurements, cheaper prices, better rewards. And you can see that....
>>
>>
>> The god of the Jews is a very tough guy.
>>
>> But the god of Christians is pure love. You don't know... it is such a
>> simple mathematics: the god of the Jews can be a tough guy, but Jesus has to
>> convert people, so he has to create a better image of God, more polished,
>> more refined, more humane, so he can make the Jewish god outdated.
>>
>> Whom is he going to convert? Rich people certainly are not going to be
>> converted because they are already established, respectable, on the highest
>> level of the society. They are not going to follow a vagabond. They are not
>> going to become a laughingstock - for what? Hence all those beatitudes of
>> Jesus: "Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom of God..."
>> because you can only get hold of the poor. The poor are already angry,
>> jealous of the rich, and here comes a man who says, "My God is love. And my
>> God allows only poor people in heaven; rich people have no place there."
>>
>> This is simple business tactics - nothing profound in it. But nobody
>> has bothered to watch how new religions have tried to pull customers from
>> the old shops to their own shop. They are all in favor of the poor.
>> Strange - Jews don't have a single statement in which the rich are condemned
>> and the poor are raised high just because of their poverty. Jews have not a
>> single statement in which poverty is something sacred; Hindus also don't.
>> The rich man, according to Hinduism, is rich because he has been religious,
>> virtuous, in his past lives. It is a reward from God. And the poor man is
>> poor because he has been evil, unreligious, in his past lives. He has been
>> punished for it. Poverty is a punishment, richness is a reward. Hindus or
>> Jews, who are established already - why should they bother about the poor
>> and the downtrodden? But Buddha, Jesus, Mahavira, Mohammed - their whole
>> interest is in the poor, the downtrodden.
>>
>> It is a simple thing: these are the people who can be converted, these
>> are the people who are vulnerable. They have nothing to lose and everything
>> to gain. For example, if a sudra becomes a follower of Buddha, immediately
>> he is no longer untouchable. If a sudra becomes a Christian he is no longer
>> untouchable. This is a very strange world.
>>
>> I had a friend who was the principal of a theological college in
>> Jabalpur, Principal Mackwan. I was saying this thing to him - "Why are you
>> Christians interested only in the poor?"
>>
>> He said, "Please come to my house" - I was sitting in his office. He
>> said, "My house is just behind the college; come to my house; I want to show
>> you something."
>>
>> He showed me an old man and woman's picture. They were certainly
>> beggars, in rags, dirty; you could even see it in their faces - so hungry.
>> You could see that all their lives they had suffered; it was written in the
>> lines on their forehead. He said, "Can you recognize who these are?"
>>
>> I said, "How can I recognize them? - I have never seen these people,
>> but they look like beggars."
>>
>> He said, "They were beggars. He is my father, she is my mother. And
>> not only were they beggars, they were sudras, untouchables. They became
>> converted, in their old age, to Christianity because they were so old, tired
>> of begging; and now they were concerned about their children - particularly
>> this boy who is now principal of Leonard Theological College. What would
>> happen to him if they died? He would also become a beggar."
>>
>> Because they were sick they entered a Christian hospital, because no
>> other hospital will take poor people and give them free medicine, food,
>> care, doctors. So they entered, they had to enter, a Christian hospital.
>>
>>
>> And there the whole methodology is: with the medicine to go on giving
>> as much of The Bible as possible; with each injection a little Bible.
>>
>> With food, the doctor talks about it, the nurse talks about it; the
>> priest comes every day to inquire about their health, how they are.
>>
>> For the first time they felt that they were human beings. Nobody had
>> ever asked them about their health. They were treated like dogs, not like
>> human beings. And had they remained Hindus they would have died like dogs,
>> dying on the street corner. You don't know, because that is not the way in
>> the West. In the West, dogs have a better death, a better life, because any
>> dog who is not owned by somebody is to be killed. The dog has to be owned by
>> somebody, a collar proclaiming the ownership. But in the East you cannot
>> kill anybody. There may be a dog spreading sickness and disease, but you
>> cannot kill it - killing is sin.
>>
>> It happened.... I am drifting - just remember!
>>
>> In Lucknow there is a temple of Hanuman, the monkey god. Strangely
>> enough that temple is surrounded by big trees, and all the trees are full of
>> monkeys - you will never see so many monkeys together. Perhaps it is for the
>> simple reason that whatsoever is offered to the monkey god those monkeys
>> eat, so by and by they have become permanent residents there. And the temple
>> has such fame that people come to it from far and wide, from faraway places
>> because it is thought that whatever you wish there it will be fulfilled. So
>> they wish something and they take the oath before the monkey god that: "If
>> our wish is fulfilled then we are going to bring fifty-one rupees worth of
>> sweets" - or anything they want to bring, or whatsoever they can afford.
>>
>> So every day so much food is being offered - and it is not anything to
>> do with the monkey god. If a hundred people come to ask, at least one-third
>> of them - just by simple arithmetical rules - one-third of them are going to
>> get their wishes fulfilled. Even if they had not come they would not have
>> been losers, but now they believe that the wish has been fulfilled because
>> of the monkey god. The two-thirds whose wishes have not been fulfilled have
>> moved to some other temple - naturally, because this monkey god does not
>> seem to be kind towards them.
>>
>> You cannot ask any reason or anything, but it is sure that your wish
>> is not fulfilled, so you move to some other temple. And there are hundreds
>> of temples in India with wish-fulfilling trees. You just go and ask... and
>> you just have to give a small bribe. But the one-third of the people whose
>> wishes have been fulfilled.... And what kind of wishes people make: "That my
>> son passes in his matriculation examination; or "That my son gets the job he
>> has applied for"; or "That my daughter gets a husband because I don't have
>> much money to give"; or "My wife is sick, please make her healthy again"...
>> just simple, mundane, human trivia.
>>
>> They are not asking for some miracles, "That when I pass through the
>> ocean it should separate like it did for Moses." Then they would know
>> whether the monkey god can do anything or not. But that your son passes his
>> matriculation... and thousands of people are passing matriculation without
>> the help of the monkey god. In fact the monkey god was not a matriculate
>> himself! And even if he does the examination, he is not going to pass; you
>> cannot hope he will pass.
>>
>> But these people feel that their wishes are fulfilled so they
>> bring.... So monkeys have slowly gathered - the whole road, on both sides,
>> is full of monkeys. And for a strange reason, monkeys and dogs are all
>> against uniforms. Perhaps in their past lives they have been
>> revolutionaries: any kind of uniform - postmen in India have a uniform, the
>> policeman has a uniform, the army, the sannyasins.... Anybody in a uniform,
>> and dogs and, monkeys are against them.
>>
>> Perhaps seeing so many people in different clothes different styles,
>> and then suddenly seeing somebody in uniform, they feel a danger: "This man
>> does not look like a man, something is wrong somewhere"... and they are on
>> the attack. It is not the discovery of Machiavelli that attack is the best
>> way to defend, that if you want to defend yourself, then attack. Don't wait
>> for the other party to attack, because then you will be already late in
>> defending. Don't give them that chance.
>>
>> So monkeys and dogs attack uniformed people. It is simply my feeling
>> that they are afraid; these people look a little strange, not just like
>> other human beings. Millions of human beings are there, and they are not
>> attacking them. And they don't attack these people either if they are not in
>> uniform; they attack the uniform. The uniform gives them some idea that
>> something is fishy about this man.
>>
>> So it started at the temple that the monkeys began to attack
>> policemen, postmen, army people... and the monkeys were in thousands.
>> Perhaps somebody had triggered their anger; nobody knows how it started,
>> because they have been there for hundreds of years, many generations. The
>> temple is very ancient and they had never done this, but just ten years ago,
>> one day suddenly a riot broke out between monkeys and all uniformed people.
>> It became very dangerous because so many monkeys... even one monkey is
>> enough for you to freak out, but when many monkeys, hundreds, are just
>> roaming on the road.... The road was blocked, nobody was passing on the
>> road. It was a main road, so Lucknow was divided into two parts; the monkeys
>> wouldn't allow anybody to cross.
>>
>> It became a question in the assembly of the state of Uttar Pradesh -
>> Lucknow is the capital - that "these monkeys have to be shot. They have
>> disturbed the peace of the capital. People cannot go to the other side,
>> people cannot come to this side. Offices are closed because many people live
>> on that side; many offices are on that side and people live on this side.
>> Somebody who had gone to that side for some work had been detained, he could
>> not come back here. Something has to be done immediately."
>>
>> One man stood up and he said, "If a single monkey is shot then there
>> is going to be great bloodshed, be cause the monkey is a Hindu god: you are
>> shooting a Hindu god. It will not be tolerated." He was a Hindu chauvinist
>> belonging to a Hindu chauvinist party. And although the whole parliament was
>> privately in favor of their being shot - what else could be done? - the
>> resolution had to fail because they knew that what this man was saying was
>> going to happen. Immediately there would be a massacre.
>> And that's what they want.
>>
>>
>> All politicians want some trouble somewhere, because only then are
>> they needed. If everything goes right, if there is no news, nothing is going
>> wrong, the politicians start feeling lost.
>>
>> I have not been in India for four years now. Now the journalists are
>> missing me. Strange people! - they were all against me; when I was there,
>> they were all against me. They were writing against me, not even bothering
>> whether it was true or untrue; ninety percent of it was absolutely untrue.
>> They were writing it but it was news, sellable news. Now they are missing me
>> because the news that they were making around me they cannot make any
>> longer, and there is nobody to replace me.
>>
>> Journalists, politicians - these types of people are in search of some
>> spot which can become dangerous, some man who can prove dangerous, some
>> situation which can become a problem. Then they will all try to make it a
>> problem as quickly as possible.
>> The resolution could not pass; for almost two weeks the road remained
>> blocked. Monkeys don't have long memories; they must have forgotten and they
>> cooled down slowly slowly. First the devotees started coming with sweets and
>> offering the sweet to the monkey god, and then the traffic started again....
>>
>> But you cannot kill. You cannot kill dogs; killing is not allowed. But
>> these religions have been killing each other. They cannot kill a dog, they
>> cannot kill a monkey, but they can kill a man. That is very strange. I have
>> been asking Hindus, Mohammedans, "You cannot kill animals but you can kill
>> men without any problem, as if man has no life?" No, the thing is business.
>> Man can be converted to be a Mohammedan - a dog cannot be. Dogs are beyond
>> the reach of your preachers and missionaries.
>>
>> Professor Mackwan told me, "This is my father and mother. They would
>> have died like dogs and the municipal truck would have thrown them out of
>> the city with all the garbage that it carries every day, because there is
>> nobody to carry a beggar to the funeral pyre. Who bothers about a beggar?
>> Beggars are not men, not human beings."
>>
>> And then he took me to another picture of his daughter and his
>> son-in-law. I was looking at three generations: the father and mother,
>> almost below human beings; Mackwan, who has gained status and is now in a
>> very respectable post, highly salaried. Now brahmins come and shake hands
>> with him, not knowing at all that he is the son of two beggars who were
>> sudras. I know his daughter, one of the most beautiful women I have seen;
>> she is married to an American.
>>
>> Looking at the three generations... such a change. You cannot connect
>> the daughter with the grandmother and how can you connect the son-in-law
>> with her grandfather? There seems to be no bridge. The son-in-law is a
>> well-known scholar, professor - six months teaching in India, six months
>> teaching in America. Saroj, the daughter herself is a professor. They are
>> all well-educated; the son is a principal. They have moved in a completely
>> different direction by being converted to Christianity. I could not object.
>> I said, "Your father and mother did well."
>>
>> Hindus and Jews are established. Christians, Mohammedans, Buddhists
>> are not established. They try to convert people; but in their conversion,
>> deep down what is going on? The established religion has a past to support,
>> thousands of years of past, which means millions of people have been on the
>> path; you are not alone.
>>
>>
>> But when you follow Jesus you know only that this guy has got these
>> fantastic ideas.
>>
>> Who knows? - you are following a fool or really a son of God? He can
>> be either this or that; there is no third alternative. Either he is a
>> perfect idiot....
>>
>> In fact Fyodor Dostoevsky has written a book, The Idiot; that is the
>> title of his book. But the idiot, the character, is almost Jesus-like: very
>> innocent, simple, who has never done any harm to anybody. In fact, he is
>> better than Jesus. But Dostoevsky has titled the book The Idiot.
>>
>> Jesus needs converted people. He himself may be feeling shaky about
>> what he is saying and about whether it is true or not. In fact, why did he
>> want Jews to accept him, his messiah-hood? Why was he so insistent that they
>> had to crucify him? He must have nagged them, tortured them with the idea.
>> They must have got so fed up that they decided, "This man won't leave us in
>> peace - he has to be crucified, otherwise he will go on torturing us."
>>
>> And he was getting more and more fanatic. He started calling the great
>> temple of the Jews, "my Father's house," and "... I have come to clean my
>> Father's house." And he really wanted to clean it of all the priests and all
>> the rabbis: What is the need of all these people when the only begotten son
>> is there?
>>
>> I had become a nuisance. He must have been thinking in some silent
>> moment, "Perhaps I am just mad. I have not been able to convince a single
>> rabbi."
>>
>> In fact, I have never tried to convert anybody, but there are a few
>> rabbi sannyasins. That is strange! And not ordinary rabbis, famous rabbis.
>> And I have not been in any way trying to convert anybody because I don't
>> have any doubt. Why should I bother about converting anybody? I don't have
>> to convince myself that I am right. I am!
>>
>> If not even a single person is with me, I will be as right as I am
>> now. My rightness does not grow with the growing number of people around me
>> does not increase with the increasing number of people around me. My
>> rightness is from my experience.
>>
>> Jesus seems to be worried, and all Christians have carried his
>> sickness in their minds. They are all worried. I cannot think that the pope
>> really believes that he represents God, it is impossible - unless you are
>> mad, then everything is possible.
>>
>> Pseudo-religions are continually trying to convert people or they are
>> so ancient that the question of conversion had never arisen. They are the
>> beginners; from the very beginning they caught hold of the customers.
>> Because of this idea of converting people there are constant fights,
>> crusades, jihads, holy wars.
>>
>>
>> And pseudo-religions go on creating more and more theology; nobody
>> reads it.
>>
>> I have never seen in my life anybody reading a theological book. I
>> have visited hundreds of libraries but I have never seen anybody, in any
>> library, reading a theological book. I have looked into university libraries
>> and government libraries and asked the librarians one question, "I would
>> like to know whether any book from the theological section is taken out by
>> people?"
>>
>> They said, "You are the first person to inquire about it. The
>> theological section? - nobody bothers. People are interested only in novels.
>> Who is going to bore himself with a theological book?" One took me to the
>> theological section. That was the only section where you could see that all
>> the books were untouched by human hands, so clean. Hundreds of theologians
>> continually creating more and more books.... For what? - because the basic
>> questions have not been answered yet. They go on improving upon the books,
>> but whatsoever they do, the fundamental questions remain at the same place,
>> because intellect has no answer for them.
>>
>> A simple thing has not occurred to them, that if in five or ten
>> thousand years of theological thinking you have not been able to demolish a
>> single question, now it is time to stop: perhaps you are not moving in the
>> right direction.
>>
>> Religion in the second stage of consciousness, of the conscious mind,
>> intellect, is theology. I call it pseudo-religion - just words about truth,
>> God, love, but no experience to support it.
>>
>> When religion reaches the third, the highest peak, then only is it
>> religiousness.
>> So the first I call magico-religious
>> The second I call pseudo-religion.
>> And the third I call religiousness.
>> Then it is a quality, then it has no adjective to it.
>> Then it has no tradition.
>> Then it has no scripture, then it has no theology.
>> Then the origin is not in the past.
>> And paradise is not in the future.
>> Then both are within you.
>> Then you have a fresh experience, and that experience will express
>> itself in lovingness, friendliness, compassion.
>> This religion will not bother about God:
>> Its concern will be compassion.
>> This religiousness will not bother about heaven and hell.
>> Its concern will be how to share its blissfulness.
>> This religion is not interested at all in converting you to believe
>> certain dogmas; its only interest is to say to you, "I have found it. If you
>> are interested, I can share my experience. There is no condition that you,
>> have to accept it, there is no condition that you have to believe me. It is
>> simply my joy to share it with you. Then it is for your consideration
>> whether you want to do something with it or not. Either way I am happy and
>> grateful that you allowed me to share something so intimate."
>>
>> A religious man, functioning from the highest point of consciousness
>> intuition is just like the fragrance of a flower.
>>
>> There is no question of your being converted. Even if nobody passes by
>> the side of the rose, the fragrance will still be spreading around,
>> moving... somewhere, somebody may get it. And even if nobody gets it, it
>> doesn't matter; it is simply natural for the flower to explode into
>> fragrance.
>>
>>
>> Osho,
>> From Misery to Enlightenment Chapter 6
>>
>>
>> Copyright © 2006 Osho International Foundation
>> http://www.osho.com/Main.cfm?Area=Magazine&Language=Engl ish
>>
>>
>
>

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