---
section: Library
booktitle: "From Personality to Individuality"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "PERSON"
dategiven: "15 January 1985 pm"
place: " in Lao Tzu Grove"
chapternum: "Chapter #17"
chaptertitle: "Holy Scriptures: wholly Bullshit"
acode: "8501155"
shorttitle: "PERSON17"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "127mins"
displaytitle: "From Personality to Individuality: Chapter #17"
---

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<p class="question">OSHO,
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MADNESS AND ENLIGHTENMENT?</p>


THERE is a great difference and also a great similarity. The similarity has to be understood first, because without understanding it, it will be difficult to understand the difference.
Both are beyond the mind -- madness and enlightenment.
Madness is below the mind.
Enlightenment is above the mind.
But both are out of the mind.


Hence, you have the expression for a madman "out of his mind." The same expression can be used for the enlightened person; he is also out of his mind.


Mind functions logically, rationally, intellectually. Neither madness nor enlightenment function intellectually. They are similar: madness has fallen below reason, and enlightenment has gone above reason, but both are irrational; hence, sometimes in the East a madman is misunderstood as being an enlightened man. These similarities are there.


And in the West, once in a while -- it is not an everyday phenomenon, but once in a while -- an enlightened person has been understood as being mad, because the West understands only one thing: if you are out of your mind, you are mad. It has no category for above the mind; it has only one category -- below the mind.


In the East the misunderstanding happens because for centuries the East has known people who are out of their mind and at the same time above the mind; hence, they are similar to madmen. For the Eastern masses it creates a confusion, it creates a problem. They have decided it is better to misunderstand a madman as being an enlightened man than to misunderstand an enlightened man as being a madman -- because what are you losing by misunderstanding a madman as being an enlightened man? You are not losing anything. But by misunderstanding an enlightened man as being a madman you are certainly losing a tremendous opportunity. But the misunderstanding is possible because of the similarities.


I have come across a few madmen who were thought to be enlightened. One man was just thirty or thirty-five miles away from Jabalpur. Nobody knew his name -- he was very old. He used to keep a bell in his hand and -- nobody knows for what reasons -- sometimes he would ring the bell, sometimes he would not ring the bell. Because of the bell he was called Tuntunpal Baba: the bell made the sound tuntun, and nobody knew his real name.


He never talked intelligibly; he uttered sounds but not words. He remained sitting in one place and never moved from that place. In his village people had known him for sixty years. There were old people who knew that when they were very young this man had come, and since that time he had been sitting on a cot in the porch of the house of the landlord, the richest man in the village. He had not moved from the cot, and for sixty years all that they had heard from him was his bell.


I went many times to see him, at different times, to figure him out. He used to drink tea continually; that was almost his only food. He would drink half the cup and then offer the other half to anybody who was there to see him. This was thought to be prasad, a gift, and people enjoyed this gift because it was very rare. Hundreds of people were seeing him every day; only to a few people would he offer the cup. But always first he would drink from the cup itself, then the remaining he would offer. But people thought he was enlightened, so something that he had tasted was blessed.


The more I watched the man, the more I was convinced that he was simply mad; and not totally mad either, because his madness had a certain consistency. It was not without any purpose that he was ringing his bell; it was always to attract the attention of people. Slowly people started understanding that he needed something, perhaps a cup of tea -- that was the most needed thing -- so immediately they would bring tea.


Those who had been serving him for years had even started understanding the language of his bell: how many times he rings when he wants tea; how many times he rings when he wants the crowd to leave him alone, how many times when he wants people to be allowed to see him, how many times when he wants to go to sleep. It was a language, a code language, that his disciples who lived with him knew.


Now this man was not totally mad, although certainly a little insane. And as I watched him I found that he was half-paralyzed too, because when I saw him sipping the tea it was always from one side of his mouth; the other side never moved. One day, when he was alone, I took his bell from his hand and put it in his other hand. The bell fell, because the other hand was paralyzed. Now it was clear why he was not moving from the cot; it was nothing to do with any austerity.


People thought that it was some ascetic practice; perhaps he had taken a vow that he would remain sitting in the same posture for so many years, or his whole life. But it was simply that he was paralyzed. In fact, that seems to be the clear reason why he was not able to utter intelligible sounds: half of his mouth was paralyzed. With half of your mouth you can make sounds, but to make words is very difficult, almost impossible. You may try but the other will only hear some unintelligible gibberish.


But gibberish has been thought to be one of the methods used by enlightened people. You will be surprised to know that the word, the English word, gibberish, is not English, it is Arabic; and it comes from an enlightened man, Jabbar. Jabbar was certainly an enlightened man, but he spoke so fast that his words would run over each other. It was impossible to make any sense out of what he said because there were no full stops, no commas, no indication of where the sentence began and where it ended. Jabbar simply did not believe in all these mannerisms.


It is because of Jabbar that people started calling his language gibberish, but by and by the word gibberish became completely disassociated from Jabbar. Nobody would think that the English word gibberish is from a Sufi word and has come from a man who was enlightened. Gibberish, in the East, is thought to be a way of enlightened people. They are saying to you: Nothing can be said through words. You will have to understand something besides the words.


But mad people also do the same. And this man Tuntunpal Baba was simply paralyzed, retarded; you could see it from his face. As I went again and again to him and he became more and more familiar to me, and I became familiar to him, we started some kind of communication. I started using his bell, and I made a few code signals with the bell.


I tried writing, asking him, "What is your name?" and I would ring the bell two times. I knew that he could read because he looked at the slate on which I had written, "What is your name?" and his eyes had the flash showing that he could read. I made the signal three times and wrote on the slate: "I understand that you can read." He looked at it and smiled with half his face. I put the pen in his hand and made the sign of ringing the bell two times, and he wrote his name, Tuntunpal Baba.


I said, "This is not right -- you can't deceive me that you are enlightened. You have deceived thousands of people for sixty years, but this is not good; you have not gained anything out of it. Those poor people from the villages have lived with the belief that they are under the guidance, under the blessings, of an enlightened man. This is criminal. And on the other hand you could have been cured, because there is not much of a problem; paralysis can be cured."


I could see the flash in his eyes that he understood that he had made a mistake. If paralysis could be cured.... It was because of paralysis that perhaps half of his brain also had gone numb and created the madness. He wrote on the slate: "Is it possible that I can be cured?"


I said, "Perhaps now it is too late. For sixty years you have been paralyzed, your brain has been numb for sixty years; I don't think that after sixty years of paralysis the brain cells can be alive, can function again. And now, what is the point? You must be nearabout ninety, ninety-five, or a hundred: what is the point now? Now it is better you remain enlightened -- at least people are happy. And you are not feeling in an inferior state -- that you are paralyzed, that you cannot speak, that half your brain is not functioning."


So I said to him, "I am not going to say anything to anybody. I will keep your secret. You remain enlightened; it is doing good both to you and to people. People need somebody: they are in constant search to follow somebody. At least you cannot indoctrinate them, you cannot give rubbish to their minds. In a way you are innocent. You have not done anything. You have simply offered gifts, whatsoever you had.


"You don't have anything other than that tea" that was all that he was using, that was all his food. "And you are feeling in good spirits. Thousands of people gather, and on particular festival days the village becomes a big city. People are enjoying, you are enjoying -- I am not going to disturb the game. I simply wanted to find out if it is possible that something which is not enlightenment can be misunderstood as being enlightenment. That is proved by you. And I am grateful to you that you were sincere with me; you did not hide anything."


A tear came into one of his eyes -- the other eye was paralyzed -- a tear of thankfulness. I continued to go to see him once in a while; it was not far away. Whenever I had time, once in a while, I would go; and he started loving me. Perhaps I was the only person who has sat on his cot. With one of his hands he would pull me up and make me sit by his side on his cot.


People would touch my feet also, and I would say, "You are already mistaken; now you are again making a mistake. At least don't commit this mistake." But they never understood me when I said, "You are already mistaken. At least don't commit the same mistake again."


A madman sometimes can have glimpses which the rational man cannot have because the madman has stepped out of the mechanism of mind; of course on the wrong side, from the back door, but still he is out of the mind. Even from the back door he can have some glimpses which are not available to the people who never come out of the house. Certainly he is not so fortunate as to have come from the front door: that needs tremendous effort.


Madness is a disease. It happens to you -- you don't have to make an effort to be mad. It is a sickness and it is curable. Enlightenment happens through tremendous awareness and arduous effort.
Enlightenment is the supreme health.


You should understand the word health carefully. It is not only physiologically meaningful. Of course physiologically it is meaningful, but not only physiologically; it has a far higher meaning too. Health means healing the wounds. It comes from the root which means healing. If your physiology needs some healing then medicine is offered. If your spirituality needs some healing, then meditation is offered. Strangely, health comes from the same root from which comes the word wholeness.


Health means the body is whole, nothing is missing. And from wholeness comes the word holy: the spirit is whole, nothing is missing. Similarly, the word medicine and the word meditation come from the same root -- that which cures. Medicine cures wounds in your physiology, and meditation cures wounds in your spiritual existence, in your ultimate being.


The madman, if in the hands of enlightened people, can achieve enlightenment faster than your so-called sane people. In the East there has been a longstanding tradition... in this century one man revived it again -- his name was Meher Baba. He went all over India seeking and searching for mad people. In all the madhouses, anywhere that he heard there was a madman, he would go. He traveled all over India his whole life, searching for mad people.


His disciples asked him, "Why are you wasting your time with mad people when sane people are available to work upon, and they want your time?"


Meher Baba said, "You don't understand. To bring a sane person out of his sanity is very difficult. But to bring out a madman is very easy because in a way he is already out, but from the back door. He has tasted something of the outside; we have only to show him the right door and say, "Please don't go out from the wrong door, go from the right door. Being out is perfectly right, but choose the right door." And Meher Baba turned many mad people into enlightened people.


It is a strange world. Here, really great things are never rewarded. Nobody has bothered about Meher Baba. Mother Teresa will get a Nobel prize because she looks after poor orphan children, and nobody thought of giving a Nobel prize to Meher Baba who really did a miraculous job -- and he was the on]y man, after centuries.


Sufis call the madman masta; masta means intoxicated. The madman and the enlightened man both have to pass through a certain stage, that is, getting out of reason, out of their mind. They have to cross the same boundary: by the wrong door or right door, they both cross the same boundary, and while they are crossing the boundary they both become mastas -- intoxicated.


But the enlightened person soon regains his balance because he has made the effort to get out of the mind; he is prepared to get out of the mind, he is ready to get out of the mind. The madman has got out of his mind unprepared. He was not ready. He has simply fallen out of his mind -- it is an accident. Enlightenment is never an accident.


But both the madman and the enlightened man pass through a certain state called masta, the intoxicated, where they both behave similarly; hence, the necessity of a Master has been absolutely accepted. When one gets into the state of masta, then only a Master can take one out of that intoxicated state -- because that intoxicated state itself is immensely beautiful.


You must have seen mad people very happy. You can't find a madman unhappy. That does not happen at all; a madman and suffering, they don't coexist. A madman is always enjoying. Perhaps he has nothing to enjoy, but he is enjoying. It does not matter whether he has something to enjoy or not, but he is always happy. To be unhappy you need reason, thinking, worrying. Now he is incapable of worrying and thinking. He cannot be bothered with tomorrow; he has no tomorrow and he has no memories of yesterday. The madman also exists herenow -- that is the similarity. But he is not aware that he is herenow -- that is the difference.


The enlightened man also is always blissful. I am using a different word just so you don't get confused. The madman is always happy. But there is a possibility he can be cured; then he will become unhappy, then he will start worrying. He will worry more than you because he will see that he had gone mad: now he will worry about madness. When he was mad he had no worry at all, he could not care less. Now he will worry that he had gone mad and he will worry that tomorrow it can happen again because it has happened.


I had one friend who was a doctor. His father was a very miserly person, rich but very miserly, and he had a very tight hold on the family. He was a politician; his name was Shri Nath Batt. He was a Gujarati, and he had a very beautiful jeweler's shop. He was the president of the local Indian National Congress, the party that was fighting for India's freedom against the British Raj. His son, whose name was Shyam, and I were friends from our very childhood. I hated Shyam's father more than Shyam hated him, because he was such a miser Of course his son could not do anything about it but I said, "Don't be worried; I will do something about it" -- and I did.


It was an everyday phenomenon during the British Raj that there were continual processions against the government, strikes against government -- and Shri Nath Batt was the leader. There were the two slogans. One slogan was: Bharatmata zindabad -- "Long live Mother India." Zindabad means long live. And: British Raj murdabad, means "British Raj die quickly, as soon as possible."


What I did... I would start the slogan, "British Raj," and people would repeat "Murdabad" -- "die soon." Three or four times I would say, "British Raj," and the fifth time I would say, "Shri Nath Batt." Because people were continuously saying "Murdabad," they would say "Murdabad."


Shri Nath Batt called me to his home and he said, "You are tricky; you always used my name after 'British Raj,' never after 'Bharatmata.' If you had used my name after 'Bharatmata' they would have said 'Zindabad' long live.' But you are mischievous."
I said, "No, I was not doing it knowingly."
He said, "Next time...."


I said, "One thing you have to promise: you have to drop your miserliness towards my friend, your boy, Shyam. If you promise me that then your name will come after 'Bharatmata,' I promise you that; otherwise your name will always come exactly in the middle of 'British Raj.' Five times it will be,'British Raj,' and then you; then again five times,'British Raj,' so people get mixed up." And I was always on the mike.


So he said, "Okay, it is a pact: I will not be miserly." But he was miserly -- it was very difficult for him not to be. Shyam became a doctor and I became a professor. Once Shyam became a doctor his father wouldn't allow him to join medical services. Shyam wanted to join medical services; he wanted to get away somehow from his father and his family, but his father wouldn't let him go.


Shri Nath Batt opened a shop for Shyam just by his shop so he could keep an eye on Shyam. He put a compounder of his choice, who was his man, and a nurse of his choice, in that shop. They had to keep an eye out to see that no money went anywhere, and every evening all the money that Doctor Shyam had earned went to Shri Nath Batt.


Shyam got married, and one day his wife sent a telegram that she was very sick, and that it would be helpful if Shyam came because he understood her more than any other doctor, although the doctors were doing their best.


She was at her father's place because she was pregnant. In India it is a tradition that the first child is born at the house of the wife's parents, because your mother will take more care than your mother-in-law, of course. A mother-in-law is only a mother-in-law. There is no mother -- it is only law. So this is traditional, for at least the first child. By the second child the woman will be capable of understanding many things on her own, but the first child... she is completely unaware about the pain and the trouble.


So Doctor Shyam told his father, "This telegram has come and my wife is sick." Now, from my village, Nagpur is not very far away. In those days it was two rupees for a one-way ticket, and at the most it was a ten-hour journey. So two rupees to go and two rupees to come back meant four rupees; and perhaps his wife was seriously sick so Shyam would spend something there. It meant nearabout fifty rupees would be gone -- and fifty rupees would give Shri Nath Batt a heart attack.


Shri Nath Batt simply said, "In Nagpur there are better doctors than you" -- Nagpur was the capital, in those days, of central India. "And there is a medical college with every kind of facility. So what are you going to do there? You have been a student in Nagpur, your professors are there: send a telegram to any one of your famous professors, to some gynecologist, and he will take care of her


"There is no need to go, and I am not going to spend money unnecessarily. Fifty rupees, and who knows? -- there you may spend more. And how many days will you be away? The fifty or sixty rupees that you earn here every day also has to be taken into account. If you are there for one week causing me such a loss -- and for no reason at all, because it is simple: I will send a telegram. Just give me the name of your professor in the medical college."


But Shyam was very much attached to his wife -- he escaped. He tried to travel without a ticket, and because he was without a ticket he was nervous. For the first time in his life he was traveling without a ticket -- and he, a doctor, a well-educated person. If he were caught it would be really shameful. He was so worried about his wife, about his father -- what would happen the next morning when he found that Shyam had escaped -- about the ticket....


He was standing just by the door because it was so crowded -- in India, trains are very crowded. Particularly in those days they were even more crowded; now there are more trains. So he was just standing there, holding onto the bars on the door as a handle, with such worry in his mind about whether he would be able to see his wife or not -- because she was not the type of woman who, knowing his father, would call him unless it were absolutely necessary.


While Shyam was in this tension and worry and the crowd, somebody pushed him, and he fell out of the train. Physically he was not harmed, but psychologically he went out of his mind accidentally. This is what I mean by falling out of the mind. Suddenly he crossed over the line of the mind. With too much worry, tension, fear, nervousness, the mind was as if in a cyclone. And then this shock of falling from the fastest -- moving train.... He simply slipped out of his mind.


He was brought home. People recognized that he was a doctor and by chance I happened to be in the village. I heard about the accident and I went to see him: he could not even recognize me, and he had forgotten his language. There was no harm to the body at all -- small bruises here and there, nothing to be worried about -- but he just looked vacant, empty. That's the way the enlightened person looks. If you look in his eyes they are empty, vacant. You may get afraid.


Shyam was in such a shock, not knowing what had happened -- but not worried, smiling. I had not seen him smiling for years, because of his father; nobody could smile in his house. There were five sons, five daughters-in-law and many grandchildren, but Shri Nath Batt was such a Tamerlane that it was impossible for anybody to smile, because even a smile means an unnecessary waste. Preserve everything!


It was Sigmund Freud's insight that the people who suffer from constipation are miserly people. They preserve everything, they can't allow anything to go out. Naturally, how could Shri Nath Batt allow anybody to smile? But now he could not do anything: Shyam was out of his mind. He laughed, he smiled -- I had never seen him so happy.


He remained mad, and for the first three years he really enjoyed it because no patients came to him anymore. Who would go to a madman? He would sit in his dispensary every day absolutely ready with his stethoscope and bag, and nobody would come except me, once in a while. He wouldn't recognize me, but it was a joy to be with him, just to laugh and enjoy. And he would try his doctoring on me.


I said, "Okay, you can, because you cannot find anybody; just no injections, because if your father comes to know that you are giving injections free, then he will create trouble for me. You can do a check, and you can do any kind of work that you want to do -- I can lie down." I would lie down and he would take a cardiogram and all that, but he wouldn't recognize me. I would say, "Shyam...?" and he would listen as if I were calling somebody else; he had forgotten his own name too. Those three years were really of great happiness.


His wife was in a terrible mess, but I told her, "One thing you should see: with Shri Nath Batt alive there was no chance to be happy. But this man, by accident, by God's grace, has slipped out of his mind. Don't feel sorry for him. Can't you see? Yes, he is mad, but what is wrong with it? -- he is happy. He was sane but unhappy and miserable. Now he goes into the market and purchases the best clothes possible because he does not have to pay -- Shri Nath Batt will have to pay!"


His father used to tell me, "You are spoiling him. First, he is mad; then you take him to the market, and people come to me with their bills; I have to pay. Please leave him."


I said, "This is not possible. Everybody has left him; now I am the only person. And I am immensely happy that he became mad because in this house you are all mad except him; you are all in misery. He is happy, so what is wrong with being mad? And if he had not gone out of his mind by accident then I would have tried my way, but he had to go out of his mind. And now that he has slipped out, let him enjoy it But remember, once he gets back into his mind I am going to help him to get out again -- of course from the right door."


But that Shri Nath Batt was really a dangerous miser. He was afraid that I could do something, and that perhaps my association was encouraging Shyam to remain mad, because I used to take him to the hotels, to the restaurants, and I told him, "You enjoy yourself Don't be worried about money -- whatsoever you want is yours."
And he said, "Is it so?"
I said, "Just enjoy!"


He wouldn't enjoy himself alone; he would ask anybody, say to any stranger, "Come on!" The whole town was happy, the shopkeepers were happy, but Shri Nath Batt was really enraged. After three years he forced Shyam into a mental home just so that I could not.... And he made it a point to the authorities in the madhouse that I should not be allowed in. My name and my photo he gave to the authorities saying, "This man should not be allowed to meet my son. Anybody else is allowed, but this photo you have to remember."


When I went to see him, the officer showed me the photo and the statement that the father had given. He said, "I am sorry, I cannot help if his father does not want you to see him. He has given us a written statement, and this photo so that we recognize you and don't allow you in. Otherwise you may come in some other name."


I told him the whole story. I said, "First listen to | the story, and if you are a man at all you should throw t this letter and this photograph. What proof has he got that he has given you a letter? And the reason why he does not want me to see his son is that he would prefer him to remain mad rather than become sane and start understanding me and what I want him to do." I told him the whole story.


The man could not believe that Shyam's father could be so cruel. He didn't say anything; he simply tore up the photograph and the letter and threw them in the bin, in the wastepaper basket, and told me, "Come in -- you are always welcome." So I saw Shyam: he was so happy there, in the madhouse with almost three hundred mad people. He was in rags, unclean -- perhaps he had not taken a bath for a few days, he was stinking -- but immensely happy. He was not able to recognize me.


Then I moved from Jabalpur. Shyam is still in a madhouse, and perhaps his whole life he will be in a madhouse, but he is in a better position than any sane man. I saw those three hundred mad people -- many times I went to see him -- they were all happy. One thing is sure: a madman is never in anguish. Why should he be? -- he has no problems.


Just see the point: even if you fall below the mind you are happy. It is the mind that is causing you all kinds of misery, suffering, jealousies, hatred, anger, violence, greed; and they all go on making you more and more a pain to yourself You start hurting all over, everybody is hurting all over. Even to fall below the mind -- which is falling below humanity, because that is the only difference between you and the animals.... A madman is really back in the world of animals. He has dropped out of evolution. He has gone back; he has turned his back on Charles Darwin. He has said, "Goodbye. Goodbye to your evolution!" He has simply fallen back to a subhuman level.


Animals are not happy, but they are not unhappy. Have you seen any animal unhappy? Yes, you will not see them happy -- they cannot be happy because they don't know what unhappiness is. But when a man falls from the human level to the subhuman level, he becomes happy because he knows what unhappiness is. So he is not exactly the same animal that he was before he became man. He is a totally different kind of animal; a happy animal. There is no happy buffalo, no happy donkey, no happy monkey, no happy Yankee. Animals are not happy because they don't know unhappiness. But a madman is just happy for no reason at all.


That gives tremendous proof of what I have been teaching you, that if you can get out of the mind -- but not by an accident, not by a shock -- you will be blissful.


It is possible, more than possible -- perhaps unfortunately it is going to happen -- that in communist countries they will start giving people electric shocks to bring their suffering down to the subhuman level; then they will be happy. And the shock will be given in a certain scientific way so that they will not be mad either. They will be functionally sane, like a computer -- but just functionally sane, like a mechanism with no soul. They cannot rebel. They will be very happy, and if they are happy why will they rebel? There will be no question of revolution; they will exist like robots.


There are many experiments going on in Russia and in China to make it possible that a man remains reasonable enough to be able to function in society, in the office, and yet is free of all worry, of all tension, all problems: he is happy. This will be the greatest crime against humanity; but there are scientists who are working on those lines. Even in America the famous psychologist, Delgado, is doing the same thing in a different way; and he has succeeded, he has shown his experiments to be absolutely successful.


He puts electrodes into your head.... One of the most strange things about your skull is that inside it there is no sensitivity. Even if a stone is put inside your skull and the skull is closed, you will not feel the stone because there is no sensitivity. The inside of the skull is absolutely insensitive, for a certain reason: it has the most precious instrument in your body. And the brain is such a complicated mechanism, with ten billion cells working, that if your skull were sensitive you would not be able to live, there would be so much noise coming inside your head. And if something goes wrong -- some cell dies, some part becomes unfunctioning -- you would become aware of all these things, which would drive you nuts.


And it is such a complex mechanism that many things can go wrong. Even if nothing is wrong, already half of your brain is not functioning anyway. Fifty percent of your brain is absolutely in a state of paralysis. perhaps that is the part of the mind that starts functioning when you become enlightened. The enlightened man can use his mind more efficiently than the greatest intellectual can, for the simple reason that he is outside the mind and has an overall view; and perhaps the half of the brain that is not functioning in normal human beings starts functioning when your consciousness goes beyond your normal reason, as you transcend your rationality. The other part functions only with your transcendence.


This is the experience of all those who have become enlightened. And when I say this, I say it on my own authority. I would not believe it if Buddha ad said it: perhaps he was Lying, perhaps he was misguided; perhaps he was not Lying but was not right.?perhaps there was no intention to lie; but he could be confused, he could make a mistake. But I know t from my own experience, because it is such a tremendous change that you cannot miss it. It is almost Is if half of your body was paralyzed, then one day suddenly you feel you are no more paralyzed; both your sides are functioning. Can you miss it? If a person who has been paralyzed suddenly finds he is not paralyzed, can he miss it? There is no possibility of missing it.


I know perfectly well the moment before enlightenment happened to me, and the moment after, with absolute certainty, knew that something within my mind -- which I was not even aware existed -- had stirred and had started functioning. Since then there has been no problem for me. Since then I have existed without a problem, without a worry, without any tension.


All these qualities come from the other part of the mind which is not functioning. And when the whole mind functions and you are out of it, you are the master. The mind is the best servant you can find, and the worst master you can find. But ordinarily the mind is the master -- and that too, only half of it. The master... and half paralyzed! When you become the master, the mind is the servant and fully healthy, fully recovered.


Delgado put small electrodes, very small electrodes, into the head. In the mind there are seven hundred centers -- exactly the same number as acupuncture had discovered five thousand years ago in China. Acupuncture has discovered seven hundred centers on the body; those seven hundred centers on the body are connected with the seven hundred centers in the mind. So it looks strange -- acupuncture's way of treating a patient is very strange.


You have a headache and they may push their needles into your knee. You will say, "What are you doing? I have a headache and you are bothering about my knee." They will say, "Don't interfere; we know what we are doing."


They have found, over these five thousand years, which center in the body is connected with a corresponding center in the head. And strangely enough, by pushing a needle into your knee or your thigh, your headache disappears. There is a current of electricity -- now it is called scientifically bio-electricity -- which is a very mild current of electricity but still is electricity. And sometimes very subtle things work miracles.


You have so much electricity always running in your body that you can put a five watt bulb in your hand and it can light up. It ordinarily does not happen, otherwise you would start giving shocks to people. But once it happened that a woman, somehow a freak of nature, started giving shocks to people. First her husband got shocked; he escaped from the house, screaming. Then the neighbors tried, but just to shake hands was enough. Then doctors were called in, and it was found that somehow her body electricity, which moves in a circle, had freaked out; somewhere her inner mechanism had gone wrong.


And actually it was tried: a five watt bulb was put in that woman's hand -- and it lit up! Now, it is a scientifically established fact that subtle currents of electricity are continuously moving in the body, just like the blood. Each center is connected with other centers in the body. The real thing happens always inside the skull, but it immediately reaches the body.


In the second world war, one man's leg was cut off -- it was so damaged that there was no other way, and it was so terrible a pain that the man would regain consciousness, but the moment he felt the pain he would become unconscious again; it was unbearable. Consciousness could not exist with the pain; he could bear that pain only in unconsciousness. There was no need to give him any drugs, just the pain was enough to force him to go into unconsciousness. So they had to cut off his leg. But the strange thing was that when he became conscious again he was still complaining about the pain in the leg. He was covered with a blanket so he had no idea that the leg had been removed. The doctors said, "It is impossible."


He said, "I am suffering, and you say 'impossible'?" Most of the pain was concentrated in his toe: he said, "My toe is hurting so much."


The doctor said, "Just look," and he uncovered his body: the leg was gone, the toe was gone. They brought his leg from the lab and said, "This is your toe and this is your leg. Now how can your toe give you pain? You are just hallucinating, imagining."


The man said, "I can see you have cut off my leg. I can see the leg, and that it is my leg -- I know it is, I realize it, I recognize it -- and that is the toe that is hurting. But it is hurting here."


This was the first case to give the indication that the toe is connected to some brain center. The brain center was still vibrating in the same way it was vibrating while the leg was still connected. You have disconnected the leg but the center connected with the leg is still vibrating in the same way. That started great research work on how to get to the centers of the head -- because perhaps the leg could have been saved if they had stopped the vibration of the particular center in the head. Then even if the toe were damaged, the man would not have felt any pain, because every experience happens in the head although it may be coming from any part of the body.


This research finally ended up in Delgado's hands, and he managed to find all seven hundred centers in the mind. Now, he puts an electrode in a particular center in the mind -- for example, your happiness center -- and he has a remote control with himself He just puts an electrode there and whenever he wants you to be happy he just pushes a button -- it is a remote control, no wire is connected to you so you cannot see anything -- and you start laughing, enjoying, giggling as if somebody is tickling you. You don't see anybody -- what is happening? And the man may be miles away but he can still control you.


Delgado showed his experiment first in Spain with a bull. He had put an electrode into the bull's head and he went into the field. Spaniards are strange people. They enjoy a bullfight just as the Americans enjoy football. Strange people I simply wonder.... There are a few idiots running with a ball, a few idiots returning the ball, and millions of idiots jumping up and down and fighting! It seems to be that Charles Darwin is not right: man has not evolved, he is still a monkey. Now, a man fighting a bull, putting a man in danger of death....


Delgado proved that the bull can be controlled; there is no problem. The strongest bull was given to him and he put an electrode inside it. He waved the red flag, and the bull came rushing -- just like J. Krishnamurti seeing orange. Jiddu Krishnamurti -- that is his full name; Jiddu Krishnamurti. "J. Krishnamurti" saves him from some trouble because "Jiddu Krishnamurti.... jiddu means stubborn; he is stubborn.


The bull came rushing towards Delgado who was standing there waving a red flag. When he was just one foot away and ready to push his horns into Delgado, Delgado pushed a button of the remote control in his pocket and the bull stopped so suddenly that the millions of people who were watching it could not believe it: what happened to the bull? He just stopped, frozen, as if he were practicing George Gurdjieff's "Stop" exercise. He remained like a statue, he would not move.


Delgado said, "We can control every man..." and there is a possibility, sooner or later, that totalitarian governments are going to do it. Perhaps they have already started, because in Russia you cannot give birth to a child in your home -- that is illegal -- every child has to be born in a government hospital.


Now, when the child is just born is the best time to put an electrode into his skull. The skull is very soft and the centers are very alive; if they grow with the electrode there, the electrode will become almost part of the brain. The child will never suspect throughout his whole life that everything that he is doing is manipulated from the switchboard in the central office of the communist party.


It can make you happy, it can make you unhappy; it can make you rebellious, it can make you obedient. Obviously, they don't want any disobedience; they don't want any revolution, any rebellion, any doubt. Naturally, only those buttons will be used which make you a slave -- but a very happy slave. They have reduced you to a robot.


The madman falls out of the mind, but he is better than a robot because the robot is controlled from the outside; somebody else has the remote controls. The controls can be given to you too; that too is a possibility. You can be given a small switchboard: if you are feeling angry and you don't want to feel angry, you just push the anti-anger button and you are no longer angry.


Now, what is the need of Buddha teaching forty years, and people still get angry, and Jesus teaching people to be humble -- and nobody is humble? But with a Delgado switchboard things are very simple. You can have your own switchboard. You can push the button and have any kind of enjoyment that you want, any kind of hallucination, any kind of dream that you want.


I doubt that these remote controls will be given to people; they will be in the hands of the government. To me, this is more dangerous than nuclear weapons -- which can kill you, but at least you will die as a human being, with dignity. But this is worse than death -- that from the White House they make you happy. On Christmas day, a slightly bigger dose, and the whole country goes bananas! Everybody will think this must be the work of jesus or his father or the Holy Ghost.


A madman is far better -- at least nobody is in control of him. But he also is not in control of himself


The enlightened man is out of his mind but he has full control of his mind. And he does not need a switchboard -- just his awareness is enough. If you observe anything minutely, you will have a little experience of the enlightened man -- not the full experience but a little taste, just a tongue-tip taste. If you observe your anger minutely, anger disappears. You are feeling a sexual urge: watch it closely, and soon it disappears.


If just by your watching, things evaporate, what to say about the man who is continually above the mind, simply aware of the whole mind? Then all those ugly things that you would like to drop simply evaporate. And remember, they all have energy. Anger is energy. When anger evaporates, the energy which is left behind turns into compassion. It is the same energy. Through observation the anger has left -- that was the mode, the form surrounding the energy -- but the energy remains. Now, the energy of anger, without anger, is compassion. When sex disappears the tremendous energy of love is left behind. Each ugly thing in your mind, disappearing, leaves a great treasure behind.


The enlightened man has no need to drop anything and has no need to practice anything. All that is wrong drops of its own accord because it cannot stand up to his awareness, and all that is good evolves of its own accord because awareness is nourishment for it.


The madman can be helped very easily because he has tasted something out of the mind, but he needs to be shown the right door.


In a better world our madhouses will not only be trying to make those people sane -- that is meaningless -- our madhouses will be trying to help those people to use that opportunity to move through the right door. A madman going into a madhouse will come out enlightened -- not just the same old self again, miserable, suffering.


So, to me, madness has immense significance. It can become a way towards enlightenment. It should be used as a means. Yes, there is a tremendous difference between the two. The madman is only happy, and not knowing why; the enlightened man is blissful, and knowing perfectly well why. He cannot be cured because he is not sick; he is incurable.
My father used to tell me, "You are incurable."


I said, "You are right, because I am not sick. You are curable because you are sick."


He used to say that because he could not convince me about certain things he wanted me to do. For example, he wanted me to get married. Naturally, when I came back from the university he wanted me to get married. But he had no courage to say anything to me, or ask, "What about marriage?" because he knew already that it was going to become a great argument and there would be difficulty. He thought, "It is better not to hear 'no' directly from him, because once he says 'no' then there is no way to change it into 'yes.' So I will keep at least one possibility open: I have not asked him yet, I will let others ask first."


He asked one of his friends who was a supreme court advocate -- and he asked him because he was known all over the country. It was known that he had never been defeated in any case in his whole life, he had always been victorious. So my father said to him, he gave him a challenge: "Here is a case -- my boy: you have to convince him about marriage."
The advocate said, "That is a simple matter. I will come tomorrow."
My father said, "My friend is coming and he wants to meet you."
I said, "I know why he wants to meet me -- let him come!"
My father said, "How do you know?"


I said, "Don't be worried. It is something to do with marriage." It was that time he told me, "You are incurable. How did you manage to know?"


I said, "It is simple guesswork -- no need to be a prophet. Why would you bring that idiot to me? You have never brought him before. I have just come from university, finished with university, and I knew from the very beginning that the first thing when I got back home would be the question of marriage. I have just arrived home and tomorrow he is coming. Let him come!"


The advocate came. He started arguing the way he must be arguing in the supreme court. I said, "You understand one thing first: if you convince me about marriage I will get married, I will be absolutely ready. Convinced, there is no problem. But if I convince you that it is wrong, then are you going to divorce your wife or not? This should be settled, otherwise it is an unbalanced case: only I am the loser. What is at stake? You put your wife, I am putting my life. You are not putting much more than me. I am putting my life -- you put your wife."
He said, "Then I will have to think about it.


I said, "No, no need to think about it. Don't be such a coward. I leave it to you because I believe you are a just man, a fair man. I have always called you my uncle, and I trust you just as I trust my father. So I am not asking for a judge: I leave it to you to make the judgment about whether I am victorious or defeated. Your judgment I will accept."


He said, "Still, wait. You are putting me into difficulties. You are making me judge also; that is tricky because you are challenging my fairness. You are also saying,'I have have been calling you my uncle and I trust you,' so you are challenging my integrity. And the real thing is that I have never thought about it, about marriage, because this has never been a case in my life -- to convince somebody about marriage. And because you have put it that way, perhaps you are right... because my wife is such a pain in the neck!


"You may convince me; in fact, inside I am already convinced that if I had not got into this trouble it would have been far better. So there is a possibility you may bring my own inner conviction up. To be truthful with you, don't bother about marriage, because it is really a trouble. Drop this thing completely. I will try to console your father, to get him to leave you alone."


My father said to him, "I told you before that you may have been victorious in all your cases but my son is incurable, he is simply impossible."


The advocate said, "You are right, because even before starting the argument I was defeated. We had not argued. In fact he managed to have me tell him, 'Don't get married.' He reminded me about my wife, and he knows everything about me and my wife, so I could not cheat him and could not lie in front of him. He knows everything. And he had said,'I put my life on one side, you put your wife on the other side.' In fact I would have liked to lose the case, but my wife and my children and my whole family... it is too much. You forget about this boy -- leave him alone."


If you can see the total aspect of anything, no problem arises. The problems arise because you see only one aspect and you don't see the other aspects. A bird's eye view is needed; and that is where the enlightened man is different from the madman. The madman has no vision, he has fallen into darkness; he is blind.


The enlightened man has risen into light and he has nothing but eyes, opening into all dimensions.


He can see anything from all possible viewpoints simultaneously; hence, his answer is immediate. He has not to think about the answer: even before the question arises, the answer is there, because his vision is clear.
He can see far and wide. His whole life is transparent.
He has gone above the mechanical mind into a non-mechanical consciousness.


You can destroy the brain, then the mind will be finished; but you cannot destroy consciousness because it is not dependent on the brain or the brain system You can destroy the body, you can destroy the brain, but if you have been able to free your consciousness from both, you know you are intact, untouched; not even a dent has been made on you.


Mansoor could laugh even on the cross. A man in the crowd asked, "Why are you laughing?"


He said, "I am laughing because they are crucifying somebody else, but they think it is me. I am just as much a watcher as you all are. You are watching Al-Hillaj Mansoor being crucified; I am also watching -- we are all watchers. But these people who are crucifying Al-Hillaj Mansoor, they think they are crucifying me. That's why I am laughing -- at how blind mankind is. They are killing somebody else thinking that he is me."
An enlightened man can laugh even while dying.


Even death is just a laughing matter, because his experience proves that he is above time, above changes, above forms, that he is universal, that he is part of the whole continent of consciousness.
Even death is just a coming back home.
The second question? My hands are not tired yet!
<p class="question">OSHO,
ARE THE HOLY SCRIPTURES JUST USELESS? AND ARE THEY HOLY OR NOT?</p>


THE holy scriptures are not just useless, they are absolutely harmful. If they were just useless there would be no need to be concerned with them. They are positively harmful. They are preventing people from becoming religious because they make people knowledgeable, and people start thinking that knowledgeability is wisdom, it is enlightenment. Because they know about great words, theological doctrines, dogmas, philosophies, naturally they think, What else is there to know? You have crammed the whole BIBLE or GITA or KORAN; then what else is there? And by cramming the KORAN, the GITA, or the BIBLE, you have not gained anything.


So the holy scriptures are not just useless. If they were useless there would be no harm: they could be preserved in libraries where many other useless books are preserved. I have read so many useless books -- but they have to be preserved. They are useless only, they are not harmful.


But about holy scriptures I cannot say that they should be preserved. They should be completely destroyed. As far as you are concerned, at least within you, you should make a bonfire of all holy scriptures, because unless you burn all that nonsense you will never be able to know your innocence, you will never be able to know the beauty of your ignorance. And out of that innocent ignorance arises knowing. It is not out of knowledge that knowing comes.
Knowledge hinders knowing because it pretends to be knowing.


Ignorance is sincere, honest. It has no pretensions about it: it simply is ignorance.


And because it is honest, true, sincere, it opens you, makes you available to know; makes you capable of seeing. Your eyes are no more covered with knowledge, thick garbage.
No, the holy scriptures are not just useless, they are positively harmful.


And you ask me: are they holy? Yes, they are one hundred percent holy: fifty percent holy cow dung fifty percent holy bullshit!
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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