---
section: Library
booktitle: "Until You Die"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "UNTIL"
dategiven: "13 April 1975 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #3"
chaptertitle: "Walking Without Crutches"
acode: "7504130"
shorttitle: "UNTIL03"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "85mins"
displaytitle: "Until You Die: Chapter #3"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">A MAN ONCE HURT HIS LEG. HE HAD TO WALK WITH A CRUTCH.
THIS CRUTCH WAS VERY USEFUL TO HIM, BOTH FOR WALKING, AND MANY OTHER THINGS.
HE TAUGHT ALL HIS FAMILY TO USE CRUTCHES, AND THEY BECAME PART OF NORMAL LIFE. IT WAS PART OF EVERYONE'S AMBITION TO HAVE A CRUTCH. SOME WERE MADE OF IVORY, OTHERS ADORNED WITH GOLD. SCHOOLS WERE OPENED TO TRAIN PEOPLE IN THEIR USE, UNIVERSITY CHAIRS ENDOWED TO DEAL WITH THE HIGHER ASPECTS OF THIS SCIENCE.
A FEW, A VERY FEW PEOPLE, STARTED TO WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES. THIS WAS CONSIDERED SCANDALOUS, ABSURD. BESIDES, THERE WERE SO MANY USES FOR CRUTCHES.
SOME REPLIED, AND WERE PUNISHED. THEY TRIED TO SHOW THAT A CRUTCH WOULD BE USED SOMETIMES, WHEN NEEDED; OR THAT MANY OF THE OTHER USES TO WHICH A CRUTCH WAS PUT COULD BE SUPPLIED IN OTHER WAYS.
FEW LISTENED.
IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE PREJUDICES, SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO COULD WALK WITHOUT SUPPORT BEGAN TO BEHAVE IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY FROM ESTABLISHED SOCIETY.
STILL THEY REMAINED FEW.
WHEN IT WAS FOUND THAT, HAVING USED CRUTCHES FOR SO MANY GENERATIONS, FEW PEOPLE COULD IN FACT WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES, THE MAJORITY 'PROVED' THAT THEY WERE NECESSARY. 'HERE,' THEY SAID, 'HERE IS A MAN -- TRY TO MAKE HIM WALK WITHOUT A CRUTCH. SEE? -- HE CANNOT!'
'BUT WE ARE WALKING WITHOUT CRUTCHES,' THE ORDINARY WALKERS REMINDED THEM.
'THIS IS NOT TRUE; MERELY A FANCY OF YOUR OWN,' SAID THE CRIPPLES, BECAUSE BY THAT TIME THEY WERE BECOMING BLIND AS WELL -- BLIND BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT SEE.</p>


LIFE IS a movement, a constant flux. Each moment it is new. But the mind? -- the mind is never new. It is always lagging behind. The very nature of the mind is such that it cannot be one with the life. Life goes on: mind lags behind. There is always an inconsistency between life and mind -- it has to be so.


You see a flower: the moment you realize that you have seen it, it is no more the same -- life has moved. You see a river, but you don't see the same river again. You cannot. Says old Heraclitus: 'You cannot step in the same river twice.' And I say to you that you cannot step in the same river even once -- because the river is constantly flowing.


The moment mind recognizes something, it is already no more the case. Mind goes on accumulating dead footprints. Life once existed there, but it is there no more.


And we are trained as minds; that is the misery. You go on missing life, and you will go on missing it -- unless you drop the mind, unless you start living out of a state of no-mindness. Then you are one with the life. Then the inconsistency between you and your mind disappears. Then you no longer live according to some ideas, because ideas are of the mind. You don't live according to any ideology, religion, scripture, tradition -- you simply live out of the emptiness of your being.


It is difficult in the beginning even to conceive how one can live out of emptiness. But out of emptiness all the trees are growing, and out of emptiness stars are moving, and out of emptiness the whole existence exists -- and there is no trouble. Only man has the absurd idea that without mind it will be difficult to exist. In fact, with the mind it is difficult to exist -- because existence and mind are two separate, not only separate, but contrary dimensions.


If you want to be consistent with the mind, you will be inconsistent with the life.


It happened: There was a case against Mulla Nasruddin in the court, and the judge asked him, 'How old are you, Nasruddin?'


And he said, 'Of course, you know and everybody knows I am forty years old.'


The judge was surprised and he said, 'But five years ago also you were in the court and I asked you, and then too you said that you were forty years old. How is it possible? After five years, you are again forty years old?'


Nasruddin said, 'I am a consistent man, sir. Once I say I am forty, I will remain forty for ever -- you can rely on me.'


If you are consistent with the mind, you will become such a reliable man. You will be consistent -- and absolutely inconsistent -- because life goes on. It is never static. Not even for a single moment does life stay anywhere. Life doesn't know any rest. Life has no tradition to follow, no ideology to imitate, no pattern fixed by the past. Life is always an opening into the unknown.


Life moves towards the future, mind moves towards the past. Mind is always closed in the experience that has happened already, and life is always open for the experience that has never happened before. How can they meet? How is there any possibility of their meeting? Then, by and by, mind becomes completely closed in itself. Not only that, the mind even becomes afraid to see what life is.


The fear comes because the mind knows that if you look at the life, you will be proved wrong. So better remain with closed eyes, don't look at life. Interpret life always according to the mind. Don't listen to it! That's how you have become deaf. That's how you have become blind. That's how you cannot listen and understand me -- because here there is no person. I'm not talking to you as a mind. You can meet me only on the ground of life, not on the ground of mind.


That's why you will always feel I am inconsistent. I am. You cannot compare anything I will assert today with anything that I asserted yesterday. You will find me inconsistent. But what can I do? This morning everything is new. This morning has never been there before -- and will not be there again. It doesn't belong to the past. It doesn't belong to the future. It belongs to itself -- a unique phenomenon. The parrots chattering in the trees, they were not there yesterday. And who knows where they will be tomorrow? And the breeze -- warm breeze passing through the trees, soft and warm like a woman -- will not be there. Everything will be different! Everything was different yesterday. It is already different today.


AND YOU ARE NOT THE SAME. How can you be? If you are alive, you are a riverlike phenomenon. Twenty-four hours have passed. Twenty-four hours is like millennia; millions of seconds have passed. How can you be the same? I don't recognize you. I have never seen you before. You are absolutely new. How can I say the same thing to you that I said to you yesterday? And I am no more there, the man who was here yesterday.


Life is constantly a resurrection. Every moment it dies, every moment it is born anew. But you go on carrying the old mind. You will never fit anywhere. And you know it: you never fit anywhere; you never fit with anybody. Wherever you are there is some trouble. Something is always missing, lacking. The harmony never comes out of your relationships -- because the harmony is possible only if you are a flux-like phenomenon, changing, moving, merging into the new.


If you become a formless river of consciousness, then everything fits. Then you fit with life, and life fits with you -- suddenly everything is absolutely okay. And that absolute feeling of harmony is what religious people have been calling God.


God is not a person. God is a state of being when everything fits. When you have no complaint, suddenly everything is beautiful. But the mind makes everything ugly, because mind lives as a tradition -- and life is momentary.


This English word 'tradition' is very, very meaningful. You may not even be aware, but it comes from the same root as the word 'traitor'; 'tradition' comes from the same root as the word 'traitor'. Tradition is a betrayal of life, it is treachery.


Your mind betrays. If you can drop the mind, everything is attained. Dropping of the mind is the essence of all religion. Sufism is nothing but how to drop the mind, the tradition, the past. That's why religion always looks revolutionary -- because it is always against tradition. It is always against the past. It is always against frozen words. It is always for life, flow.


No religion can be a tradition, but all religions have become traditions. That means they have gone false; they are religions no more. A religion remains religion only when it is true to existence and life -- not true to any dogma, not true to any scripture, Veda, Koran, Bible. That's why Sufism was not understood by Mohammedans. They are one of the most fanatic peoples on this earth. How can they understand Sufism? Too book-oriented, too obsessed with the Koran -- no other people are so obsessed with a book. Of course, when the Koran descended on Mohammed, it was a live moment, it was a fitting phenomenon -- suddenly Mohammed was in the harmony of the universe, and the universe started unveiling its secrets to him. And the first word that came to Mohammed was: 'Recite! Recite in my name!' The word 'Koran' means recite, because it is the first word that came to Mohammed. It is a beautiful word -- if you can understand while it is alive; otherwise it is ugly when it is dead.


It is just like a beautiful woman passing, moving. The very gesture, the curves of her body, the life that is flowing in her, the radiancy of her being, it is so beautiful. You can freeze her and make a statue out of her and put it in the garden -- there will be no more beauty because beauty was in her very aliveness. A frozen woman, how can it be beautiful? It is a corpse. And those curves, when they were moving and alive, they had something of the divine. Now nothing is left; it is only matter, a dead body.


When for the first time, on the Mount of Hira, Mohammed heard this: 'Recite! Recite in the name of thy Lord!' he was as if awakened from a deep sleep. He looked around. Who has spoken? There was nobody. Life is not somebody -- life is this All, the Whole. And Mohammed started reciting. He must have danced, he must have sung, in the name of the Lord.


In that moment there was music. In that moment there was dance. In that moment there was a heart, there was singing. In that moment there was celebration. Mohammed had been accepted. Mohammed had merged into the Whole, and the Whole had merged into Mohammed -- the drop into the ocean, and the ocean into the drop.


It was the culmination of a being, the highest peak that one can rise to. But when others started writing it, it no longer had the same beauty; the words were now frozen. The Koran is a book just like the Vedas, Bible, Upanishads -- very meaningful words are there, but dead. And unless you have come to feel that moment at the Mount of Hira, when the whole existence says to you, 'Recite in the name of thy Lord!' you will not be able to understand the Koran. You can carry it -- it will become a burden; it will not give you life. On the contrary, it may take lives from many others. A burden is dangerous, and a burden ultimately becomes aggression; one feels irritated, destructive.


Mohammedans couldn't understand Sufis. And Mohammed is nothing but a Sufi. No tradition can understand Sufis. They are always the outcasts, thrown out of the society and the established pattern. Because they always bring the revolution with them. They come like a storm, and they shake the very foundations of the established society, the dead society, culture and civilization; the universities, the government, the church -- all dead. But the majority of the people are also dead.


Because the majority of the people are also dead, a dead, established society fits. Once you become alive, once your life energy arises, you will suddenly feel that you fit with existence, but you don't fit with the society. And I tell you: if you don't fit with the society, don't bother about it, because ultimately it means nothing. The only thing that will be meaningful ultimately will be whether you fit with existence or not.


Try to be harmonious with life, howsoever arduous. Even if it sometimes seems impossible, but try to be in harmony with the Whole. Even at the cost of being thrown out of the society and forced to become an outsider, don't bother about it. This is what sannyas means to me.


Sannyas means an effort to seek ways and means to be in harmony with the Whole, even if it creates a rift between you and your society -- because society is man-made. Even if you fit, nothing is achieved. One has to find his home into the Ultimate. And all societies are against God.


People think that there are societies which are not against God. No. Sometimes, very rarely, for a few moments in history, in the vast desert of societies, a few oases have existed -- but they are exceptions. No society has really existed which was religious. For example, when Buddha was alive, then an oasis existed around him: a few thousand people -- nothing compared to the whole world -- a few thousand people converted, transformed, existed with Buddha. But the moment Buddha disappeared, that oasis disappeared, the very springs disappeared -- how long can the trees exist without it?


A few oases here and there, rarely, have existed, but the society at large has remained anti-religious. But the people who manage the establishment are very cunning. They give society a ritualistic, formalistic, religious shape; churches exist, temples exist, and people go and pray; and holidays are there, religious holidays -- but all formal. Don't be deceived by the formality of it; it is a deception. It is to give you a feeling that the society is religious and you need not go beyond society to seek religion. And religion is always beyond society, because religion is always alive, it is not of the mind. And society is always of the mind; it is an order maintained by the mind. Religion is not an order maintained by the mind -- religion is a discipline, loose and natural. It is not that you maintain it and manipulate it; rather, on the contrary, you lose yourself into the riverlike phenomenon, and the river takes possession.


The mind is the corrupter -- but it corrupts very diplomatically. It corrupts in such subtle ways: very difficult for you to even be conscious of what is going on.


For example: something in a certain moment is true, then the mind clings onto it and it says, 'When it was true in that moment it must be true for ever, because truth is eternal.' And I tell you: Nothing changes like truth -- and that's why it is eternal. Because if it doesn't change, then it will die any day. It changes so continuously that it cannot die, because change means a renewal of life energy.


Truth is eternal, but not non-changing. Truth is eternal because of eternal change. It renews itself continuously. It never allows anything dead into itself; it simply throws it out. It never accumulates the dead parts, because through those dead parts descends death.


Mind will die, mind will have to die because it accumulates death. Life never dies because it goes on changing.


Remember this: Truth is not permanent, it is eternal. And it is eternal because it is not permanent. It is eternal because it is constantly changing. Through change it survives. Through change it becomes new. Through constantly changing, it becomes elusive to death. The death cannot take hold of it.


But mind has its own logical forms, which are absurd if you know what life is. But if you don't know life, then mind has its own logic. And the logic seems absolutely solid, absolutely error-proof. Look for this.


The mind says this has been true, so it must be true, now and for ever. Yes, the Koran was true; it was true in a particular situation. The situation was the merger of the soul, of the individuality of Mohammed into the Whole. In that moment a song was born. It was true. It was as true as the parrots chattering, the trees flowering, the sun moving -- but that moment gone, Mohammed disappeared. That unity that existed in that moment is no more there. Now the Koran is a dead burden just like the Gita, Vedas, Bible.


Whatsoever I am saying to you is true this moment. Tomorrow it will become a dead burden. Don't carry it. Live it if you can live it right now. Enjoy, if you can enjoy it with me right now. Celebrate it! This very moment let your consciousness meet... let it go deep in you. It can transform you. Be pregnant with it -- but this very moment! Don't postpone it for tomorrow, because tomorrow it will not be valid any more. Nothing can be valid beyond its moment.


The mind says that if something is valid today, it will be valid tomorrow. That's how traditions are born. That's how very meaningful things become meaningless, absurd. That's how beauty is reduced to ugliness.


Krishna talking to Arjuna was one of the pinnacles of human consciousness. But the Gita? The Gita is just a memory. It won't help you. Krishna has to be encountered immediately, directly. You will have to become an Arjuna, and you will have to seek your own Krishna. And remember: you will not be the same Arjuna, because how can you be? You have a totally different being, a totally different quality of being -- how can you be the old Arjuna again? No. You will never be. And you will never find the Krishna that Arjuna could find. You will have to find your own Krishna, one with whom you can meet and merge; one with whom you can have such a unity that the disciple doesn't feel any more that he is the disciple, and the Master has forgotten that he is the Master. Nobody knows who is who. In such a deep participation of being, again the song is born. 'Gita' means the song; 'Bhagavad Gita' means the divine song. Again, the Gita is born. But the same words will not be repeated, because this time Krishna is different and this time Arjuna is different -- how can the same words be repeated again? And God is infinite; he need not repeat. He is not yet exhausted. He need not repeat himself again. That will be a very poor God if he again recites the Gita. That will not even be a God, not even worth listening to. Something new will again happen, and this new may not be consistent with the old.


There arises the problem of the real religious man and the false, pseudo-religious man.


The pseudo-religious man will always stick to the past, to the old, and the real religious man will always move with the new. And this is the paradox: moving with the new, you will attain to all that is hidden in the old; and clinging with the old, you will miss all that is hidden in the old and hidden in the new. The new is always the door of God. He goes on making new doors for you as you travel along; always new doors he goes on opening for you. Don't ask for the old doors.


Mind always asks for the old doors. If I say something to you, you immediately start comparing -- whether it is written in the Gita, Koran, Bible. If it is written, your head nods; you say, 'Right.' If it is not written, suddenly you are closed; you are not nodding, you are not saying yes. And I tell you that whatsoever is written is already irrelevant, it is already passed, it is no more meaningful.


One has to seek the meaning constantly, because the very search for the meaning is a growth for your situation.


Now, this beautiful parable. Each word has to be understood. It is a parable with many meanings pregnant in it.
<p class="sutra">A MAN ONCE HURT HIS LEG. HE HAD TO WALK WITH A CRUTCH.</p>


That's how religions are born. I know a man, a friend, a childhood friend; he was a very good doctor. And then he fell from a train in an accident. Accidentally, something changed in his head. The head was hurt; for three days he was unconscious, and when he became conscious he became a totally different personality. He had always been a very angry man; that anger disappeared. Something was broken in the brain; some energy pattern changed. He became very silent, very non-aggressive, very peace-loving. And then people started asking him how it happened. He said, 'It happened in a fast-moving train: you jump and hit your head on the earth. It has happened this way to me -- -why not to you?'


When I heard this, I went to see him and I said, 'What are you doing? What are you telling people?'


He said, 'But this is how it has happened to me -- and I tried and tried not to be angry, and nothing happened. Suddenly, by accident,' he said to me, 'a key has been given to me.'


But I said, 'You keep this key secret and hidden; don't give it to anybody -- because accidents cannot be repeated.'


And this is how many traditions are born. Buddha was sitting in a particular posture: it was accidental -- because enlightenment has no choice for a particular posture. It has happened when people were resting, Lying down; it has happened when people were walking; it has happened... people were carrying water and it has happened. It has happened in all sorts of postures. The enlightenment has no choice! It doesn't depend on the body posture. But Buddha was sitting in siddhasana, the Buddha posture, and now Buddhists have been following that for two thousand years: sitting in that posture, waiting for enlightenment to happen. Foolish people, but they are in abundance everywhere.


This is how all yoga postures were born: something happened in a particular posture -- that posture became very important. Then people go on trying gymnastics, forcing their bodies in this way and that, and think that in a certain posture a certain thing is going to happen. There is no relevance in it. Sitting on a chair enlightenment is possible. There is no need to make a form too meaningful and significant; otherwise, you will be obsessed by it.


People go to the Himalayas because many people became enlightened there -- but it can happen anywhere. God is everywhere! There is no need to go to the Himalayas. Many teachers in the world go on prospering just because they did something and something happened to them. It may not happen to another, because individuals are different; they are as different as they can be.


My insistence is always that you will have to seek something, something which no tradition can supply to you. You will have to seek your own path, your own method. You can try with many methods, just to have a feel which method will be more suitable for you; and then, too, no method, no generalized form of any method, can be of much help. By and by, you will have to evolve your own individual method.


It is just like the print of your thumb -- it is unique. Nobody else has that type of thumb all over the world. Not now, no, not even in the past -- nobody ever had that thumb. And nobody will ever have it in the future.
You are a unique signature of the Divine.


No general method can help you. Generalized forms are good to try to begin with, but one has to evolve his own style, one has to evolve his own method. Something has to be added, something has to be deleted, and, by and by, you have to create your own system around you. The path is not already there. You have to walk and create the path.


That's how a Master helps people. He will give them a generalized form to work with, just to feel their being, how it fits, how much it fits; whether it fits or doesn't fit at all. That's why I have created many methods, and I will go on creating many methods; it will depend on the people coming to me. Whenever a new person comes to me, I start thinking about something new for him. Many methods are needed so you can feel with every method and create an individual pattern of your own.
<p class="sutra">A MAN ONCE HURT HIS LEG. HE HAD TO WALK WITH A CRUTCH.
THIS CRUTCH WAS VERY USEFUL TO HIM, BOTH FOR WALKING AND MANY OTHER THINGS.</p>


You can rest on it whenever you feel tired. You can scare stray dogs following you with your crutch. If it is necessary you can fight; the crutch can become a weapon. So many other uses also. And the man found that the pain disappeared, and he felt very restful. He had found a mantra, a TM, a transcendental meditation. He started teaching about it, he started helping people. People are in pain, hurt; they need crutches. And there are many other uses also.
<p class="sutra">HE TAUGHT ALL HIS FAMILY TO USE CRUTCHES, AND THEY BECAME PART OF NORMAL LIFE. IT WAS PART OF EVERYONE'S AMBITION TO HAVE A CRUTCH. SOME WERE MADE OF IVORY, OTHERS ADORNED WITH GOLD. SCHOOLS WERE OPENED TO TRAIN PEOPLE IN THEIR USE, UNIVERSITY CHAIRS ENDOWED TO DEAL WITH THE HIGHER ASPECTS OF THIS SCIENCE.</p>


Fools abound -- and they are always ready to be taught. And you cannot find a man, howsoever idiotic he may be, who cannot find a few disciples. People are ready, because people are in misery. They want something, some method, some path, some technique, to overcome their misery. That's why they become victims of many unnecessary things; not only unnecessary -- irrelevant; not only irrelevant -- positively harmful.
<p class="sutra">A FEW, A VERY FEW PEOPLE, STARTED TO WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES.</p>


Because it is very difficult to go against the society. It is very, very difficult, because the society will create many, many hindrances, obstacles. It will punish you if you go against it. It will appreciate you, honour you, if you go with it. It will help your ego if you go with it. If you don't go with it, it will destroy your ego. Many people, knowingly, knowing well that this is foolish, simply go on, because why create unnecessary trouble? They make compromises.


This story seems to be an exaggeration; such an absurd thing, you think. It is not. This has already happened. You think, 'Why and how is it possible? -- people who are walking normally already, how can they be seduced to use crutches?' They have been seduced. You are those people. Just try to forget this story.


Anger is natural, because you have not created it; you are born with it, endowed by nature. And nature must have some use for it, otherwise it cannot be given to you. But the society is against it; it says suppress it. And when you suppress anger, many more things are suppressed by it, because everything is interrelated in your inner being. You cannot suppress one thing; you cannot express one thing. You express one, millions are expressed; you suppress one, millions are suppressed.


A man who suppresses anger will have to suppress his love. Then he will become afraid of love, because whenever love is expressed, anger is also expressed. In fact, lovers are always angry towards each other -- as angry as no enemies can be. They are intimate enemies: they love and they become angry also; and they know that love is so deep that anger will not be destructive to it -- and it is never. It is destructive only if there is no love in the first place; otherwise, it is not. And if the love is not there, why call it destructive? It simply reveals the truth.


If love is there in the first place, nothing can destroy it, everything helps -- even anger becomes a part of the harmony. And when you love a person and become angry, after the anger, when the storm has gone, the silence follows. You become more loving after the moment of anger; after the mood of anger, much love comes to the surface. You have to compensate: you were angry, love flows in -- and this is a rhythm. Lovers fight, and then love. In fact, love is a very, very intimate fight.


I was once passing down a street and three urchin boys were looking through a key-hole. The first one looked in and said, 'They are fighting, the husband and wife.'


Another one looked and laughed and said, 'You fool! They are not fighting -- they are making love.'


And the third one looked and said, 'Yes, they are making love -- and very badly.'


Love is a fight, and it is a rhythm. In anger you go apart; the farther you go from your beloved or lover, the more the urge comes to come nearer. It is just like hunger: when you feel hungry, then you eat; and then there is a great satiety. Without hunger you can eat -- all rich people do that -- but then there is no satiety. Rather, on the contrary, when they have eaten, they feel burdened, heavy, dead. The same can happen with love: if you are never angry with your lover, you will be eating without hunger; sooner or later you will be fed up.


Nobody falls apart through anger. It is a rhythm: one goes away and comes back. Again and again you rediscover the beloved. Again and again a mini-honeymoon, every day. And love grows through it.


If you suppress anger, love will be suppressed. If you express love, anger will be expressed. But the society is against anger. That's why society is against love also. No society is for love. They are for marriage -- marriage is not love. Marriage is an institution created by the mind. Love -- love is a storm created by nature. And you cannot institutionalize a storm.


And people who live in marriage live in an institution just like prison -- nothing of the heart; other considerations, but nothing of the heart. Money has been considered, the family has been considered; in fact, societies try that the lovers themselves should not be allowed to choose and decide, because youth is not reliable. Only old people are reliable, because when they are old they have a mind, an experienced mind -- calculating, clever, cunning -- so the father should decide. Or, if you have a grandfather, so far so good. Stars can decide, nothing wrong in it; you can go the astrologer and the stars can decide. That's okay -- but you should not decide yourself, because if you decide, then by the very act of your falling in love, you are falling out of society.


Lovers are part of the society no more. Have you watched lovers? If somebody is in love with someone, they both move as a society in themselves. They don't bother about you; they want to be left alone. They don't want to go to the club, they don't want to go to the temple, to the church -- no. They have found their church, they have found their temple, they have found the club -- they are both satisfied with each other. They would like, really, that the whole world should disappear and they are left alone, on the whole naked earth.
Love is against society.
Society is against love.


And love is so natural -- marriage is a crutch. Love is walking with your own legs; marriage is a crutch. Marriage makes you crippled; you are an independent being no more, your individuality is lost. You are a member of the society but no more an individual. An individual is not a member of anything. An individual exists as an individual.


You will be surprised why these Sufis have created this parable -- they have created it meaningfully.


All nature has been crippled. Whatsoever is natural, the society is against it. Whatsoever is natural, they condemn it and they say this is animalistic. They make you cultured, conditioned, superficial. They give you a plastic being, a plastic flower; and the plastic flower has its own appeal -- the appeal is because a real flower is always in danger, and the plastic flower is never in danger. Marriage has an appeal. If you insist for love, then there will be more and more divorces in the world. If there is marriage there is no divorce, because when you have never been in love, how can you fall out of it?


Marriage is secure. A real flower in the morning is alive, and by the evening is gone. A plastic flower stays, stays put; it seems permanent. Permanence should not rule your mind, it should not be a value; otherwise, you will never be able to move towards existence. Enjoy a thing while it is there. When it is there no more, forgive and forget and move. That's how one grows.
<p class="sutra">A FEW, A VERY FEW PEOPLE STARTED TO WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES.
THIS WAS CONSIDERED SCANDALOUS, ABSURD. BESIDES, THERE WERE
SO MANY USES FOR CRUTCHES.</p>


And the people who insist for unnatural, artificial life patterns, always insist that they have uses. They always say that marriage is useful: useful for the family, for the children, for the society, useful for everybody -- love is dangerous. And what is the use of love? What will you do out of it? It has no utility. For them it is just a romance, an emotionalism, sentimentalism. It has no use! It is not a commodity; you cannot sell it in the market; you cannot be profited by it. On the contrary, you will lose much because of it. That's why clever people say love is blind, cunning people say love is mad -- it has no use!
But this has to be understood: Life has no use.


And always remember that wherever you start thinking about any utility, you are missing -- because utility is needed, but it cannot be the goal. Utility can be sacrificed, but the non-utilitarian cannot be sacrificed. The non-utilitarian -- love, meditation, prayer -- they are the real goals. Through them you reach towards the Divine.


What is the use of meditation? What can you earn out of it? Nothing. What is the use of dance? Nothing. You cannot eat, you cannot drink, you cannot make a shelter out of dancing; it seems non-utilitarian. All that is beautiful and true is non-utilitarian.


A few tried to revolt -- a few Buddhas, a few Christs, they revolt, and they want to bring you back to nature. But the people who are supporting the establishment, they always say, 'What is the use of it?' People come to me and they ask, 'What is the use of meditation? Even if we meditate, even if we attain to it, what profit? What does one gain out of it?' You will miss God, because God cannot become a utility. God is not a commodity. It is a celebration! And what is a life if you don't have any celebration in it? What is a life? It will be a desert.
<p class="sutra">IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE PREJUDICES, SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO COULD WALK WITHOUT SUPPORT BEGAN TO BEHAVE IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY FROM ESTABLISHED SOCIETY.</p>


They started being natural. They started walking on their own feet. And when you start one revolution, millions start. If you can revolt in one way against society, you will suddenly become aware that many more things are there which have to be thrown out. The society has made you a junkyard. Once you know that one thing is wrong, you will be able to know many things are wrong. One starts a chain reaction.


Meditation is my way to create the chain reaction. Once you start meditating, many things will follow, because the more you become aware and silent, the more you will be able to see how the society has been killing you, poisoning you, how the society has been murderous. And they all say that they want to help you. In fact, they murder you just to save you. It is for your benefit that the society exists -- and it has simply poisoned your whole being. The very source-spring of your being has been poisoned.
<p class="sutra">IN ORDER TO OVERCOME THE PREJUDICES, SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO COULD WALK WITHOUT SUPPORT BEGAN TO BEHAVE IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY FROM ESTABLISHED SOCIETY.
STILL THEY REMAINED FEW.
WHEN IT WAS FOUND THAT, HAVING USED CRUTCHES FOR SO MANY GENERATIONS, FEW PEOPLE COULD IN FACT WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES, THE MAJORITY 'PROVED' THAT THEY WERE NECESSARY.</p>


This is how the vicious circle moves in the world. First you create a pattern, you force the pattern, and then in the end the victim cannot live without the pattern. Then you 'prove' it: 'Look! -- nobody can walk without crutches.' You never allow anybody to walk without crutches. Every child is given many, many prejudices. And whenever he trys to live without prejudices he will find it very difficult, because they have become ingrained, inbuilt, they have moved into the very blueprint of his being. He will feel difficulties; he himself will say that it is impossible to walk. Try to walk on crutches for three years and then, then you will not be able to walk without them; then you will become a 'proof' that nobody can walk.


This is how the prejudices continue, because they have been implanted for thousands of years, and they have gone into your blood and your bones.


Whenever you feel a sexual urge, immediately a guilt feeling comes in; it has become inbuilt. If you look at a beautiful woman or a beautiful man and you feel an upsurge of energy, nothing is wrong in it. It is a response! It is natural: a beautiful person is there -- it will be very insulting if no energy arises in you. If the society were natural it would accept the fact, and the woman would thank you that your face became red -- such a beautiful compliment, and you were trembling. But no. You will hide the fact; you will not look at the woman. And the more you try not to look, the more nature rebels against it, and then a guilt feeling arises that you are immoral.


When you see a flower and say it is beautiful, you are not immoral. But when you see a human face and say it is beautiful, why do you become immoral suddenly? What is immoral in it? Why can't you appreciate it?


For centuries sex has been condemned -- and sex is the source of all your energies. Because of condemned sex, all your energies have been condemned -- because if you become active in one part of your energy, then other parts will also be rising with it. So you have been forced to live with low energy. Then you say life seems like a lethargy, no enjoyment out of it, no vitality. You seem to be continuously exploited, and you don't have any energy left to live. Life should be radiant, life should be overflowing -- but the very source is sex.


Unless you accept your sexuality you will never be at ease with yourself, because your sexuality is such a deep force. You are born out of it, your every cell belongs to it; your very energy is sexual. And whenever you allow it, the same energy will transform into love. The same energy will go higher and higher and will transform into prayer. Once suppressed, then there is no possibility of meditation or prayer either -- because what will be transformed? You will be always afraid.


It happens every day: people come to me -- the moment they start meditations they feel an upsurge of sexual energy and they become very afraid and scared. They say, 'We have never been like that. What is happening? What has gone wrong? Are we doing something wrong in meditation? -- because we feel so sexual!' This should be a beautiful, good indication -- life is coming back, life is arising again, life is again flowing from the frozen sources!


Of course, sex will be the basic center which will be hit first, because there you have suppressed it. It is uncoiling: as if a spring has been suppressed under a weight -- now the weight is removed and the spring jumps. This is beautiful! This shows that the meditation is functioning.


But you wanted otherwise: you wanted meditation to suppress sex. Then you have come to a wrong person. Then go to the old poisoners, the old life-negaters -- they will give you meditations so that you can suppress more. But you will always remain divided, and you will always be in discord, and the ultimate harmony will never be possible.


I am trying to create a unity within you so the suppressed part is accepted back, the suppressed part is reabsorbed back into the total being, because without it you will not be able to move. Sex is your legs -- the lowest part, yes, I know -- but without your legs, your head cannot move. The lowest, I know, but the highest depends on the lowest. If the lowest is moving, the highest will move soon: with sex, soon love will arise. And when love arises, sex disappears -- because the same energy becomes love. Then for the first time the real brahmacharya, the authentic virginity happens to you.


Sex simply disappears -- it has become love. And then love rises higher, becomes prayer; then love also disappears, then it has become prayer. And prayer is the culmination. In prayer you are fulfilled. But it has to start from the very base, from the natural. From the natural to the supernatural, but not against the natural.
<p class="sutra">WHEN IT WAS FOUND THAT, HAVING USED CRUTCHES FOR SO MANY GENERATIONS, FEW PEOPLE COULD IN FACT WALK WITHOUT CRUTCHES, THE MAJORITY 'PROVED' THAT THEY WERE NECESSARY. 'HERE,' THEY SAID, 'HERE IS A MAN -- TRY TO MAKE HIM WALK WITHOUT A CRUTCH. SEE? -- HE CANNOT.'
'BUT WE ARE WALKING WITHOUT CRUTCHES,' THE ORDINARY WALKERS REMINDED THEM.
'THIS IS NOT TRUE; MERELY A FANCY OF YOUR OWN,' SAID THE CRIPPLES, BECAUSE BY THAT TIME THEY WERE BECOMING BLIND AS WELL -- BLIND BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT SEE.</p>


I have been telling people: Accept your nature, and the very acceptance becomes a deep transformation, you will be transfigured. Sometimes, old sannyasins come to me, traditional sannyasins belonging to a Jain faith, or a Buddhist faith, or a Hindu faith; they listen to me and they say, 'It is not possible! We have been suppressing sex and it has not gone -- and you say accept it and it will go?' Their logic is apparently clear. They say, 'We have been suppressing and fighting our whole life, and it has not gone. And here you are -- you say, "Don't suppress it. Accept and it will go!"'


Their logic is clear. They say, 'How can it go without fighting when it has not gone with so much fight?' They say, 'No, it is not possible. We have tried and it won't move even an inch backward. And we have put our whole life at stake! And here you are teaching such a simple thing. Are we fools? It won't go.'


And I say to them, 'Look at me: it has gone!' And this is what -- whether they say to me or not -- they feel: they say, 'It must be your fancy. You must be imagining.... THIS IS NOT TRUE; MERELY A FANCY OF YOUR OWN.'
The ego dies hard.


And they cannot see. I tell them, 'Be with me, see me, observe me, watch me -- all that you are seeking has happened!'


They say, 'It must be some fancy of your own. Realization is not possible in this age and time. It is written in the scriptures that no man can become enlightened in Kali Yuga; in this age of technology, no one can become enlightened. So how can you become enlightened?'


I say, 'Look at me and watch and be close to me and be intimate, and feel it.' They are not ready for it. Their scriptures say something else, so I must be deluding myself, I must be a dream, I must be fancying.


And this is not just that it is so with me -- it has been always so. When Buddha became enlightened, the same people came to Buddha and they said, 'No, it is not possible. It is not possible! How can you become enlightened? Many millions of lives are needed. It is written in the scriptures. And what have you done? What austerities? What TAPASCHARYA? What yoga have you followed? Sitting under the Bodhi Tree, and suddenly you declare you have become enlightened! What is the proof? You must be fancying.' They have not taken note of many enlightened people. Mahavir: Hindu scriptures never mention him, because they never believed that he became enlightened. Ego dies hard.


And when you live in a plastic, artificial world, forced, somehow disciplined, imposed upon, by and by, you become blind also -- because when you don't use your eyes, they lose the capacity to see. And a man who is prejudiced avoids using his eyes, because who knows? -- the fact may not prove his prejudice. So he avoids; he will not look. Or, if he looks, he will interpret it in such a way that the fact is there no more; he has created a fiction around it.


People who are too prejudiced... and all people are. Somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan, somebody is a Christian -- they are prejudiced people. Without knowing, they have already decided what is true. Without experiencing, they have already come to conclusions. They avoid looking directly. And when you avoid continuously, of course, you lose the capacity to see, you become blind.
<p class="sutra">'THIS IS NOT TRUE; MERELY A FANCY OF YOUR OWN,' SAID THE CRIPPLES, BECAUSE BY THAT TIME THEY WERE BECOMING BLIND AS WELL -- BLIND BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT SEE.</p>


If you want to see you have to die to your ego -- because that ego won't allow you to see, to be natural, to allow the fact to emerge.
Die to the ego.
Die to the past.


And the Sufi saying is right: 'You cannot have anything from me until you die.'
Die! It is hard, but it is the only way.
You cannot have anything from me until you die.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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