---
section: Library
booktitle: "From Bondage to Freedom"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "BONDAG"
dategiven: "23 October 1985 am"
place: " in Rajneeshmandir"
chapternum: "Chapter #39"
chaptertitle: "Every child is born a witness"
acode: "8510230"
shorttitle: "BONDAG39"
audio: "Yes"
video: "Yes"
esttime: "101mins"
displaytitle: "From Bondage to Freedom: Chapter #39"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
IS THE ORIGIN OF DANCE, LOVE AND MEDITATION IN SYNCHRONICITY? WHY HAS DANCE BEEN THROUGHOUT THE AGES THE HIGHEST ART?
PLEASE COMMENT.</p>


Everything that is of authentic value in life has arisen out of meditation. There is no other way. Meditation is the mother of art, music, poetry, dance, sculpture. All that is creative, all that is life-affirmative, is born out of meditation. All that is life-negative -- hate, anger, jealousy, violence, war -- is born out of the mind. Man has two possibilities: mind and meditation.


Meditation can be translated as no-mind; then things will be simple. Either something comes out of the mind, or something comes out of no-mind. Mind is noise, it is craziness, insanity. No-mind is silence, health, wholeness. Mind cannot create anything which is not poisonous. And out of no-mind there is no possibility of anything arising which will serve death.


You ask about love. Your love is not out of meditation; you don't know meditation, you are acquainted only with the mind. Just look at your mind. For ten minutes sit silently and write down whatever comes into your mind, without editing, without adding anything -- exactly whatever is arising in the mind. Howsoever irrelevant, stupid it may be, just write for ten minutes, and then read it. And you will be surprised: this is your mind? And if this is mind, then what is madness? And this mind is continuously running -- in every action, feeling. If you love, this mind is bound to pollute that love with hate.


Psychotherapists, who do not know anything about no-mind, have finally decided that love and hate are not two things, and they have started using one word, "love-hate." ... Because love can change into hate any moment, hate can change into love any moment.


And this is not a new insight. One of the most cunning and clever men, Machiavelli, writes in his book, THE PRINCE -- it is advice to kings -- "Never say a thing to a friend that you would not like to be said to an enemy." Three hundred years before psychotherapy, he was giving its whole insight -- because the friend can become tomorrow the enemy. So never say to the friend what you would not like to say to any enemy.


And his second statement is, "Never say about the enemy anything that you would not say about a friend" -- because tomorrow the enemy can turn into a friend, and then it will be very embarrassing, that you said such an ugly thing about him.


Machiavelli was certainly a genius of cunningness. He was the tutor of almost all the princes of Europe. When they started becoming kings, he wanted to become somebody's prime minister, but his own disciples refused -- without exception. He was puzzled, he could not figure it out: what was the matter? -- they loved him so much.... He asked, "If you love me so much, you respect me so much, then why can't you allow me to be your prime minister? Where can you find a man equal to me?"


And those princes said, "You are too clever, too cunning. We know your genius. To make you the prime minister means within just a few months or a year or two you will be the king, and we will be nowhere! We respect you and we love you, but we cannot give you that much power. You will destroy us, and we will not be capable of fighting with you."


This man is not considered a great philosopher, but he should be. Even though he was a philosopher in favor of evil, his insight is deep. Love can become hate, hate can become love. Your love, which can within a moment change into hate, is not love. It has come from the mind, and mind always lives in contradictions. If there is love, then just behind love there is hate. If there is compassion, just behind compassion there is anger.


Mind is a duality, so everything is balanced by its opposite; that is the way of the mind. No-mind means you become a witness of all the processes of the mind. You detach yourself. Your consciousness is not part of the mind; it can watch the mind. Just the way you can watch a movie on the screen, your consciousness can watch on the screen of the mind all its craziness. This witnessing will lead you into a new space within yourself.


The arithmetic is very simple. When there is no witnessing in you, you are one hundred percent mind. One percent witnessing, and you are ninety-nine percent mind. And as witnessing grows, your mind starts disappearing. They cannot exist together; there is no coexistence between no-mind and mind, between meditation and mind -- it is either/or.


When your witnessing is ninety percent, your mind is reduced to ten percent. And when your witnessing is one hundred percent -- total, absolute -- the screen is empty, the film has disappeared. This is the state of meditation: when there are no thoughts, no feelings -- nothing moves, everything stops. There is tremendous serenity. Out of this serenity, silence, peace, a new kind of experience arises, new flowers blossom.


If love happens now, it will not have with it jealousy, hate, anger, and all those poisons which kill love. Now it will be pure love, unconditional. It will not ask anything in return, it will rejoice only in giving. It will be grateful that you accepted whatever was given to you; it will not burden you by making you feel obliged. It will not destroy your freedom. If you love somebody else and you are happy with somebody else, the meditator will feel very happy because you are happy -- it does not matter with whom. He loves you, and he wants you to be happy.


Love out of meditation gives total freedom, accepts you the way you are, never tries to mold you into a certain pattern -- that is ugly, that is violent. It respects your dignity. It has no suspicion....


There is, in India, one of the most ancient stories of a king, Rama, whose wife, Sita, had been stolen by another king. It took three years of fighting to get the wife back. Naturally, Rama was suspicious; three years in the enemy camp -- who knows whether she has been able to remain pure? He proposes a fire test -- she has to pass through fire. If she is not burned, then her love is pure, she has not loved anyone else.


When I was reading it in my early childhood... because every child in India reads about Rama and his wife, Sita. Rama is thought to be one of the incarnations of God. But when I read about his suspicion, I told my father, who was teaching me the story, "If Rama suspects her, then his love is not very great. And in my opinion, Sita is far higher than Rama, because she does not suspect him. Three years he was also away from her; in these three years he may have loved some woman, desired someone. She does not ask Rama, 'You also come with me, we both should go through the fire test.' She proves that her love is authentic."


And the story is beautiful: she comes out of the fire without being burned. That is simply a symbolic way of saying that even fire cannot burn true love. Nothing can destroy it.


But what about Rama? I said, "As far as I am concerned, he has fallen in my eyes. Sita is far superior. But in India, he is worshipped as the reincarnation of God, not Sita." I told my father, "This is inconceivable."


My father said, "I have read this story myself many times, but this point was never apparent to me. Perhaps you are right."


The man with suspicion cannot have the purity of love. And the woman without any hesitation, without questioning, goes through the fire. I know fire will not change its rules whether your love is true or not, but the story is symbolic. It says even fire will not hurt and change authentic love.


But Rama fell in my eyes from that very day. And I have tried many times -- because all over India people were asking me to speak on Rama, and I said, "I cannot do that, because you will not be able to hear what I want to say. And I cannot say what you want to hear. It is better not to bring Rama between us." I have spoken on all prophets, saviors, messengers, except Rama -- and Rama is the most worshipped in India -- for the simple reason that from the very beginning that man shows a very mean mind.


Your love comes from the mind, which is basically mean. Love coming out of no-mind has a splendor of its own, a grandeur, something of the divine in it. Anything that comes out of meditation comes with the aura of eternity: painting, sculpture, poetry, music.


Look at modern music: it is simply insanity, it is not music. Just making noise is not music. It may help you to have some catharsis -- that's what music like jazz does, it is cathartic. You feel afterwards a kind of well-being, relaxed; but it is not music.


Music will make you silent, will make you disappear, will make you almost absent. Only the music will be there, not the musician -- because in meditation the musician cannot exist. And if you are listening, soon you will find yourself melting, disappearing. It will create a new space within you. It has come out of meditation, and anyone who listens to it will feel something of meditation.


Old mystics have used music to convey their experience -- for example, Kabir, Meera, Nanak. They will not discuss, they will not talk with you. They will simply play some instrument, sing a song -- which has nothing to do with God, heaven and hell; which has nothing to do with theology, with any creed or cult.


But Kabir playing on his ektara -- the simplest musical instrument.... Ektara means only one string. It has only one string, not the complexity of a sitar. But with his ektara he would create an atmosphere where many would be transported to another world.


Meera used to sing -- and I don't think in the whole world any woman has sung such beautiful songs. People would be listening and they would forget themselves. It happened that when she was wandering around India, she came to a place, Vrindavan, where Krishna had lived. In Vrindavan there is the main temple of Krishna. There are hundreds of temples, but in the main temple, the most ancient, his priest has to be absolutely celibate -- so much so that no woman can enter the temple. And the priest never goes out, so he never comes to see a woman.


When Meera reached Vrindavan, she went singing, dancing, to the great temple. The watchman was so overwhelmed that he forgot his work -- his work was to prevent women from going in -- and Meera entered. The priest was worshipping. He could not believe that a woman had come into the temple -- for thousands of years no woman had entered the temple. But he waited till Meera stopped singing; he himself was overwhelmed. The song was so beautiful, so touching -- reaching to your very innermost being, because it was coming from the innermost core of Meera. It was not something composed by the mind. It was the overflowing love of no-mind. It was meditation flowing in song, in dance.


Afterwards, as he woke up -- it was as if he had fallen asleep -- he said to Meera, "This is not good; what you have done is unforgivable. This was to the credit of the temple, that for thousands of years no woman had entered."


And do you know what Meera said to the priest? She laughed, and she said, "I have always thought that Krishna is the only man; all others are women, beloveds of the lord. Do you consider yourself also a man? Then you have been wasting your whole life! Have you not yet become so loving towards Krishna that you can forget this macho attitude?" And since that day the temple has not prevented any woman. Meera opened the door.


The priest could not answer. She was saying something out of her innermost being -- that existence is our beloved, we are all loving the same existence; and the more you love, the more feminine you become, feminine in the sense that you become more graceful, more beautiful, more rounded.


Man has so many corners. If you see the statue of Buddha, you will see everything is rounded, all the corners have been dropped -- he even has no beard, no mustache. Not that he was missing some hormones, no; it is symbolic. It is simply saying that the more he became loving, the more he became feminine, graceful.


Love out of meditation is not a relationship: it is a state of your being. You love because you cannot do otherwise; you have to love. You have only love to give -- and this love will be expressed in many ways. Different people, different talents -- somebody will paint, somebody will compose music, somebody will dance; but the basic quality is the same.


While painting, the meditator disappears; there is only painting going on, there is no painter. The dancer disappears; there is only dance, there is no dancer. The poet disappears; there is only poetry. And the same is true about all the dimensions in which your creativity can have its expression. You create because you are so overflowing with energy you cannot contain it. So whatever your talent, whatever your genius, your energy will take that dimension.


Any act arising out of meditation has no goal, it has no motivation; its value is intrinsic. While dancing, you are getting all the reward; there is no need for any other reward afterwards. There is no ambition, that you want to become famous, the greatest painter, the greatest poet -- all that nonsense is part of the mind, which is egocentric.


Meditation is your egolessness. Just a little taste of it and you will be drawn into the very center of your being. And you will find the paradise that people have been thinking is somewhere in the clouds, far away in the stars.


Paradise is within you, in your state of no-mind. And hell is also within you, in your very mind. The choice is yours. You can move from the mind to no-mind; the bridge is witnessing.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
HOW DO I COME TO KNOW WHEN I AM REALLY WITNESSING MY BODY, FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS, OR WHEN IT IS ONLY MY MIND PRETENDING TO BE A WITNESS?</p>


The question is only intellectual; you have not even tried to pretend. When you are witnessing and you start feeling that it may be just the pretense of the mind, then it is certainly a pretense of the mind... because who is thinking about it as pretense of the mind? -- something behind the pretense.


You can never get confused about witnessing, because behind witnessing there is nothing. You cannot witness witnessing. Anything that you can witness is part of the mind. So if you witness that it is a pretense, it is a pretense. Witness the pretense, don't get identified with it.


Witnessing has a beauty: it cannot be reduced to an object, you cannot witness it. It is irreducible, it always slips back; it remains only witnessing. So whatever you feel, that means you are getting identified with the mind. You have not tried it -- the question is simply intellectual. If you had tried it the question would not have arisen.


I witness my hand: that means I am not the hand. I witness the mind: that means I am not the mind. You go on witnessing anything that comes to you -- feelings, moods -- you are not it. Finally, there is nothing to witness: this is it!


Only the witness is there, but nothing to witness, just nothingness all around. You have come to the witness. Nobody has ever been deceived about it.


But never make intellectual questions; they won't solve existential problems. This is something existential -- you have to do it. It is like swimming. You cannot be taught swimming on a comfortable mattress in your room. You can be told how to throw your hands and your legs about, and you can do much exercise, but that is not swimming. You have to go in the water.


There was one famous logician in India. Because he was a logician, he said, "I cannot enter the water until I have learned swimming, that is absolutely clear. Without knowing swimming, how can I enter the water?"


His swimming teacher told him, "It is not a question of logic. If you want to learn swimming, you will have to enter water without knowing swimming, because entering the water is the beginning. And that's the only way to learn it. If you decide that you will enter the water only when you have learned swimming -- which is very logical thinking -- then it is impossible, you will never enter the water. So either be logical, or be existential."


And whatever I am telling you has nothing to do with logic. Try witnessing. And whatever you find, it is not the witness. The witness is always standing behind; otherwise, who is finding these things? -- the pretense, the mind, anything.


When you cannot find anything, when all is silent, then there is only the witness. It is a very strange situation. When there is nothing to witness, you come to experience the witness in its purity. When there is something to witness, the witness is involved with some object.


It is like the mirror. If you want to know the purity of the mirror, then the mirror should be empty; nobody should be standing in front of the mirror. If somebody is standing in front of the mirror, then the mirror is polluted by the reflection.
Your witness is the ultimate mirror.


Anything that passes pollutes your witness. But if you go on struggling, remembering that whatever you see is not you -- just a simple exam: "the object of my knowing is not me" -- soon the objects will disappear, because you have broken the identity. And any moment, suddenly out of nowhere, you find yourself absolutely alone without any object. The seer is there, but there is nothing to be seen. Awareness is there, at its very peak, but there is nothing to be aware of. The witness is there, but there is nothing to be a witness of.


So this should be the criterion of whether your witness is a reality or just a projection, just imagination or an authentic reality.


And it is a very simple process, just like swimming. Once you know swimming, you will be surprised that there was nothing to learn. Before knowing swimming, it seems dangerous, difficult -- you cannot believe how people are swimming. But have you seen a dead body? The dead body automatically comes up and starts swimming -- not even swimming, it simply floats. The dead body knows something which you don't know. If the dead body can float, why can't you float? It is so simple that even dead bodies are doing it.


One Japanese scientist has been trying with small children, because his hypothesis is that the child in the mother's womb remains in liquid, in water for nine months, so swimming must be something very natural. It need not be learned.


The hypothesis seems to be correct. If the child manages in the mother's womb.... In the mother's womb there is exactly the same kind of water as in the ocean, with the same constituents. That's why, when a woman is pregnant, she starts eating salty things, because the water needs more and more salt. The child is already swimming from the very first day. And in the very beginning the child is just like a fish. Scientists think that man began life as a fish in the ocean. Now, to teach a fish how to swim would be just utter stupidity.


This Japanese scientist started working on six-month-old babies. He would leave them in water in tubs, and he was surprised that they were not afraid -- not only that, but they started floating. Then he went down to three-month-old babies. They were even more expert. Then he did his experiment with the newly-born baby: he was the perfect master as far as swimming is concerned -- nine months' training!


That's why, once you know swimming, you cannot forget it. Everything that you learn you can forget, but something in swimming is so natural, that once you know it you cannot forget it. The same is true about witnessing.
Every child is born a witness.


As he opens his eyes, his first act is witnessing. He cannot think. He sees you, he sees your red clothes, but he cannot think that these are red clothes. He does not know the names of colors, he does not know what color means. He simply reflects like a mirror. He is just a pure witness with no knowledge, with no thought forming in him.


That's why I say, once you learn witnessing it is so easy, and you cannot forget it. You had already known it -- it is a rediscovery.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU MEAN BY "SYMBOLIC GESTURE"? I REALIZE THAT YOU LOOK AT YOUR WATCH OFTEN. AND WHY HAVE YOU ONLY NOW SAID THAT WE CAN WEAR OTHER COLORED CLOTHES?
PLEASE EXPLAIN.</p>


I have to look at the watch, because I live in a timelessness. I use the watch only for you, when I come to the morning discourse or to the evening interview; only for four hours do I use the watch. The whole day I have no business with time.


I don't know what day today is, I don't know what date today is. To me, it is always the now.


And when I said every gesture means something, my looking at the watch again and again simply means compassion, because without the watch....


One day it happened that the watch stopped. I looked at it again and again, and I thought it was perfectly right. I realized only later on that I had spoken for three hours. I would have spoken longer -- I had to stop after three hours because my bladder was full!


I have no concern with time. I live moment to moment. That's why I go on looking at the watch -- so that I don't harass you too much.


And you are asking why only now have I told you that you can wear any color clothes. ... Because only now do I feel that there are a few amongst you who will still wear red clothes even though I say you can use any other clothes. And those are the real "chosen ones."
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
IN SUCH A BEAUTIFUL WAY, WITHOUT TELLING THEM TO GO, WITH WHAT GREAT ART YOU MANAGED TO HAVE SHEELA'S CRIMINAL GANG LEAVE THE COMMUNE WITHOUT DOING MUCH HARM TO US. ARE YOU A MAGICIAN? OR IS THIS HAIKU TRUE ABOUT YOU? "SITTING SILENTLY, DOING NOTHING, WINTER COMES AND THE WEEDS DIE BY THEMSELVES."</p>


I am not a magician, but the whole existence is magical. Perhaps the haiku is true.


"Sitting silently, doing nothing, the winter comes and the weeds die by themselves."
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
THE CHIMPANZEE WHO MADE REAGAN FAMOUS AS AN ACTOR WAS CALLED BONZO. REAGAN WAS HIS SIDEKICK. THERE IS A RUMOR THAT IT IS ACTUALLY BONZO WHO IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE, AND REAGAN IS SKULKING UP A TREE IN BEVERLY HILLS. BELOVED MASTER, DO YOU KNOW THE INSIDE SCOOP ON THIS STORY?</p>


I know it. It is not a story, it is the truth! I have met Ronald Reagan in our own hills, so certainly Bonzo is in the White House. And except people like Bonzo, who would like to live in White Houses?


All politicians are chimpanzees -- without exception. They look like men, but they behave like chimpanzees. You should not go by the looks, you should watch their actions -- and all their actions are idiotic. And it is not only today; it has been so for the whole history of man.


Unless we get rid of politicians and create a humanity where politicians are not needed -- and, in fact, there is no need for them -- we will not be able to survive long.


The politicians are seeing clearly that they cannot exist anymore. Their futility is becoming clear, so they are planning to destroy the whole planet. Rather than being thrown out of their jobs, their great presidentships, prime ministerships, they would destroy all life on this planet. It is in the hands of the intelligentsia of the world not to let them do this suicidal act.


All scientists of the world should stop creating any war material. They should make it clear to their governments that they are ready to work, but they will work only for life, not for death. The same nuclear energy can make this earth again young, can destroy all poverty, can make humanity live for the first time in real comfort, luxury, can allow people to develop their talents, their potentials to the highest peak possible.


And it is a very simple thing: all the scientists who are serving the governments and creating more and more death weapons, should just stop, and start creating more and more life-enhancing energies. The same energy, nuclear energy, which can make this earth a dead planet, can make this earth the most glorious and the richest planet in the whole universe.


Politicians want war. That is their vested interest. Without war, what are they going to do? You can see it in a simple fact: all your great politicians are born in times of war. If any politician wants to be a great leader, a great hero, then war is a necessity. Just look: from Genghis Khan to Tamerlane to Nadirshah to Alexander the Great to Ivan the Terrible to Napoleon Bonaparte to Adolf Hitler to Benito Mussolini to Joseph Stalin to Churchill to Roosevelt -- what makes these people great heroes? It is war. If there had been no wars there would not have been great heroes.


Politicians live on war. And now the game has come to its ultimate peak. The old wars, those bullock-cart wars, were okay. A few people died, somebody became victorious, somebody was defeated. But now war has lost all meaning. Nobody can be defeated and nobody can be victorious. With war losing all meaning, politicians have lost their greatest vested interest.


And if politicians disappear, there is no need for nations. I cannot conceive why nations should exist. Science has turned the whole world into a small global village. Yes, there can be a functional world government. But there is no need of armies -- millions of people just sitting stupidly polishing their guns for years, doing "left turn, right turn," and then creating Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For all that is ugly, the whole credit goes to the politicians.


Just a general raising of consciousness is needed, and the politicians will melt like snowflakes. And with them will go nations, national boundaries, stupid ideas of some nations being special, just born to rule over the world. And all the energies which are being wasted in creating war materials -- and that is not a small amount: seventy-five percent of the energy of the whole of humanity is being diverted into war. We are living on only twenty-five percent of our energy.


Just think: if one hundred percent of our energy is available, there is no need for any Ethiopia to happen. There is no need for anybody to remain uneducated, poor. We can make this world a paradise -- the politicians just have to go on a long, long weekend.
<p class="question">BELOVED MASTER,
MY LORD, MY BELOVED MASTER, WE LOVE YOU SO-O-O MUCH!</p>


I love you... so-o-o much, too!
Okay?
			

> [!info]
> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
>