... fallible. To make God infallible you have to make Polacks infallible, for the sheer sake of logic - it has no existential truth in it. His trip around the world is political, it is not religious. It has nothing to do with spirituality. It is an effort to convert more and more people to the Catholic church, because numbers mean power. Particularly in a world which is ruled by mobocracy, numbers are the...

... greatest power. Now the pope has six hundred million Catholics in the world, and they are increasing every day. But the conversion of people to Catholicism is not conversion to spiritualism.... Islam used to convert people forcibly, with a sword in one hand, a naked sword, and in another hand, the holy KORAN. You could choose. Now, it is very difficult for human beings to choose a life of something which...

... accept it or reject it is not your concern. Conversion is a beautiful name for spiritual enslavement. I have never converted anybody. The people who have become sannyasins have become sannyasins on their own. It was their decision. They felt something, they recognized something, they experienced something. Truth has its own fragrance. Love has its own power. Silence has its own impact. But there is no...

..., what good it had done to their parents. They have been simply repeating a ritual, generation after generation. Rebirth is a totally different phenomenon: you again become innocent like a child, but this time you are not dependent, this time you are not helpless. This time nobody can enforce anything on you: you have enough intelligence, enough logic, enough argumentative power - it is not easy to...

... you have been producing for millions of years. It is losing its power, it is becoming barren, and God is not doing anything for the earth, but he goes on sending children. And the priests and the representatives have their own designs - they are not concerned about God. As far as I know, God himself practices birth control, because he has only one begotten son, Jesus Christ. What happened afterwards...

... certain rebelliousness in him. His family was no longer in power; otherwise he would have been the emperor of Germany. He had a certain rebelliousness against the whole of Germany and the whole German spirit, which had thrown his family and him from power. He rebelled in every way. He married a sannyasin. The family was against it because she was not of royal blood. And he certainly insisted on marrying...

... everything." You have to understand that in the world the program that says you have to do much to get anywhere is perfectly right. If you are after money, if you are after position, power, then you have to do much. But if you are just to realize yourself, you have not to do anything, because you have got it already. Just a relaxed moment, a peaceful moment when your mind is not wandering anywhere and...

... consciousness reveals it. TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO HAVE THE MEANING, BUT TO PURSUE APPEARANCES IS TO MISS THE SOURCE. If you go on pursuing appearances you will miss the source, because appearances are outside. Sometimes you are after wealth, sometimes you are after a woman or a man, sometimes you are after prestige and power... and you go on pursuing appearances. And this whole time you are missing...

... a country, or a prime minister, but deep down you will know that you are impotent. Death will prove that your power was just an appearance; your power is powerless, helpless before death. Only that is power which goes beyond death - all else is impotence. You may believe in it for a.time, but death will bring the truth to you. Always remember that death is coming, and death is the criterion...

.... If he is very very rich then you remember him, then memory is formed. If you are after power and you meet a Hitler, or a Stalin, a Mao, then you are meeting a person, but the person is secondary. The power... When Nixon is no more a president you will not be able to see him; he may pass by yoU hut he is no more a person. You see whatsoever you desire. Your desire is your vision, and your light...

... belongs to mind, every search comes out of the mind. Consciousness never seeks, never searches; consciousness simply is. It is being, it is not a desire. Search is a desire. You searched in the world for wealth, power, prestige, and you failed. Now you search for God and truth, but you remain the same. Nothing has changed, only words have changed. Before it was 'power,' now it is 'God' - but you remain...

...." This is the way to become disidentified from the mind: be a watcher. Buddha says: AS THE FLETCHER WHITTLES AND MAKES STRAIGHT HIS ARROWS, SO THE MASTER DIRECTS HIS STRAYING THOUGHTS. Then it will be possible and only then: when you have become an observer, when you have reduced your thoughts to observed objects, the content of the mind is no longer powerful. You have slipped out of its power...

... journey he is perfectly aware of his whereabouts; he has a certain sense of direction. He does not go on running in all the directions simultaneously; he has a direction. Naturally he becomes integrated, he becomes a great power. Without attaining any political power he becomes a great power. His power arises from his own being, it is his own. Nobody can take it away; it does not depend on anybody. Even...

... to be a friend. This is insanity! This hypocrisy is insanity, this split is insanity. This schizophrenic atmosphere is insane. It is not a healthy human being that we have been able to produce. We have failed up to now...and we have to do something very drastic now, otherwise humanity is doomed. Now the insane people have so much destructive power in their hands that one war more and humanity is...

... woman, more money, more power, more prestige, so these are the things I also need. Unless I have all these things, how can I be happy?" You make your happiness conditional. And the moment a man makes his happiness conditional he is doomed; he will remain unhappy his whole life. Happiness is not conditional; nothing is needed to be happy. Only to be alive is needed - and that you are, you already...

... simply observes. And if you can just observe without being identified, slowly slowly mind quietens down, and in that quietening is your power. One day when the mind is completely gone, has become totally still, you are the sovereign. WITH SINGLEMINDEDNESS THE MASTER QUELLS HIS THOUGHTS. HE ENDS THEIR WANDERING. SEATED IN THE CAVE OF THE HEART, HE FINDS FREEDOM. And when the mind is no more, where do...

... ultimate that even if the whole world is against it, it makes no difference at all. You don't need any validity from anybody else. The last question: Question 4: BELOVED MASTER, WHY DO I ALWAYS FEEL THAT SEX AND MONEY ARE SOMEHOW DEEPLY CONNECTED WITH EACH OTHER? Nirmal, they are connected. Money is power; hence it can be used in many ways. It can purchase sex, and down the ages that has been the case...

... is like your own car, it is a permanent arrangement. Poor people cannot make permanent arrangements, they have to use taxis. Rich people can make permanent arrangements - they can have their own cars. And the richer they are, the more cars they can have. I know one person who had three hundred and sixty-five cars - one car for every day. And he had one car made in solid gold.... Money is power, and...

... power can purchase anything. So, Nirmal, you are not wrong that there is some connection between sex and money. One thing more has to be understood. The person who represses sex becomes more money-minded, because money becomes a substitute for sex. Money becomes his love. See the greedy person, the money maniac: the way he touches hundred-rupee notes - he touches them as if he is caressing his beloved...

... has to be deprived of sex, so that the sex energy becomes his anger, his irritation, his destructiveness so he can be more violent than he ever was. Sex can be diverted into ambition. Repress sex: once sex is repressed, you have energy available, you can channel it into any direction. It can become a search for political power, it can become a search for more money, it can become a search for fame...

... different about it?" "In Brooklyn I get it for nothing." People can be so obsessed with money, as much as they are obsessed with sex. The obsession can be shifted towards money. But money gives you purchasing power and you can purchase anything. You cannot purchase love, of course, but you can purchase sex. Sex is a commodity, love is not. You cannot purchase prayer, but you can purchase...

... priests. Priests are commodities - prayer is not a commodity. And that which can be purchased is ordinary, mundane. That which cannot be purchased is sacred. Remember it: the sacred is beyond money, the mundane is always within money's power. And sex is the most mundane thing in the world. A man enters a modern Chicago whorehouse-nightclub run by the gangland syndicate which is now planning to...

... they are living. They are not living, they are only vegetating, they are only dying. This is not life. Life has many more kingdoms to be revealed, an infinite treasure which is not of this world. Neither sex can give it to you, nor money. But you can attain to it. You can use your sex energy to attain it, and you can use your money power to attain it. Of course, it cannot be attained by money or by...

... sex, but you can use your sex energy, your money power, in such an artful way that you can create a space in which the beyond can descend. I am not against sex, and I am not against money, remember it. Always remember! But I am certainly for helping you go beyond them - I am certainly for going beyond. Use everything as a step. Don't deny anything. If you have money, you can meditate more easily...

...The power of nothingness...

... Osho From Death to Deathlessness: The power of nothingness Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho From Death to Deathlessness   Next > The power of nothingness From: Osho Date: Fri, 8 September 1985 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: From Death to Deathlessness Chapter #: 34 Location: am in Rajneeshmandir Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A. Audio...

... for your country. Bring the country the latest technology, bring the country the most developed machinery. It is possible, just one thing has to be remembered: don't bother about making atomic plants and nuclear weapons because then seventy-five percent of your energy, income, goes into nuclear weapons. Don't bother about that. It is so simple... because you cannot become a power like America or the...

... Soviet Union. In three hundred years, if you try hard, only in three hundred years will you be a great power. But by that time all the Indians will be dead. And America and the Soviet Union are not going to stay where they are. In three hundred years they will have moved so far ahead that you will need three thousand years to catch up. It is absolutely meaningless. With so much energy in the hands of...

... become a great nuclear power. By a strange coincidence only America and the Soviet Union have uranium. So any country who wants to become a nuclear power has to depend on America or the Soviet Union. And of course they give small quantities; they would not like you to become a great power like themselves. And even that small quantity costs too much for poor countries. Their scientists are engaged in...

... religions. It is almost an army camp - the bureaucracy, the hierarchy.... Every small detail is being dictated from above and has to be followed exactly the same as ordered. If you don't follow it, you are expelled. You are thrown out of your position and power - and it gives so much position and power that nobody is willing to risk it. So people go on pretending, showing false faces. These are the three...

... it, because he was not that conscious a man. He was surprised, taken aback. When Independence came the same mob forgot all about him. The same leaders who were nothing before Independence - who were just changing around him in the hope that if he won the battle they might also get some power - those leaders became prime ministers, ministers, governors, governor-generals. And they all forgot about...

... that he wanted to live at least one hundred and twenty-five years, to see India completely renovated, renewed, rejuvenated. And after Independence he started saying, "I don't want to live that long. I pray to God: "I have lived enough...." What great change has happened? This is what he was living for up to now, and now he is victorious. It is his disciples who are in power, the...

.... And Gandhi believed that these people would be able to create the country. His own very close disciples stopped listening to him the moment they were in power. They were listening to him because they wanted to remain intimate with him so that when power came they would not be left behind. Once they were in power Gandhi was no one. In independent India's capital, its own revolution's leader was...

... blocking the sun. If you can do this much that is more than one can expect of a man like you." Alexander remembers that he had not met many people of such integrity, such dignity - and with nothing: no power, no post, not even clothes; no disciples, no church, nothing... only one companion, a dog. And still he asked, "If you can do only this much: stand a little aside, and don't block the sun...

... towards truth. One is the approach of power, another the approach of beauty, and the third the approach of grandeur. The scientific approach is the search for power; that's why Lord Bacon said 'knowledge is power'. Science has made man very powerful, so much so that man can destroy the whole planet earth. For the first time in the history of consciousness man is capable of committing a global suicide, a...

... collective suicide. Science has released tremendous power. Science is continuously searching for more and more power. This too is an approach towards truth, but a partial approach. Then there are poets, mystics, people with the aesthetic sense. They look at truth as beauty - Jalaludin Rumi and Rabindranath Tagore and others, who think that beauty is truth. They create much art, they create new sources of...

... beauty in the world. The painter, the poet, the dancer, the musician, they are also approaching truth from a totally different dimension than power. A poet is not like the scientist. The scientist works with analysis, reason, observation. The poet functions through the heart - irrational... trust, love. He has nothing to do with mind and reason. The greater part of religious people belong to the second...

... split. You lose your center. You forget completely who you are. Watch. When you are greedy for money, who are you? You are just a greed for money and nothing else. When you are angry, your ego is hurt, who are you? You are just anger, a wounded ego, nothing else. When you are full of sexual passion, who are you? You are just sexuality, nothing else - libido. When you are ambitious and you want power...

...? Desire for money, for power, prestige - these are gross desires. Desire to be free, desire to be calm, desire to attain to the last state of arhatship - these are subtle desires, but they are still desires. He will have to come back only once. NEXT IS THE SROTAPANNA. The word srotapanna means 'one who has entered into, the stream'. Srota means stream and apanna means 'one who has entered'. Srotapanna...

..., vitality, dynamism. The bull means the very life itself. The bull means your inner power, your potentiality. The bull is a symbol, remember that. You are there, you have life also - but you don't know what life is. You have the energy, but you don't know where this energy comes from and to what goal this energy is going. You are that energy, but still you are not aware of what that energy is. You live...

... attracts, power attracts - and without asking oneself: Why should I run after these things? we go on running. In fact, because the whole society is running, every child gets the disease by inheritance. Everybody is running - the child learns by imitation. The father is running, the mother is running, the brother is running, the neighbor is running, everybody is running - for power, prestige, money...

...; they become one with the crowd. There they do not feel alone... surrounded, so many people are there. If you meditate, you will be alone, and if you get mad after money, you will never be alone - the whole world is going there. If you search for God you will be alone; but if you search for politics, power, then the whole world will be there, you will never be left alone. People are afraid of being...

... and white - all the colors together. To be rich means to be mature, alert, alive. The man who is searching for money is searching for something else; that's why when money is achieved, nothing is achieved. The man who is searching for power, for what is he searching in fact? He wants to be a god. And in the world, he says, if you have power you can pretend to be a god. Behind his search for power...

..., the same search for God is hidden. So when he attains to power, suddenly he will feel powerless inside, impotent; outside, riches; inside, poor, a beggar. EVEN UNDER THE FRAGRANT GRASS I SEE HIS PRINTS. DEEP IN REMOTE MOUNTAINS THEY ARE FOUND. THESE TRACES NO MORE CAN BE HIDDEN THAN ONE'S NOSE LOOKING HEAVENWARD. And then one is surprised: How was it possible that I couldn't see these footprints...

... maintain it. When alertness becomes a phenomenon like breathing, natural, SAHAJ, spontaneous, then this type of person, this type of centered being, automatically influences situations. Situations change around him - not that he wishes them to change, but he is powerful. Power is the thing to be remembered. You are powerless so anything can overpower you. And power comes through alertness, awareness: the...

..., they both fight, they both try to destroy the bondage. The father fights the son because every stage of growth in the son means more freedom for him. And the father feels he is losing something: power, authority. In families, in nations, in civilizations, man is hankering after only one thing - freedom. But nothing is achieved through political fights, revolutions, wars. Nothing is achieved. Because...

.... Throughout the whole day, whenever something impresses you and a desire arises, exhale, stop in the interval, and look at the thing. The thing will be there, you will be there, but there will be no bridge. Breathing is the bridge. Suddenly you will feel you are powerful, you are potential. And the more powerful you feel, the more YOU will become. The more things drop, the more their power over you drops...

... happened to these two men? The diamond became more meaningful than their whole life. This is what possession means: they threw away their life just for a stone. When desire is there, you are no more - desire can lead you to suicide. Really, every desire is leading you to suicide. When you are in the power of a desire, you are not in your senses, you are just mad. The desire to possess arose in...

... and you will regain balance inside. Go on doing it more and more. The more you do, the better. And a moment will come when you will not need to do it because the inner power will give you such a strength that the attraction of things will be lost. It is your weakness which is attracted. Be more powerful and nothing will attract you. Only then for the first time are you master of your own being. That...

.... The second technique is similar in a way, but it is from a different dimension. BELIEVE OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, PERVADING. This too is based on inner power, inner strength. It is very seed-like. Believe that you are omniscient, all-knowing; believe that you are omnipotent, all-powerful; believe that you are pervading, all- pervading.... How can you believe it? It is impossible. You know you are not...

... ones, one of the thirty per cent. But a great misfortune has happened to humanity, and that is that those thirty per cent are condemned. Society, education, civilization, all condemn them. They are thought to be stupid people. No, they are more potential people. They have a great power but they are condemned, and impotent intellectual people are praised - because they can praise with language, words...

... shortcut: he becomes a dacoit, he becomes a thief, he becomes a Viking. These are shortcuts to power, to fulfill ambitions, to be successful, to be rich, to be powerful. The descendants of these dacoits - if these dacoits were big enough, great enough - became kings, queens and royal families. All the royal blood around the world belongs to the dacoits and the Vikings. You just have to go back to their...

... power, rather than changing the society, are changed by power. It has happened so often that you cannot simply ignore it as an exception; it is the rule. Here in India, we have seen this country struggle for freedom and sacrifice its best people - like Bhagat Singh and Subhash Bose - thousands, with a great dream that freedom would bring happiness to the people. The hope could not be denied because...

... the revolution was led by Mahatma Gandhi, a man who was thought to be a saint, worshipped almost like a god. The freedom came, and the people whom Gandhi had trained, who looked so innocent, so pure, so simple... It created great hope in the masses that if power came to these people it would not corrupt them - these people who pray every day, these people who live in poverty, these people whose...

... lives are an example for millions to follow. The freedom came, and the power came into the hands of Mahatma Gandhi's followers, who were all mini-saints - and power corrupted them all. Instead of freedom, there has only been a frustration. And the frustration has deepened every day; the night has become darker and darker. The question is being raised in every heart: "Is this the freedom for which...