OSHO,
I LAUGHED, a real
uproarious laugh, seeing the whole absurdity of trying to be enlightened. The
whole thing is ridiculous because we are born enlightened, and to try for
something that is already the case is the most absurd thing. If you already
have it, you cannot achieve it; only those things can be achieved which you
don't have, which are not intrinsic parts of your being. But enlightenment is
your very nature.
I had struggled for
it for many lives -- it had been the only target for many many lives. And I had
done everything that is possible to do to attain it, but I had always failed.
It was bound to be so -- because it cannot be an attainment. It is your nature,
so how can it be your attainment? It cannot be made an ambition.
Mind is ambitious --
ambitious for money, for power, for prestige. And then one day, when it gets
fed up with all these extrovert activities, it becomes ambitious for
enlightenment, for liberation, for nirvana, for God. But the same ambition has
come back; only the object he changed. First the object was outside, now the
object is inside. But your attitude, your approach has not changed; you are the
same person in the same mt, in the same routine.
"The day I
became enlightened" simply means the day I realized that there is nothing
to achieve, there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to be done. We are already
divine and we are already perfect -- as we arc. No improvement is needed, no
improvement at all. God never creates anybody imperfect. Even if you come
across an imperfect man, you will see that his imperfection is perfect. God
never creates any imperfect thing.
I have heard about a
Zen Master Bokuju who was telling this truth to his disciples, that all is
perfect. A man stood up -- very old, a hunchback -- and he said, "What about
me? I am a hunchback. What do you say about me?" Bokuju said, "I have
never seen such a perfect hunchback in my life."
When I say "the
day I achieved enlightenment," I am using wrong language -- because there
is no other language, because our language is created by us. It consists of the
words "achievement," "attainment," "goals,"
"improvement" "progress," "evolution." Our
languages are not created by the enlightened people; and in fact they cannot
create it even if they want to because enlightenment happens in silence. How
can you bring that silence into words? And whatsoever you do, the words are
going to destroy something of that silence.
Lao Tzu says: The
moment truth is asserted it becomes false. There is no way to communicate
truth. But language has to be used; there is no other way. So we always have to
use the language with the condition that it cannot be adequate to the
experience. Hence I say "the day I achieved my enlightenment." It is
neither an achievement nor mine.
[At this point there
was a power failure: no light, no sound.]
Yes, it happens like
that! Out of nowhere suddenly the darkness, suddenly the light, and you cannot
do anything. You can just watch.
I laughed that day
because of all my stupid ridiculous efforts to attain it. I laughed on that day
at myself, and I laughed on that day at the whole of humanity, because
everybody is trying to achieve, everybody is trying to reach, everybody is
trying to improve.
To me it happened in
a state of total relaxation -- it always happens in that state. I had tried
everything. And then, seeing the futility of all effort, I dropped... I dropped
the whole project, I forgot all about it. For seven days I lived as ordinarily
as possible.
The people I used to
live with were very much surprised, because this was the first time they had
seen me live just an ordinary life. Otherwise my whole life was a perfect
discipline.
For two years I had
lived with that family, and they had known that I would get up at three o'clock
in the morning, then I would go for a long four- or five-mile walk or run, and
then I would take a bath in the river. Everything was absolutely routine. Even
if I had a fever or I was ill, there was no difference: I would simply go on
the same way.
They had known me to
sit in meditation for hours. Up to that day I had not eaten many things. I
would not drink tea, coffee, I had a strict discipline about what to eat, what
not to eat. And exactly at nine o'clock I would go to bed. Even if somebody was
sitting there, I would simply say "Goodbye" and I would go to my bed.
The family with whom I used to live, they would inform the person that
"Now you can go. He has gone to sleep." I would not even waste a
single moment in saying, "Now it is time for me to go to sleep."
When I relaxed for
seven days, when I dropped the whole thing and when on the first day I drank
tea in the morning and woke up at nine o'clock in the morning, the family was
puzzled. They said, "What has happened?
Have you
fallen?" They used to think of me as a great yogi.
One picture of those
days still exists. I used to use only one single piece of cloth and that was
all. In the day I would cover my body with it, in the night I would use it as a
blanket to cover myself. I slept on a bamboo mat. That was my whole comfort --
that blanket, that bamboo mat. I had nothing -- no other possessions.
They were puzzled
when I woke up at nine. They said, "Something is wrong. Are you very ill,
seriously ill?"
I said, "No, I
am not seriously ill. I have been ill for many years, now I am perfectly
healthy. Now I will wake up only when sleep leaves me, and I will go to sleep
only when sleep comes to me. I am no longer going to be a slave to the clock. I
will eat whatsoever my body feels like eating, and I will drink whatsoever I
feel like drinking."
They could not
believe it. They said, "Can you even drink beer?" I said, "Bring
it!"
That was the first
day I tasted beer. They could not believe their eyes. They said, "You have
completely gone down. You have become completely unspiritual. What are you
doing?"
I said, "Enough
is enough." And in seven days I completely forgot the whole project, and I
forgot it forever.
And the seventh day
it happened -- it happened just out of nowhere. Suddenly all was light; and I
was not doing anything, I was just sitting under a tree resting, enjoying. And
when I laughed, the gardener heard the laughter. He used to think that I was a
little bit crazy, but he had never seen me laugh in that way. He came running.
He said, "What is the matter?"
I said, "Don't
be worried. You know I am crazy -- now I have gone completely crazy! I am
laughing at myself. Don't feel offended. Just go to sleep."
You ask me, Ashu,
What was the first thing that you did after you became enlightened?
Laughter. And that's
the thing that I have been doing since then. I cannot laugh before you while
telling jokes because that destroys the jokes, but I laugh through you.
Mario staggers into
his favorite bar and asks for a triple scotch.
"What happened
to you?" the bartender asks.
"I am fucking
mad!" Mario says. "It all started late last night. We had been
working late and my secretary asked me to drive her home. When I turned on the
ignition of my car, the key snapped off in my hand!"
"Oh, that would
sure piss me off," says the bartender.
"No, that didn't
get me mad," says Mario. "We just took a cab, went up to her
apartment and ate a little snack she prepared. Then she asked me if I would
like to lie down with her a while."
"And then?"
asks the enthralled bartender.
"Well,"
continues Mario, "as I unzipped my trousers my bloody fly got jammed and I
couldn't get my pants off!"
"Wow! That would
really get me mad!" exclaims the bartender.
"Naw... That
didn't get me mad. We got into it soon enough, and there we were going at it
good and strong when all of a sudden there was a key in the latch. 'Quick,' she
said, 'it must be my husband. Hide!' "
"Now that's a
real piss-off!" says the bartender.
"No," says
Mario, "that's not what made me mad. I had to hide fast. In the cupboard
and under the bed were obvious places, so I hung by my fingers out of the
window. '
"And then?"
says the bartender.
"Well, the
husband bursts in and yells, 'Where is that sonofabitch hiding?' And without
waiting for an answer he looks under the bed and in the cupboard and then he
looks out of the window and sees me hanging by my fingers there with no clothes
on."
"And then?"
says the bartender.
"Well, he runs
to his cupboard and pulls out a nine iron from his golf bag and with a grin on
his face jumps onto the window sill and starts teeing off on my finger-tips,
one by one."
"Jesus Christ!
No wonder you are mad!" says the bartender.
"No! That's not
why I am mad!" says Mario. "It was only when he got down to the last
finger that I looked down and realized that I was only twelve inches off the
ground! That's why I am mad!" - Osho
Theologia Mystica
Chapter #9Chapter
title: I laughed
19 August 1980 am in
Buddha Hall
