The last poem !

One of my most-loved books is by Rabindranath Tagore, AKHARI KAVITA, ”The Last Poem.” It is not a book of poetries, it is a novel – but a very strange novel, very insightful.

A young woman and a man fall in love and as it happens, immediately they want to get married. The woman says, ”Only on one condition....” She is very cultured, very sophisticated, very rich.

The man said, ”Any condition is acceptable, but I cannot live without you.”

She said, ”First listen to the condition; then think it over. It is not an ordinary condition. The condition is that we will not live in the same house. I have a vast land, a beautiful lake surrounded by beautiful trees and gardens and lawns. I will make you a house on one side, just the opposite from where I live.”

He said, ”Then what is the point of marriage?”

She said, ”Marriage is not destroying each other. I am giving you your space, I have my own space. Once in a while, walking in the garden we may meet. Once in a while, boating in the lake we may meet – accidentally. Or sometimes I can invite you to have tea with me, or you can invite me.”

The man said, ”This idea is simply absurd.”

The woman said, ”Then forget all about marriage. This is the only right idea – only then can our love go on growing, because we always remain fresh and new. We never take each other for granted. I have every right to refuse your invitation just as you have every right to refuse my invitation; in no way are our freedoms disturbed. Between these two freedoms grows the beautiful phenomenon of love.”

Of course the man could not understand, and dropped the idea. But Rabindranath has the same insight as Kahlil Gibran... and they were writing at almost the same time.

If this is possible – to have space and togetherness both – then the winds of heaven dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love.

It should be a free gift, given or taken, but there should be no demand. Otherwise, very soon you are together but you are as apart as faraway stars. No understanding bridges you; you have not left the space even for the bridge.

-OSHO

{Chap 8,The Messiah, Vol 1}

Stop listening !

The self is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness !

It happened once ... Kahlil Gibran has a beautiful story.

In an ancient village there were two wells. One was in the palace, which was not available for anybody else than the royal family, and the other well was in the marketplace, which was available for everybody else except the royal family.

But one day a witch came into the town, and she chanted some gibberish and threw something inside the well. People watched but they could not understand what was happening. But by the time the sun was setting, everybody had drunk water from the well -- except the royal family -- and everybody had gone mad. The whole capital was mad, from the smallest child to the oldest man -- except the king and the queen and the prince.

And a strange thing happened .... The whole crowd gathered around the palace and they started shouting that the king has gone mad. They were all mad, obviously, and they all agreed on the point that "The king does not seem to be the same as we are."

The king immediately asked his prime minister what to do. "Even our armies have gone mad. They are all dancing and they are asking, `Come out of the palace! We will choose a new king who is sane just like us!'"

The prime minister was very old, an ancient wise man. He told the king, "The only way is to run from the back door. I will keep them engaged at the front door, telling them that `I am bringing the king, he is getting ready.' You run to the well that they have been drinking the water from. Drink the water -- you, your wife, your son -- and you all get drunk. Unless you are mad this crowd is going to kill you!"

The advice was absolutely correct. The king and his family ran from the back door, drank quickly the water of the well that the witch had changed with a certain alchemical phenomenon. They did not come to the back door, they came dancing and rejoicing to the front gate, and the crowd was very happy that their king had become sane.

That night there was a great festival in the capital. "Our king, our queen, our future king - - all have become sane!"

The crowd is living so unconsciously. You cannot expect from this crowd any act of virtue, any act of unselfishness. It is simply not possible. It is categorically impossible. First comes meditation, then everything else follows.

So when your parents or your priests tell you that you are doing a selfish act, tell them clearly that you are the only one who is going to drop the self, and there will be no selfishness left, and out of that state virtue will follow -- "not from your prayers, not from your Bible or your Koran or your Gita, not from your teachings, but from my own exploration into whether there is a self."

The self is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness. It has never been found by those who have entered deeper into themselves.

-OSHO

(Chapter 3, Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons)

YOU KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH !

This is the whole process that we call our life!!

IF YOU KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH you need not be worried what others think about you, whether they accept you or reject you.

If you are worried about others’rejection and acceptance, that simply shows one thing – that you don’t know your own worth, that you don’t know your own being, that you don’t know God resides in you, that you are an abode ofthe divine.

Hence you are worried what people are thinking about you – because on their thinking, on their opinion, will depend much.

Your ego depends on others’ opinions: your being depends on nobody.

That’s why the man of being is always a rebel, and the man who lives in the ego has to compromise very much with the society.

The egoist has to compromise, because if he does not compromise,nobody is going to fulfill his ego.

The ego needs others’ support, it needs props from others: the more people like you, the better and more polished and refined an ego you can have.

That’s why people read books like Dale Carnegie’s HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, or Napoleon Hill, and others.

There are thousands of these so-called philosophers who go on teaching people how to polish the ego in a better way, how to decorate it.

The modern mind is very much concerned about it, how you look to others.

Why?
Because we have lost all sense of our own being. Now all that we have is the ego, and the ego needs others’ support.

If you don’t fulfill their expectations about you, they will withdraw their support. and the more you fulfill their expectations, the more of a slave you become.

Whatsoever they want you to do, you do.
You are just obedient, constantly compromising.

Whether you like it or not does not matter to you; the whole question is whether others like it.

If they want you to smile, you smile.
The smile may be phoney, but that is not the point – because people like it.

And when they like your smile, they will love you. And when they love you, they will give attention to you, they will respect you.

They will fulfill your need to be needed.

This is the whole process that we call our life.

And if this life remains a constant frustration, it is not a wonder.

The society, from the very beginning, teaches you, ”Listen to what others say about you, because that is what you are.”

Now this is so stupid, the whole idea.

Others don’t know themselves, and they decide who I am.

I don’t know about myself, who I am, and I decide about others, who they are.

This Is a mutual deception. 
I don’t know who I am, you don’t know who you are: you decide about me, I Decide about you.

Blind people deciding about each other. Blind people telling each other, ”You are beautiful; your face is so beautiful, or so ugly.”

Blind people deciding who is a sinner and who is a saint.

And such great fear is created from the very beginning in every child that your whole life you are tortured by it.

If somebody does not think well of you, you lose your whole night – you cannot sleep:somebody doesn’t think well of you.

How does it matter?
Who is he to decide about you?
But the reason is that you have forgotten yourself; you don’t know who you are.

You depend on him – if he doesn't think well of you, then something is wrong with you; you start losing self-respect.

When nobody respects you, how can you respect yourself?

Your self-respect is just a cumulative effect of many people pouring their respect towards you.

And these are the ignorant people, as ignorant as you are.

They know nothing, but this is their way of manipulating each other.

”I respect you, I am paying you, I am bribing you, to be manipulated by me.

You respect me because you want to manipulate me.”This is how it goes on.

The man who knows his self-worth, the man who knows who he is, will remain absolutely unconcerned.

And just see the point: when you are absolutely unconcerned with what people say about you, you have a freedom, a psychological freedom, you are out of the psychological slavery of the society.

Your soul is born.

OshO 
CHAPTER 3. THE DEATH OF THE SEED
Unio Mystica, Vol 2