Belief !!!

You may have heard a story like this: once a brahmin bought a goat and was taking it home. Three or four thieves saw him and thought the goat could be snatched away from him. But the brahmin was strong and to steal from him would be no easy job, so they decided to try diplomacy, a little trickery.

One came up to him on the road saying, ”Well done! How much did you pay for the dog?” That man, that brahmin said, ”Dog! Are you blind? Or only mad? It is a goat! I am bringing her from the market. I paid fifty rupees for her.”

The thief said, ”It’s up to you, but you know... seeing a brahmin carrying a dog on his shoulders.... Dear brother, to me it looks like a dog. Could there be some mistake?”

The brahmin went on his way, wondering what kind of man was that! But he fingered the feet of the goat just to check, saying to himself, ”It is a goat.” Another of the gang was waiting across the road.

He called over to the brahmin, ”What a fine dog you bought!”

Now the brahmin hadn’t the courage to insist it was not a dog: who knows maybe it was a dog – two men could not be wrong. Still he said, ”No no, it’s not a dog.” But it was weaker now. He said it, but the foundations inside were shaken. He said, ”No, no it’s a goat.”

The man said, ”It’s a goat? You call this a goat? Then, respected brahmin, the definition of goat needs to be changed! If you call this a goat then what will you call a dog? But it’s up to you. You are a scholarly man; you can change it if you want. It’s just a name. Perhaps you say dog, perhaps you say goat – a dog it remains. Nothing changes just by calling it a goat.”

The man went away. The brahmin put the goat down and looked: it was definitely a goat... a goat like any other goat. He rubbed his eyes and splashed them with water from a roadside tap. He was nearing his own neighborhood: if people saw a brahmin carrying a dog on his shoulders it would be a blow against worship in the temple and against scholarship. People paid for his worship – they would stop paying, they would think him mad.... Again he thoroughly inspected the animal, making sure it was a goat. But what was with those two guys?

Again he shouldered the goat and started off, but now he moved a little nervously. What if anyone else saw him? Then he came across the third fellow. He exclaimed, ”What a fine dog! Where did you get it? I too have wanted to have a dog for a long time.”

The brahmin said, ”Friend, you just take it! If you want a dog, take it. It is really a dog. A friend gave it to me, you please relieve me of it.” And he ran home before anyone could find out that he had bought a dog.

This is how man lives. You have become what you believe. And there are many cheats and scoundrels all around – you have been led to believe all kinds of things. They have their own motives. The priest wants to convince you that you are a sinner, because if you are not a sinner how will he continue to pray for you? It is in his interest that a goat be taken for a dog.

A pundit... if you are not ignorant what will become of his scholarship? How will he run his business? A religious teacher... if he explains to you that you are inactive, free of doing, that you have never committed sin – then what need is there of him?

It is as if you go to a doctor and he explains that you are not sick, that you have never been sick, you cannot be sick, health is your nature – then the doctor is committing suicide. What will happen to his business? In robust health go to a doctor, go when you are not at all sick; then too you will find that he discovers some problem. Go and try it. Go in absolutely top form, when you are not sick at all; just go and do it, tell the doctor that you just want him to do a check-up. It is not easy to find a doctor who will say you are not ill. 

Source: “The Mahageeta, Volume 1” - Osho

Osho On God ! ! !

I have never spoken against God for the simple reason that God does not exist. How can you speak against someone who does not exist in the first place? I have never spoken against Christianity either, because there is no such thing in the world as Christianity.

What exists in the name of Christianity I have always called Crossianity. It is the worship of the cross, not of Christ. It is fear of death, not love of life. Just take a few things out of the life of Jesus and Christianity disappears. If he is not crucified can there be a Christianity? Jesus is not important; what is important is crucifixion. Even more important is the fiction of resurrection, but that is possible only if first Jesus is crucified. It is a corollary.

These so-called Christians worship Jesus because of resurrection. That is a great consolation against death. That's why I say they are worshiping the cross, the crucifixion, the resurrection -- not for any love for Jesus and his teachings but because of a deep fear of death. This fear of death makes them believe in things which they know are impossible. But when you are in a psychological turmoil of fear you can believe anything, just as a temporary consolation.

They believe Jesus walks on water, turns stones into bread, makes wine out of water, raises the dead back to life. Just remove these things which don't have anything to do with Jesus' teachings -- or do you think these things are necessary for there to be a religion? Then there cannot be any Buddhism, there cannot be any Jainism, there cannot be any religion other than Christianity. But all these religions are there.

Buddha never made wine out of water. In fact if he had come to know that, "Jesus is going to make wine out of water when I'm gone" -- because Jesus came five hundred years afterwards -- he would have condemned this man as a sinner. This is criminal -- making wine out of water? This is against the law of every country. Just try to make marijuana and you will know whether you are worshiped or imprisoned.

A very intelligent man, Timothy Leary, served seven years in jail because he was teaching that LSD can make man in every way superior to what he is now: his consciousness can be wider, his love can be deeper, his sensitivity can touch unknown peaks which have never been touched before. In every dimension LSD can be a tremendous boost for human growth. Just because of teaching these things he was put in jail.

He was a professor, perfectly acquainted with the chemistry of LSD and the chemistry of the mind. He was not an illiterate person; what he was saying was based on scientific discoveries. But still, because he was teaching a philosophy supporting drugs, he was imprisoned for seven years. He is not a man of great guts; professors rarely are. He may have never thought that just by teaching a philosophical attitude you can get into so much trouble.

Since he has been out of jail he has forgotten all about his philosophy. Now he is teaching something else -- he has to teach, he has become a world-famous man. He can't remain silent, he can't keep quiet. The old thing he cannot teach again; otherwise he will be back in jail. Now he is teaching something absolutely absurd. Now is the time that he should be in a madhouse.

Those seven years in jail were absolutely unjustified. On the one side these politicians go on talking about the freedom of speech, and on the other hand a man cannot say something which he feels is a scientific fact. It may not be -- then prove it!

A cultured society need not throw a man like Timothy Leary in jail. You have so many scientists, let them prove what he is saying is wrong. There is no need for any court, for any law to come into it. And if he is right then he should be accepted, then he should be received as a messiah because he is bringing a new way of transformation. If he is right, welcome him. If he is wrong, prove him wrong; that's enough.

This is very primitive, ugly, to throw him into jail because he is saying something which goes against the law. But who told you that the law is anything ultimate? You have made the law. Science goes on progressing. You will have to change your laws if they go against science; science is not to be prevented.

I am not saying that Timothy Leary is right, no, don't misunderstand me. What I am saying is, he has been mistreated without any justification. I also say he is wrong, but he is not a criminal. To be philosophically wrong does not make a person criminal.

But when I say he is wrong, I also say that there is some truth, maybe just a little bit, in what he is saying. His idea of changing men's mind chemically has a truth about it because mind is chemistry. And there has never been any method which was not chemical which has ever been used to change mind.

Just look -- yoga is the ancientmost methodology of changing mind. What do they do? Body postures are physical, but in certain postures your body chemistry changes. So simple: if you stand on your head the whole normal functioning of your body, its mechanism, is turned upside down. More blood is going into your head, less blood is going into your feet. More blood in the head is going to change the chemistry of your mind, more oxygen is going to change the chemistry of the mind.

Yoga has been teaching you breathing exercises. Breath is chemistry. With more oxygen in your lungs you are a certain man; more carbon dioxide, and you are a different man. If your lungs are full of carbon dioxide you are dead; if they are full of oxygen .... There are millions of small, very small rooms; with your breathing, only one third of those small sacs receive oxygen, two thirds remain filled with carbon dioxide. This is your normal state.

With yoga-breathing those sacs, those small rooms, start removing their carbon dioxide, throwing it out and filling themselves with oxygen. When all the sacs are full of oxygen your vitality is different, is bound to be different -- normally you are only one-third alive. And that much oxygen in your body is going to change everything -- but it is all chemistry.

So I say there is a certain truth in what Timothy Leary was saying, yet I am against his supporting drugs to transform man. That is dangerous.

In fact, politicians are idiots; otherwise they would have used this man; he would have proved of immense help to them. He would have shown them how to enslave people forever. Drugs can be created -- and people can be made addicted to those drugs -- which will cancel all revolutions, all rebellions. Anything that goes against the status quo, the drug will prevent it.

I am against him for other reasons too -- because drugs can only change mind, and man is not only mind. He is something more. The real transformation has to happen in that something more -- in consciousness. And no drug can even touch consciousness. It can change the mechanism of the mind, the chemistry of the mind. It can give you hallucinations of samadhi, of nirvana, enlightenment; but those are only hallucinations, they are not true.

One day you miss your injection and they are gone and you are back in the dumps. And when somebody falls from nirvana, he is going to have multiple fractures -- everything destroyed. If you are going to fall, it is better never to try climbing so high. It is better to crawl on the earth if you are going to fall; at least you won't have any fractures. Drugs can take you very high but you will have to come back down; it was the drug, not you.

Meditation changes not your mind, but you, your consciousness.

And the change comes by your own awareness.