Mm, mm. Even the fear of going in a wrong direction is an ego trip.
[A sannyasin says: I feel if I don't ask you whatever comes up -- every week almost something new comes up -- I'll go off the track; I'll go off on some incredible ego trip.]
Mm, mm. Even the fear of going in a wrong direction is an ego trip. Why are you so afraid of being in a wrong situation? -- because the wrong situation is very ego shattering and the right situation is very ego enhancing. In fact to think of the future is to think in terms of the ego. So remain with the moment If it is needed for your growth -- that you should go in a wrong direction -- it will happen. And you cannot avoid it, because avoiding it will be avoiding your own growth. You cannot avoid anything. So whatsoever is available, enjoy it to your total capacity; respond to it totally. Let this moment give all that it can give to you. And the next moment is going to be born out of this moment
If this moment has been rightly lived, from where will the next moment come? It will grow out of this moment. It is going to take on the same quality. It is going to be a continuity with this moment. The next moment is not coming out of the blue. It grows out of you like a leaf grows out of the tree. It comes from your roots... it is nourished by your life juice. So if this moment is lived rightly.... And when I use the word 'rightly', I don't mean in the sense puritans use it; I don't mean the meaning that moralists will like to enforce on it.
To live rightly means to live totally. It is not being virtuous; it is just being whole. The right is not against wrong or against sin. The right is only against being partial. Don't be partial, don't be fragmentary. And the right has nothing to do with any goal, any perfectionist's ideal. The right has something to do with the feel of this moment If you feel good, it is right. Easy is right. Happiness is right.
So celebrate this moment, enjoy this moment, delight in this moment -- and the tomorrow will take care of itself. Think not of the morrow. The moment you start thinking that you may go wrong, that you have to go right, the ego has entered. It is the ego that is worried about its decoration, morality, good, virtue, respectability, some shoulds. So just remain with the moment, as much as possible and everything will go right If this moment is right, everything is going to be right
This is the definition of being right if you are happy in this moment nothing is going to be wrong. Happiness is a sure indication that things are flowing with the total; you are one with the universal.
Happiness arises only when there is a harmony between you and the whole... when there is no conflict, when there is no pain. Then there is sheer joy -- and the joy is incredible because you cannot even find any cause to it. You cannot explain why it is there. It is there unexplained, and it is utterly there, for no reason at all; it is simply there. It is there like a mystery. So live in the moment and by and by start dropping these tensions of the future. If you go wrong, you go wrong; nothing is wrong in it. Don't be a coward -- be courageous. In life a few wrong things happen. In fact they are part of life.
You cannot weave a cloth unless the thread is put in such a way that each thread is crossed by another thread, the vertical is crossed by the horizontal; otherwise the cloth will not exist. A good man is simply good. He is a heap of thread; he is not a cloth. A bad man is simply bad. He is again a heap of thread; not a cloth. A whole man is both. He accepts God and devil both, day and night both. And in that acceptance is transcendence. In the very acceptance you are neither good nor bad. You have gone beyond both; you become a witness. And that's what real sanctity is.
So don't try to be good and don't try to be right. Don't try to avoid the wrong and don't try to avoid the bad, because then your life will lose all salt. You will become tasteless. Saints are tasteless -- at least so-called saints. A real saint has tremendous contradictions in him; he is paradoxical. He is both sweet and bitter. He is as dark as the darkest night and as full of light as the noontime. He's simple like a child. You can almost call him a fool. That's what Saint Francis used to call himself -- and he is as wise as there is the possibility to be.
In the Old Testament there is a saying: The wiseman, the perfect man, is as cunning as the snake and as innocent as the dove. This is the contradiction -- as innocent as the dove and as cunning, sly, as the snake -- but both meet, and in that meeting both change their qualities; in that meeting both negate each other. When both the plus and minus come together they negate each other. And out of that negation a zero experience is born. When God and devil meet they negate each other. They are equal forces, and when they are negative, you are empty. That emptiness is absolute. It knows no limit; it is immeasureable. And in that emptiness is what in the East we have called the witness, the witnessing consciousness.
My whole effort here is to help you to become that emptiness. So I am not worried about going wrong. Sometimes it is good to go wrong. It is very good to go astray sometimes. It is not always good to remain good, so don't be worried about that. It is as it should be. Nature takes its own course. Simply remain with the moment. Live the moment with your total being involved in it, committed to it, absorbed in it. Become drunk with the moment, and then whatsoever happens will be good. Even if it is not good, it will be good. At least eventually it will prove to be good. Even if you go wrong sometimes, finally you will find that that was also part of being right. It was needed. Life is really a mystery, and the mystery is because of this paradox.
If you love somebody and you are together for twenty-four hours, your love will lose charm, the magic will be gone. But sometimes you are separated. You fight; you go on your own way. When you are separated, again a desire to meet arises. Again you come... you come fresh. The old is dissolved by the fight. You have become discontinuous with the past. Now it is a new moment again -- fresh, young, virgin. You fall in love again. You will fight again.
One day when you look at the whole phenomenon you will see that fight was part of love -- otherwise love would have died long before. It was the fighting that wouldn't allow it to die. The fight creates separation, the separation creates desire to be together again. You come together again. In being together again there comes a moment when it becomes flat, becomes monotonous. Again a desire to separate arises. You move again... you fight for small excuses. That's why lovers always say, 'We have been fighting but there is nothing much to fight about.' In fact when they look, when they think about it, it seems ridiculous. The reason seems to be absolutely absurd, or so tiny -- but that is not the point. They don't know the real reason. The real reason is that they want to create hunger again. Separation gives hunger.
This is how it goes -- exploding, imploding, exhaling, inhaling. This is how it goes -- happiness, unhappiness; good and bad, right and wrong. So don't be worried about it. Simply trust life. I teach you trust -- trust in life. So if sometimes life leads you into some wrong ways, go. Don't resist that moment; just go totally so whatsoever life wants you to learn from that experience is learned, and you can come out again.
In Jesus' life he used the parable of the prodigal son very much. That's what I am saying. A man had two sons and he divided his property among these two -- half and half. One remained with the father -- was a good young man, very virtuous, obedient, served his father, increased the money that had been given to him, was respected by everybody. But the other, the younger one, left the town. He gambled, he drank; he moved in wrong company. He destroyed all his money, he destroyed all his character, he destroyed his health.
One day news came that he had become a beggar. The father sent a message that there was no need for him to become a beggar; he could come back home. The son came back and the father arranged a big feast for him. The fattest lamb had to be killed and the best wine from the cellar had to be brought. He invited many guests to receive the son on his coming back.
Somebody went to the field where the older son was working hard in the hot sun, and said, 'Look at the injustice! A lamb was never cut for you. The old wine was never brought for you, a feast was never given for you. Nobody gathered to welcome you. Now look what has happened! This is absolutely partial. And that vagabond who has destroyed the whole money earned by your father with much hard labour is coming back a beggar. His whole life savings he gambled. Now he is coming like a beggar but he is going to be received like an emperor!'
Of course the son felt bad. He came home and he said to the father, 'This is too much!' And the father laughed and he said, 'You are with me so there is no need for any welcome. Not that I love you less, but the one who was lost is coming back. He needs love, he needs acceptance. He has to be welcomed. It is not unjust to you. He is wounded and he needs rest and love. Love will be his treatment.'
So nothing wrong in.... What Jesus is saying through this parable is that those who go astray will also be received by God. They will be really welcomed. This parable is very dangerous. It says that those who are good, they are just so-so -- but those who are bad, once they come back home they are going to be received with a great feast because they took the risk of going astray. They are becoming grown up. They have become more experienced, they are more mature. They staked their life, they risked their life. They were lost, and they are being reclaimed.
So never be afraid that something may go wrong. Simply trust. If it goes wrong, that's what is needed. Go prayerfully into it and you will see that your prayer, your acceptance, your trust, has changed the whole quality of it. It has transformed it utterly. The wrong also becomes right when you trust life. And when you don't trust life even right becomes wrong. So it is not a question of right and wrong.
And whenever you have a question, ask. Don't be worried about it -- whatsoever it is. Mm? Good.
Osho.
God Is Not For Sale Chapter #21 Â
