The Greatest Luxury - GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS by Osho

GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS

Master Osho Talks On Pythagoras

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT;

GUARD THEN THY FAITH:

... REVERE THE MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS HEROES, OF SPIRITS, DEMI-GODS....

BE A GOOD SON, JUST BROTHER; SPOUSE TENDER; AND GOOD FATHER.

CHOOSE FOR THY FRIEND, THE FRIEND OF VIRTUE; YIELD TO HIS GENTLE COUNSELS,

PROfIT BY HIS LIFE; AND FOR A TRIFLING GRIEVANCE NEVER LEAVE HIM;

IF THOU CANST AT LEAST: FOR A MOST RIGID LAW BINDS POWER TO NECESSITY.

PYTHAGORAS REPRESENTS THE ETERNAL PILGRIM for PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS - the perennial philosophy of life. He is a seeker of truth par excellence. He staked all that he had for the search. He travelled far and wide, almost the whole known world of those days, in search of the Masters, of the mystery schools, of any hidden secrets. From Greece he went to Egypt - in search of the lost Atlantis and its secrets.

In Egypt, the great library of Alexandria was still intact. It had all the secrets of the past preserved.

It was the greatest library that has ever existed on the earth; later on it was destroyed by Jews and Mohammedans fanatics. The library was so big that when it was burnt, for six months the fire continued.

Just twenty-five centuries before Pythagoras, a great continent, Atlantis, had disappeared into the ocean. The ocean that is called 'Atlantic' is so called because of that continent, Atlantis.

Atlantis was the ancientmost continent of the earth, and civilization had reached the highest possible peaks. But whenever a civilization reaches a great peak there is a danger: the danger of falling apart, the danger of committing suicide.

Humanity is facing that same danger again. When man becomes powerful, he does not know what to do with that power. When the power is too much and the understanding is too little, power has always proved dangerous. Atlantis was not drowned in the ocean by any natural calamity. It was actually the same thing that is happening today: it was man's own power over nature. It was through atomic energy that Atlantis was drowned - it was man's own suicide. But all the scriptures and all the secrets of Atlantis were still preserved in Alexandria.

All over the world there are parables, stories, about the great flood. Those stories have come from the drowning of Atlantis. All those stories - Christian, Jewish, Hindu - they all talk about a great flood that had come once in the past and had destroyed almost the whole civilization. Just a few initiates, adepts, had survived. Noah's ark is just a symbol.

A few people escaped the calamity. With them, all the secrets that the civilization had attained survived. They were preserved in Alexandria.

Pythagoras lived in Alexandria for years. He studied, he was initiated into the mystery schools of Egypt - particularly the mysteries of Hermes. Then he came to India, was initiated into all that the brahmins of this ancient land had discovered, all that India had known in the inner world of man.

For years he was in India, then he travelled to Tibet and then to China. That was the whole known world. His whole life he was a seeker, a pilgrim, in search of a philosophy - philosophy in the true sense of the word: love for wisdom. He was a lover, a philosopher - not in the modern sense of the word but in the old, ancient sense of the word. Because a lover cannot only speculate, a lover cannot only think about truth: a lover has to search, risk, adventure.

Truth is the beloved. How can you go on only thinking about it? You have to be connected with the beloved through the heart. The search cannot be only intellectual; it has to be deep down intuitive.

Maybe the beginning has to be intellectual, but only the beginning. Just the starting point has to be intellectual, but finally it has to reach the very core of your being.

He was one of the most generous of men, most liberal, unprejudiced, open. He was respected all over the world. From Greece to China he was revered. He was accepted in every mystic school; with great joy he was welcomed everywhere. His name was known in all the lands.

Wherever he went he was received with great rejoicing.

Even though he had become enlightened, he still continued to reach into hidden secrets, he still continued to ask to be initiated into new schools. He was trying to create a synthesis; he was trying to know the truth through as many possibilities as is humanly possible. He wanted to know truth in all its aspects, in all its dimensions.

He was always ready to bow down to a Master. He himself was an enlightened man - it is very rare.

Once you have become enlightened, the search stops, the seeking disappears. There is no point.

Buddha became enlightened... then he never went to any other Master. Jesus became enlightened... then he never went to any other Master. Or Lao Tzu, or Zarathustra....

Hence Pythagoras is something unique. No parallel has ever existed. Even after becoming enlightened, he was ready to become a disciple to anybody who was there to reveal some aspect of truth.

His search was such that he was ready to learn from anybody. He was an absolute disciple. He was ready to learn from the whole existence. He remained open, and he remained a learner to the very end.

The whole effort was... and it was a great effort in those days, to travel from Greece to China. It was full of dangers. The journey was hazardous; it was not easy as it is today. Today things are so easy that you can take your breakfast in New York and your lunch in London, and you can suffer indigestion in Poona. Things are very simple. In those days it was not so simple. It was really a risk; to move from one country to another country took years.

By the time Pythagoras came back, he was a very old man. But seekers gathered around him; a great school was born. And, as it always happens, the society started persecuting him and his school and his disciples. His whole life he searched for the perennial philosophy, and he HAD found it! He he gathered all the fragments into a tremendous harmony, into a great unity. But he was not allowed to work it out in detail; to teach people he was not allowed.

He was persecuted from one place to another. Many attempts were made on his life. It was almost impossible for him to teach all that he had gathered. And his treasure was immense - in fact, nobody else has ever had such a treasure as he had. But this is how foolish humanity is, and has always been. This man had done something impossible: he had bridged East and West. He was the first bridge. He had come to know the Eastern mind AS deeply as the Western mind.

He was a Greek. He was brought up with the Greek logic, with the Greek scientific approach, and then he moved to the East. And then he learnt the ways of intuition. Then he learnt how to be a mystic. He himself was a great mathematician in his own right. And a mathematician becoming a mystic is a revolution, because these are poles apart.

The West represents the male mind, aggressive intellect. The East represents the female mind, receptive intuition. East and West are not just arbitrary - the division is very very significant and profound.

And you should not forget Rudyard Kipling: what he said has significance, has meaning. He says East and West shall never meet. There is a fragment of truth in it, because the meeting seems to be impossible; the ways of their working are so diametrically opposite.

The West is aggressive, scientific, ready to conquer nature. The East is non-aggressive, receptive - ready to be conquered by nature. The West is eager to know. The East is patient. The West takes every initiative to reach into the mysteries of life and existence; it tries to unlock the doors. And the East simply waits in profound trust: "Whenever I am worthy, the truth will be revealed to me."

The West is concentration of the mind: the East is meditation of the mind. The West is thinking: the East is non-thinking. The West is mind: the East is no-mind. And Kipling seems to be logically right, that it seems impossible that East and West could ever meet.

And 'the East and the West' does not only represent the earth being divided in two hemispheres: it represents your mind too, your brain too. Your brain is also divided in two hemispheres just like the earth. Your brain has an East in it and a West in it. The left-side hemisphere of your brain is the West; it is connected with the right hand. And the right-side hemisphere of your brain is the East; it is connected with the left hand.

The West is rightist. The East is leftist. And the processes of both are so different.... The left hemisphere of your mind calculates, thinks, is logical. All science is produced by it. And the right hemisphere of your brain is a poet, is a mystic. It intuits, it feels. It is vague, cloudy, misty. Nothing is clear. Everything is a kind of chaos, but that chaos has its beauty. There is great poetry in that chaos, there is great song in that chaos. It is very juicy.

The calculative mind is a desertlike phenomenon. And the non-calculative mind is a garden. Birds sing there and flowers bloom... it is a totally different world.

Pythagoras was the first man to try the impossible, AND he succeeded! In him, East and West became one. In him, yin and yang became one. In him, male and female became one. He was an ARDHANARISHWAR - a total unity of the polar opposites. Shiva and Shakti together. Intellect of the highest caliber and intuition of the deepest caliber. Pythagoras is a peak, a sunlit peak, and a deep, dark valley too. It is a very rare combination.

But his whole life's effort was destroyed by the stupid people, by the mediocre masses. These few verses are the only contribution left. These verses can be written on one postcard. This IS ALL that is left of that great man's effort, endeavour. And this too is not written by his own hand; it seems all that he had written was destroyed.

The day Pythagoras died, thousands of his disciples were massacred and burnt. Only one disciple escaped the school; his name was Lysis. And he escaped, not to save his life - he escaped just to save something of the Master's teachings. These GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS were written by Lysis, the only disciple who survived.

The WHOLE school was burnt, and thousands of disciples were simply murdered and butchered.

And all that Pythagoras had accumulated on his journeys - great treasures, great scriptures from China, India, Tibet, Egypt, years and years of work - all was burnt.

Lysis wrote these few verses. And, as it has been the ancient tradition that a real disciple knows no other name than his Master's, these verses are not called LYSIS' VERSES - they are called THE GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS. He has not written his name on them.

This has been happening again and again. It happened with Vyasa in India, a great Master. In his name there are so many scriptures that it is impossible that one man could write so many scriptures.

It is humanly impossible. Even if one thousand persons wrote their whole lives continuously, then too so many scriptures could not be written. Then what happened? They are all authored by Vyasa - they are not all written by Vyasa but by his disciples. But the real disciple knows no other name than his Master's. He has disappeared in the Master, so whatsoever he writes, he writes in the name of the Master. So many theories have been evolved by linguists, by scholars, by professors - they think there have been so many Vyasas, many people of the same name. That is all nonsense. There has been only one Vyasa. But down the centuries many people loved him so deeply that when they wrote something, they felt it was the Master writing through them - they signed the Master's name because they were only vehicles, just instruments, mediums.

The same happened in Egypt to Hermes: many scriptures, all written by the disciples. And the same happened with Orpheus in Greece, and the same with Lao Tzu in China and Confucius in China.

The disciple loses his identity. He becomes utterly one with the Master. But something of immense value has been destroyed by the stupidity of people.

PYTHAGORAS IS THE FIRST EXPERIMENT in creating a synthesis. Twenty-five centuries have passed since then and nobody else has tried it again. Nobody else before had done it, and nobody else has done it afterwards either. It needs a mind which is both - scientific and mystic. It is a rare phenomenon. It happens once in a while.

There have been great mystics - Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. And there has been great scientists - Newton, Edison, Einstein. But to find a man who is at home with both worlds, easily at home, is very difficult. 

Pythagoras is that kind of man - a class unto himself. He cannot be categorized by anybody else.

The synthesis that he tried was needed, particularly in his days, as it is needed today - because the world is again at the same point. The world moves in a wheel. The Sanskrit word for 'the world' is SAMSARA. SAMSARA means the wheel. The wheel is big: one circle is completed in twenty-five centuries. Twenty-five centuries before Pythagoras, Atlantis committed suicide - out of man's own scientific growth. But without wisdom, scientific growth is dangerous. It is putting a sword in the hands of a child.

Now twenty-five centuries have passed since Pythagoras. Again the world is in a chaos. Again the wheel has come to the same point - it always comes to the same point. It takes twenty-five centuries for this moment to happen. After each twenty-five centuries the world comes into a state of great chaos.

Man becomes uprooted, starts feeling meaningless. All the values of life disappear. A great darkness surrounds. Sense of direction is lost. One simply feels accidental. There seems to be no purpose, no significance. Life seems to be just a by-product of chance. It seems existence does not care for you. It seems there is no life after death. It seems whatsoever you do is futile, routine, mechanical. All seems to be pointless.

These times of chaos, disorder, can either be a great curse, as it happened in Atlantis, or they can prove a quantum leap in human growth. It depends on how we use them. It is only in such great times of chaos that great stars are born.

Pythagoras was not alone. In Greece, Pythagoras and Heraclitus were born. In India, Buddha and Mahavira and many others. In China, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Confucius, Mencius, Lieh Tzu, and many more. In Iran, Zarathustra. In the brahmin tradition, many great Upanishadic seers. 

.... All these people, these great Masters were born at a certain stage in human history - twenty-five centuries ago.

Now we are again in a great chaos, and man's fate will depend on what we do. Either we will destroy ourselves like the civilization that destroyed itself in Atlantis - the whole world will become a Hiroshima; we will be drowned in our own knowledge; in our own science we will commit suicide, a collective suicide. A few, a Noah and a few of his followers, may be saved, or may not be.... Or, there is a possibility that we can take a quantum leap.

Either man can commit suicide, or man can be reborn. Both doors are open.

If such times can create people like Heraclitus and Lao Tzu and Zarathustra and Pythagoras and Buddha and Confucius, why can they not create a great humanity? They can. But we go on missing the opportunity.

The ordinary masses live in such unconsciousness that they can't see even a few steps ahead. They are blind. And they are the majority! The coming twenty-five years, the last part of this century, is going to be of IMMENSE value. If we can create a great momentum in the world for meditation, for the inward journey, for tranquillity, for stillness, for love, for God... if we can create a space in these coming twenty-five years for God to happen to many many people, humanity will have a new birth, a resurrection. A new man will be born.

And once you miss THESE times, then for twenty-five centuries again you will remain the same. A few people will achieve enlightenment, but it will remain only for a few people. Here and there, once in a while, a person will become alert and aware and divine. But the greater part of humanity goes on lagging behind - in darkness, in utter darkness, in absolute misery. The greater part of humanity goes on living in hell.

But these moments when chaos spreads and man loses his roots in the past, becomes unhinged from the past, are great moments. If we can learn something from the past history, if we can learn something from Pythagoras.... People could not use Pythagoras and his understanding, they could not use his great synthesis, they could not use the doors that he had made available. A single individual had done something immense, something impossible, but it was not used.

I am trying to do exactly the same again; I feel a very deep spiritual affinity with Pythagoras. I am also bringing you a synthesis of East and West, of science and religion, of intellect and intuition, of the male mind and the female mind, of the head and the heart, of the right and the left. I am also trying in every possible way to create a great harmony, because only that harmony can save. Only that harmony can give you a new birth.

But there is every possibility that what was done to Pythagoras will be done to me. And there is every possibility what was done to Pythagoras' followers will be done to my sannyasins. But still, even knowing that possibility, the effort has to be made again. Because this is a valuable time. It comes only once in twenty-five centuries when the wheel can move in a new way, can take a new direction.

You all have to risk, and you have to risk all that you have. And risk it with great joy! because what can be more joyous than to give birth to a new man, to become vehicles for a new man, for a new humanity?

It is going to be painful as every birth is painful. But the pain can be welcomed if you understand what is going to happen through it. If you can see the child coming out of it, then the pain is no more pain - just as the mother can accept the pain of the child's birth. The pain is irrelevant: her heart is dancing with joy - she is going to give birth to life, she is being creative. She is making this world more alive; a new child is being born through her. God has used her as a vehicle; her womb has proved fertile. She is happy, in great joy. She rejoices, although the pain is there on the periphery.

But when this great joy is there, the pain simply functions as a background and makes the joy even more loud. Remember...

My sannyasins can become an energy womb, an energy field. A great synthesis is happening here.

East and West ARE meeting here. And if we can make this impossible thing happen, man will live in a totally different way in the future. He will not need to live in the same old hell. Man can live in love, in peace. Man can live in great friendliness. Man can live a life which is nothing but a celebration.

Man can make this earth divine.

Yes: this very earth can become the paradise and this very body the Buddha.

THE SUTRAS they are few. Pythagoras' sutras are divided into three parts; they are known as the three famous P's of Pythagoras: preparation, purification, perfection.

Preparation means getting ready, into a receptive mood, becoming available, opening up.

Preparation means Creating a thirst, a longing for truth. Preparation means, not only curious, not only intellectually interested in what truth is, but committed to the search. Not just as a speculator standing outside but as a participant.

Preparation is the introductory part - to create a great thirst in you. Whenever you come close to a Master, the first thing that he is going to give you is a fiery thirst. A great longing he will give to you; he will sow the seeds of great longing. In fact, he will make you very discontented.

You may have come to him in search of contentment, you may have come to him to be consoled, but he will make you aflame, afire, with a new desire that you have not even dreamt about, of which you have never been aware. Maybe it was lurking there somewhere in the dark nooks and corners of your being, or hiding in some recesses underground - he will bring it forth into light, he will provoke it into a great fire. He will pour all his energy into you, to make you so thirsty, so discontented, that you start the search and you become ready to risk all; that you forget all about other desires, that you pour all your desires into one stream, that your only desire, day and night, becomes truth - or God, or Nirvana. Those are just names for the same phenomenon.

Preparation means the disciple is being awakened - awakened to the truth that we are existing in darkness and light has to be searched for and sought, awakened to the fact that we have been wasting our lives, that this is not the right way to live. Unless one starts moving towards God, life remains empty, impotent. The disciple has to be shocked, shaken, out of his dreams - dreams of money and power politics and prestige - and he has to be given a new dream, the ultimate dream, in which ALL dreams will be consumed. The ultimate dream is to know truth, to know that which is, to know that from which we come, to know that source and to know that goal to which we are going.

Then the second part is purification. When the desire has arisen then you have to be purified, because to reach the ultimate truth you will have to drop much unnecessary weight, much luggage that you have always carried. You have carried it because you haVe been thinking it is very valuable.

Your system has to be purified of all the toxic things that you have absorbed on the way. And we have been drinking poison, many kinds of poison. One is a Hindu. another is a Mohammedan, another is a Christian - these are all poisons, prejudices. They keep you tethered to the society, to the conditionings of the society.

Purification means one has to drop all conditionings, all ideologies, all prejudices, all concepts, all philosophies... all that you have been taught by others. One has to become a clean slate - a TABULA RASA - one has to become utterly clean. Only when you are utterly clean, when nothing is written on you, can God write something. Only when you are utterly silent and all words given by the society have disappeared can God speak to you. Truth can whisper its mysteries into your ears only when you are absolutely empty - emptiness is purity.

Purification is a purgative part. Man has to drop many things. In fact, truth is not far away - you have just accumulated many things around yourself. You have grown many layers around yourself, many personalities around yourself, many masks you are wearing. Hence you cannot see your original face. All those masks have to be dropped. You have to become authentic, truly as you are, utterly naked as you are.

Purification means: Stop hiding! Stop lying! Stop being phony!

And third is perfection. When you have stopped being phony, when you have dropped all the poisons that you had gathered on the way, when the dust is cleaned off the mirror, then perfection starts happening of its own accord.

Perfection is the unitive part - UNIO MYSTICA.

First the desire, intense desire, a total desire... because only if you are totally desirous of truth THEN YOU will be ready to go through the pains of purification. If the desire is lukewarm you will not be ready to go through the pains of purification.

It is painful to be purified! It is like taking pus out of your body - it hurts. Although it is GOOD in the long run - if the pus is out, the poison is out and you will heal soon - but it hurts. To take the pus out is painful. But to leave it inside is to help it to grow; it will spread all over your body.

One can only be ready to go through purification if the desire is so total that one is ready even to die for it if that is needed. And it is a kind of death - because the personality that you have always thought you are will have to die. You will have to drop all that you are identified with. And THAT has been your ego. You will have to surrender all that you have been claiming up to now and bragging up to now; all that has been precious to you has to be dropped as utter rubbish. It IS painful. It feels as if you are losing your kingdom and you are becoming a beggar.

Unless the desire is total you will not be ready to do it. And when purification has happened, when you have dropped all that is non-essential, then the essential perfects itself. You need not become perfect! You have only to create the space in which perfection grows, happens. Perfection is a happening.

The first sutra - preparation:

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT, GUARD THEN THY FAITH.

Lord Bacon, a great scientific mind, has written in his famous book, NOVUM ORGANUM, that Pythagoras was a great fanatic. Now, this is utter nonsense. Bacon's book is really great; except for this one statement, the book is of immense value.

It is said that there are three great books in the world. 

First is Aristotle's ORGANUM - ORGANUM means principle. The second is Bacon's NOVUM ORGANUM - new principle. And third is Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM - the third principle. And they ARE really great books, incomparable.

But it is very surprising how Bacon concluded that Pythagoras was a fanatic - because Pythagoras was JUST the opposite, the absolute opposite of a fanatic. If he had been a fanatic he would not have entered into all kinds of esoteric, occult schools. If he had been a fanatic he would not have been so open to learn from every possible source. In fact, fanaticism has never been part of the Greek mind.

The philosophic mind cannot be fanatic, cannot be dogmatic. That is a prerequisite of philosophy, that you have to be open, that you have to inquire, that you have to doubt, that you have to question, and that you have to remain available to truth in whatsoever form it comes. That you are NOT to decide beforehand; you have not to fall into that kind of attitude which has already concluded without knowing. You are not to be a victim of the fallacy of APRIORIISM - that you have already accepted from the very beginning without inquiring, without knowing, without experiencing.

I have tried hard to see why Bacon should call Pythagoras a fanatic. Fanaticism came out of the Judaic mind; it was never part of the Hindu mind or the Chinese mind or the Greek mind. It came out of the Jews. And it spread to Christians and Mohammedans because both are offshoots of Judaism.

The idea that "We are the chosen people of God" is dangerous. It creates fanaticism. The idea that "We have the truth, and nobody else" is dangerous, that "There is only one God and no other Gods" is dangerous - because that one God is going to be my God. And then what will happen to YOUR God? Then you are wrong, then you are a sinner. Then you have to be persuaded, converted. If you allow easily, okay; otherwise you have to be forced and coerced so that you can drop the wrong God.

Pythagoras lived in so many countries, with so many different visions of life, with so many philosophical standpoints, with so many religions - he could not be a fanatic. It seems Bacon knew nothing about Pythagoras.

The first sutra of Pythagora says:

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS...

He does not use the word 'God' but 'Gods' - that is significant. That is the state of a non-fanatic mind. 'Gods' - why plural? Why not 'God'? Because the moment you say 'God' you are falling into that dangerous trap... then what will happen to other peoples' Gods?

Pythagoras is not a monotheist; he does not believe in one God. He says: All the peoples of the world and all their approaches are true. And he KNOWS it, because he has followed many many paths; almost all existent paths Pythagoras followed many many paths; almost all existent paths Pythagoras followed. And he always reached the same peak.

There are many paths by which to reach the peak. The mountain has many paths, but they all reach the same peak. You can go from the south or from the north or from the east or from the west... you can follow a very rocky track, or you can follow a very different track. There are many alternatives.

Pythagoras knows truth is one, but he does not say it. Truth is one UNSAID. Once you say it, then please don't use the singular; then it is better to use the plural. The Vedas say: Truth is one, but wise people have described it in many ways.

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT...

He had lived with many people, worshippers of different Gods. He says to his disciples: When you go to the temple, worship the God of the temple, and worship the way people are worshipping there.

Respect the people who are worshipping and praying. And when you go to the mosque, worship the way people are worshipping there. And when you go to the church or the synagogue, worship the way people are worshipping there.

This is my approach too. All prayers are good. All prayers reach to him, and all paths ultimately end in him. There is no need to create any antagonism. To my sannyasins this is my message:

If you want a silent, isolated place, a temple or a church or a mosque, then whichever is close by, enter there. All temples and all churches and all mosques are yours. Claim that "Whichever place is dedicated to God is ours. Jerusalem and Kaaba and Kailash and Girnar - all are ours." I give you all the temples of the world as yours and all the scriptures of the world as yours.

Pythagoras is saying to his disciples: Wherever you are, watch the people, respect their prayer, respect their God, respect their vision. It may be only one aspect, but it is an aspect of God himself.

It may be only one face - God has many faces - but all the manifestations are his. In one way he descends in Krishna, in another he descends in Christ. All prophets are his, all messengers are his.

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT...

And whatsoever you believe, don't just believe it - consecrate it, make it holy by living. Let it not remain just an intellectual belief in the head: it has to become existential. Then it is consecrated, then you have made it holy and sacred.

Beliefs, if they are only thoughts, are useless. Unless they become your very blood, bones and marrow, unless you LIVE them... if you feel something is true, live it! because that will be the only proof that you feel it is true. There is no other proof. Only your life is a proof of your belief.

But that does not mean you should impose a belief upon yourself. That does not mean you should force a belief and a character upon yourself. That will not be making it sacred: that will be hypocrisy.

And how can hypocrisy be sacred? Live it, not from the without towards the within, but just the opposite: from the within towards the without. first experience a truth....

For example: I say meditate. Now, you can make it just a belief - that it is good to meditate, that meditation contains great truths, that you can now ARGUE with others about the beauties, about the mysteries of meditation. You have never meditated yourself, and you don't have time enough because of the arguments and the thinking about and reading about meditation... and you have completely forgotten that meditation has to be tasted, not to be argued.

Or, you can impose, violently, some meditative posture upon yourself. You can sit silently like a Buddha - although there is no Buddhahood inside, no silence, no purity, no innocence. The inner talk continues, but on the surface you can sit like a stone statue. This is hypocrisy: you are simply pretending. This is not the way to consecrate. This is not the way to make something sacred.

You have to REALLY go into meditation, not to pretend. And whenever you live a truth, the truth becomes consecrated.

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT...

And whatsoever you have known, offer it to God, go on offering it to God - whatsoever you have known. Whatsoever experience has happened to you, of truth, of beauty, of love, go on offering it to God, go on offering in deep gratitude.

GUARD THEN THY FAITH.

BUT DON'T TELL IT TO PEOPLE. Guard it. OFFER it to the God, but don't talk about it, otherwise you will be in danger. The masses are foolish. They cannot understand. It is beyond them. Guard!

Keep it secret deep down in your heart. Open your heart to the Gods. Open your heart to your Master, or open your heart to the friends who are following the same path, the fellow-travellers, the fellow-seekers. But don't open your heart in the marketplace - you will be misunderstood.

And the misunderstanding will create disturbance for you, it will distract your search, it will disrupt your energies. It will create turmoil in you. Truths can be communicated only to people who have some understanding.

GUARD THEN THY FAITH:

And whatsoever trust has arisen in you, whatsoever faith is born in you, keep it secret. It has to become a seed in your heart. If you just throw the seed on the ground it will not grow into a tree, because it is open. It has to go deep into the womb of the earth, into the darkness of the earth.

There it will disappear, dissolve, and a tree will be born.

Whatsoever trust has arisen in you, let it become a seed in your heart, let it disappear into the soil of the heart. There it will grow into a big tree. Yes, one day it will happen that you will not be able to contain it any more, but then what can you do? As long as you can contain, contain it. As long as you can keep it a secret, keep it a secret. Just like the child in the mother's womb remains secret for nine months, but one day the mother cannot contain it.... The child has grown. now the child is ready to be born, then it is perfectly okay.

Why is Pythagoras saying it? Why in the first sutra? For a certain reason: because whenever you have a little glimpse of truth, the mind tends to talk about it. And in that very talking you lose it. It is like an abortion. Let it remain for nine months a secret, a mystery, known only to yourself, or your beloved, or a few friends, but not to the public. It is a private phenomenon.

Yes, one day it is going to become public. One day you will not be able to contain it any more. It will have become so big, bigger than you, that it will have to overflow. When it starts overflowing, it is another matter. You become a Master then. But till that moment arrives, be very guarded, be very watchful. Don't talk about your inner experiences to each and everybody. Keep alert, because truth is very difficult to get hold of and it is very easy to lose track of. Trust is very difficult to be born in, and very easy to dissipate.

... REVERE THE MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS HEROES, OF SPIRITS, DEMI-GODS....

first:

RENDER TO THE IMMORTAL GODS THE CONSECRATED CULT, GUARD THEN THE FAITH:

Second sutra: Remember all those who have attained before you, cherish their memory - that will help you on the way. There will be many moments when suspicion will arise, doubts will arise; there will be long long dark nights of the soul when you will feel utterly lost, when you will start thinking of going back and being just the ordinary person you had been before. In those moments revere the memory of The Buddhas revere the memory of all those great heroes who have attained to truth.

In Pythagoras' language, the hero means one who has become enlightened, who has attained the truth. The only heroic deed in life is to become realized. All else is very ordinary.

You can become very famous - it is very easy. You can have political power - it does not need much intelligence. You can earn money - you have only to be a little cunning and calculative. These are not great things.

The only great thing that makes a life great and sublime is to know truth, is to know God, is to BE truth, is to be God. But the journey is very alone.

... REVERE THE MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS HEROES...

... of Socrates, of Buddha, of Pythagora, of Lao Tzu, of Krishna, of Christ, of Mahavira. Remember!

That's WHY I am talking on so many Masters: so you can remember that you are not alone on the path. Many have succeeded before you. You will also succeed. If SO many have succeeded, why not you? Many have preceded you and reached. You are not moving alone; many are ahead of you.

It is a LONG procession of truth-seekers. You are part of a great chain. You may be a small drop, but you are part of a great river - the river of Buddhas, of all the enlightened people of the world.

That's why I am talking about SO many enlightened people: to give you courage, to give you confidence; to give you the sense that you are in a great chain, part of a golden chain, and you are not moving alone. There is no need to be afraid. You cannot be lost!

... REVERE THE MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS HEROES, OF SPIRITS, DEMI-GODS...

One who attains to God becomes a demi-God, becomes a God himself. One who has known him has become him. Cherish the memory, remind yourself. And find out with whom you feel affinity.

Do you feel affinity with Moses? Do you feel affinity with Zarathustra? If you feel some affinity, then the best way is to ponder over the sayings of Zarathustra or Moses; meditate, think of their lives, create a climate around yourself. Because if you feel affinity with somebody, that means you are of the same type.

And it is not a question of your accidental birth. You may be born a Mohammedan and you may not feel any affinity with Mohammed. There is no necessity. Birth is accidental. You may be born a Hindu and you may not feel ANY affinity with Krishna, or you may even feel a certain antagonism.

You may not be the type!

So don't be too much identified with your birth. Roam around. Have a little more freedom. Look around. Whichever flower attracts you, follow that. Whichever fragrance calls you, follow that fragrance. So you may be a Hindu by birth, but if you feel that the Koran simply rings bells in your heart, then the Koran is your scripture. Forget all about Hinduism! Then Mohammed is your man - forget all about Krishna!

You may be born a Mohammedan, but if seeing the statue of Buddha something immediately settles in you, becomes serene, calm and cool; just the SAME of Buddha and you feel great love arising in you for this unknown mysterious person - then forget all about Mohammedanism and the Koran and Mohammed Then create the climate of Buddha around you, because that will be helpful, that will nourish you, that will strengthen you.

THE SECOND PART purification. This was preparation: respect ALL the Gods of the world, all the temples, all the sacred places; respect all the scriptures. This is your respect for other human beings. And remember with great love all those who have preceded you on the path and have reached.

This will prepare a climate in you. And this will create a great desire in you, this will become a longing. And you will be gripped by the longing, you will be possessed by the longing. If Buddha has touched your heart, a great longing is BOUND to arise: How to become a Buddha? If Christ has been felt at the deepest core of your being, then it is bound to happen that you will start working, searching: How to become a Christ? How to attain to Christ-consciousness? Once the desire is there, then purification is possible.

The second part: purification.

BE A GOOD SON, JUST BROTHER, SPOUSE TENDER, AND GOOD FATHER.

You will be surprised by this sutra, but it is of immense value:

BE A GOOD SON, JUST BROTHER, SPOUSE TENDER, AND GOOD FATHER.

You will think, "What has it to do with spirituality?" It has much to do with spirituality. You have to create a peaceful surrounding - only then can you fall into meditation. You have to create an atmosphere, an energy field - only then can you go inwards.

In Gurdjieff's school in Fontainebleau it was written on the gate: "If you have not settled your accounts with your father, go back." first settle your accounts with your father, then come. Unless you respect your father, there is no possibility of your growing. Strange!? Why? What has it to do with the search?

And from another corner there is psychoanalysis which says: "Settle your accounts with your mother." Unless that is settled, you will never feel settled. You will remain tense. The whole of psychoanalytic work is how to close accounts between you and your mother - gracefully, lovingly.

Pythagoras seems to be the first to say it exactly, simply: BE A GOOD SON... What does it mean to be a good son? Does it mean to be a slave, utterly obedient? If you are a slave, you are not a good son. If you are utterly obedient, you are a hypocrite. Then what does it mean to be a good son?

If you ask people they will say, "A good son means: do whatsoever your father says." It is not that simple - because you can do it from the outside and you can resist it from the inside. That's what children have to do! They are helpless. Whatsoever the parents say, they HAVE to do it, willingly, unwillingly, reluctantly - they have to do it. That creates a split in them. They become two. They start becoming false, phony.

So one way that is ordinarily thought: just be obedient to the father and you are a good son. That is not the meaning of Pythagoras. Then does he mean rebel against the father? Go against him? Do just the opposite of whatsoever he says? Be a hippie or yippie or something? If he says have short hair then have long hair? If he says, "Take a bath every day," then forget all about taking a bath for years? If he says, "Cleanliness is next to God," then be dirty and claim that dirtiness is next to God?

No, that is not the meaning of being a good son either.

In fact, the second thing has happened in the world because the first has persisted too long. Too much enforced obedience has created a reaction. Then who is a good son?

A good son is one who is alert, understanding, respectful; who listens to the father because the father knows much - he has lived, he has experienced life, he has more experience. He listens to the father. He tries to understand the father. He is open. He is not in a hurry either to obey or to disobey.

A good son is one who is ready to listen, to understand, to learn. And then if you feel that you agree with the father, do it. If you feel you don't agree with the father, then say it. There is no question of reaction. Just make it plain that you don't agree. You will do it, but it will be done with forced effort.

It will make you phony. If the father wants, you will do it, but it will make you phony, it will make you split, schizophrenic. It will divide you.

A good communion is needed between the father and the son, because the father represents the past and the son represents the future. A bridge is needed. And it cannot be one-sided, so it is not only for the son to be a good son: the final thing is to be a good father too. He is creating a family atmosphere in which meditation can grow easily.

A good son is one who is alert, ready to obey the father when he feels he is right, ready to say to the father, "I am not willing to do it - it will be false, it will be phony." And ready to go with the father if he cannot decide on his own, because there may be things which you cannot feel either right or wrong. Then follow the father; he knows better.

And the father simply represents the past. The father simply represents ALL father-figures, all those who are older than you. The father is simply a symbol of all those who have lived more than you, experienced more than you - the teachers, the elders. A great respect is needed - respect for their life, respect for their experience.

There is no need to become a slave, and there is no need to react against them. Understanding is needed - neither obedience nor reaction. And if obedience comes OUT of understanding, it is beautiful. And if sometimes rebellion comes OUT of understanding, it is beautiful. But it HAS to come out of understanding, NOT out of reaction.

There are people who will not do a certain thing because their father says to do it. How can they do it? Just because the father is saying it, they CANNOT do it - they will do the opposite. Their egos are in conflict. And there are people who know that it is wrong, but they will do it because the father says to do it. Both are wrong.

The good son is one who listens to the father, to ALL father-figures, tries to understand with great respect, with openness, with no conclusions. And then whatever decision arises in his being, to follow or not to follow, he goes with it. It is neither reaction nor obedience: it is simply acting out of understanding.

BE A JUST BROTHER... With all those who are of your age, be just, don't be unfair. Don't exploit, because if you exploit you create a tension around yourself. Create friendship around yourself, because growth will be easier in a friendly atmosphere.

... SPOUSE TENDER... With your wife, with your husband, be tender, be soft, because love has the other side of hate in it, and unless you understand what it means to be tender, soft, loving, there is every possibility love will bring great hate in you.

People love the same person, and the same person they hate. And that hate destroys all love, poisons all possibilities of love. And love is a great phenomenon. The person who has missed love will never know what prayer is, will never be able to pray. It is only love's experience that prepares you to pray.

BE SPOUSE TENDER... love the woman or the man with great tenderness, grace. That has disappeared from the world. People's relationships have become very ungraceful. They have lost the whole language of tenderness - their love life is so full of hate and anger and rage.

That may be one of the reasons why God has become dead in this century. Love has disappeared:

prayer cannot arise. Love is the flower, prayer is the fragrance. If the flower is not there, then there cannot be any fragrance.

... AND GOOD FATHER. And in your own turn, the circle is complete - be a good father. What does it mean to be a good father? Don't enforce anything on your child. Give your love, give your understanding, but always make it clear that the choice is the child's. If he wants to follow it he can follow, but he is following HIS choice. If he wants not to follow, he is free not to follow - again he is following his choice. Make everything clear to the child. You LOVE him, so give your experience to him but don't enforce it, don't command. Let him understand. Let understanding be the only law, and let him follow his understanding.

Now you can understand: the father has to be just a helper. The father has not to mould the child in a certain pattern that he wants; he has not to use the child for his own ambitions. He has to love the child, make him strong, make him more alert, so that he can search out his own ways in life. Make him more and more independent.

The good father does not cripple the child, does not force the child to depend on him. And if there is a good father, naturally the son will be good, because he will not be forced into any slavery and he will not have to react either.

And if you have been a good son, in your own turn one day you will become a father and you will be a good father.

This is the family atmosphere, the space in which we live. This space has to be of intimacy, of love, of grace. Only then will meditation be easier and spiritual growth enhanced.

CHOOSE FOR THY FRIEND, THE FRIEND OF VIRTUE; YIELD TO HIS GENTLE COUNSELS, PROFIT BY HIS LIFE, AND FOR A TRIFLING GRIEVANCE NEVER LEAVE HIM...

FRIENDSHIP has also disappeared from the world. What you call friendship has nothing to do with the ancient idea of friendship. Your friendship is just accidental. You work in the same office, so you have become friendly. Or you study in the same college, so you become friendly. This is not real friendship.

Pythagoras says: CHOOSE THY FRIEND! YOU cannot choose your father, you cannot choose your mother, you cannot choose your family - but you can choose your friend. You can choose your woman, you can choose your man - that too is an extension of friendship.

CHOOSE FOR THY FRIEND, THE FRIEND OF VIRTUE...

... one who has some grace, who has some flowering, who has some quality around him, who has an energy field of virtue. By 'virtue' is not meant the righteous, no; not the holier-than-thou, no.

By 'virtue' is meant one in whose company you suddenly start feeling a tremendous well-being; in whose company, in whose vibe, something starts dancing in you; whose presence helps you to soar high.

Choose a friend, and then ultimately you will be able to choose a Master - because the Master is the ultimate friend. If you cannot choose friends you will not be able to choose the Master either.

Choose good friends, and then one day you will be able to choose the ultimate friend.

YIELD TO HIS GENTLE COUNSELS, PROFIT BY HIS LIFE...

And when you choose a friend, listen to his counsels. He will not enforce them - they will be gentle whisperings. He will not be very loud. He will not argue, he will not command - he will only suggest, he will only hint, he will only indicate. And that is the case with the ultimate friend, the Master.

Buddha says: Buddhas only point the way. They don't make it very loud because they don't want to be violent. They don't want to drag you according to themselves; they have no desire to dominate you. They simply express whatsoever they have known and understood - now it is up to you to follow or not to follow.

And learn from his life, be profited by his life - NOT only his words, but see the way the friend lives.

See his actual life and watch it. This is the only way to learn in life. People ARE scriptures - you have to learn how to read the language. People are great secrets, each person is carrying a great secret; if you know how to listen to it you will be tremendously benefitted.

AND FOR A TRIFLING GRIEVANCE NEVER LEAVE HIM, IF THOU CANST AT LEAST: FOR A MOST RIGID LAW BINDS POWER TO NECESSITY.

PYTHAGORAS says there are two laws: one is of necessity. the other is of power. The law of necessity applies to people who are unconscious. People who live mechanically, they live out of necessity. There is another law higher than necessity: the law of power. The more conscious you become, the more you go out of necessity, you transcend necessity, you start living out of power, out of abundant power. Then your life is not of necessity.

For example: a person speaks out of necessity because he cannot resist the temptation to speak.

Buddhas also speak, but with no necessity: it is out of power, out of abundant power They are silent; there is no temptation, no obsession to speak. They can remain silent for ever. But still they speak.

If they speak. they speak out of power.

You love out of necessity. Buddhas also love - they love out of... so much energy is there that it has to be shared. So much power is happening, it has to be given. You live out of necessity, they live out of power.

Buddhas are the greatest luxury in existence.

These two laws are rooted in one primordial law. They are part of one law, two aspects of one law.

In China that law is called TAO, in India that law is called DHAMMA, in Greece that law is called LOGOS, Jews have called it TORAH. It is the SAME law.

The whole existence is based in one law, but that law has two aspects. One aspect for those who are unconscious - they live like slaves, robots. And another aspect of freedom, of power, of immense joy - that aspect happens only when you are awakened, enlightened. And to have these two laws harmoniously adjusted in your life is the basic message of Pythagoras.

When these two laws are in harmony, you are in harmony. When these two laws are in harmony, then your body follows the law of necessity and your soul follows the law of power. Then your mind follows the law of necessity, and your heart follows the law of power. Then you are a meeting of the sky and the earth, body and soul, the visible and the invisible. And that's what Buddhahood is, that's what enlightenment is.

"LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS, KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR 'GAINST PREJUDICE, OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; THINK FOR THYSELF. 

CONSULT, DELIBERATE, AND FREELY CHOOSE. 

LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT; CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE. 

THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST. INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL. 

NEGLECT NOT THY HEALTH... 

... DISPENSE WITH MODERATION FOOD TO THE BODY AND TO THE MIND REPOSE. 

TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN; FOR ENVY THUS, TO EITHER EXCESS IS ALIKE ATTACHED. 

LUXURY AND AVARICE HAVE SIMILAR RESULTS. ONE MUST CHOOSE IN ALL THINGS A MEAN JUST AND GOOD." 

PYTHAGORAS ALSO INTRODUCED THE WORD 'COSMOS'. 

'Cosmos' means order, rhythm, harmony. Existence is not a chaos but a cosmos. 

Pythagoras has contributed much to human thought, to human evolution. His vision of a cosmos became the very foundation of scientific investigation. Science can exist only if existence is a cosmos. If it is a chaos, there is no possibility of any science. If laws change every day, every moment -- one day the water evaporates at one hundred degrees, another day at five hundred degrees -- if water functions in a whimsical way and follows no order, how can there be a science? Science presupposes that existence functions in a consistent way, in a rational way, that existence is not mad, that if we search deep into existence, we are bound to find laws -- and those laws are the keys to all the mysteries. Just as it is true for science so it is true for religion too -- because religion is nothing but the science of the inner. The outer science is called science; the inner science is called religion -- but both can exist only in a cosmos. There are laws of the inner world. Those laws have been discovered just as much as scientific laws have been discovered. Neither have scientific laws been invented, nor have religious laws; been invented. Truth is -- you need not invent it And whatsoever you invent will be untrue -- all inventions are lies. Truth has to be discovered, not invented. Einstein discovers a certain law; Patanjali also discovers a certain law; Newton discovers gravitation, Krishna discovers grace -- both are laws. One belongs to the earth, the other belongs to the sky; one belongs to the world of necessity, the other belongs to the world of power. One belongs to the visible and the other belongs to the invisible. It is in the vision of a cosmos that Pythagoras became the originator of a scientific concept of the world. He was the first scientist because he provided the very foundation. His idea of cosmos has to be understood, because without understanding it you will not be able to understand what he is talking about. The inner world, the world of the spirit, follows certain laws, and those laws are unchangeable, they are perennial. Hence I have called this series PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS -- the perennial philosophy. Those laws are not time-bound, they are beyond time. Time itself functions within those laws. 

If you want to do something in the outside world, you will need to know how the outer existence functions, because unless you know how it functions you are bound to fail. Nature has no obligation to adjust to you -- you will have to adjust to nature. You can win nature only by adjusting yourself to nature. You can become a conqueror too, but not against nature -- with nature, in tune with nature. You can become a master of the inner kingdom too -- not against the laws but in tune with those laws. It is because of this mystic vision -- that the world is not accidental, not anarchic, but an absolutely harmonious, cosmic, orderly world -- that Pythagoras was able to discover many things for the seekers. One thing that he discovered was that music can become the milieu for meditation. He was the first to introduce that idea too to the West.

In the East we have known it for centuries, that music is the best aid to meditation. Why? because music creates harmony around you, and the harmony around you can provoke harmony within you. If the outside is harmonious, the inside also starts falling in line with it -- and that you have watched many times. In the marketplace, you feel a great disturbance inside you -- with the crowd you never feel at home. In the market-place the whole atmosphere is anti-music; there is no harmony, it is a chaos. And the outer chaos provokes inside chaos. Go into a madhouse and be with mad people for a few hours and you will see: you start feeling something going crazy inside you. Go to the hospital and just be with the ill patients there for a few hours, and you start feeling a sickening is entering into you, a kind of sick feeling. You are NOT sick; you were not sick when you entered the hospital. What has happened? The sick vibe all around you starts synchronizing inside you, because the outer and the inner are not divided; they are part of one whole. 

The inner is the inner of the outer, and the outer is the outer of the inner. They cannot be separated. So each affects the other. If you know meditation deeply, you can sit in the market-place and nothing will be disturbed because you have a powerful music going on inside you. It is so powerful that the market-place and its noise cannot affect it; on the contrary, people who are around you may start feeling a certain soothing effect, a calmness coming. If a real Buddha sits in the marketplace, he creates there too a Buddhafield, and whosoever enters into the Buddhafield is affected immediately -- he starts falling into harmony. Something starts settling inside him; something starts getting together inside him. He becomes more centered, together. That's the secret of SATSANG -- being with a Buddha. The whole secret is this: to be with the Master means just to allow his vibe to provoke your inner harmony which is fast asleep and you are unaware of it. 

But ordinarily if you go to the market-place, you come home a little lost, exhausted, tired, something is missing. You need rest; only after a good night's rest will you be able to go to the marketplace again. Music is a harmony -- it is harmony between sound and silence. Sound belongs to the earth, silence belongs to the beyond. Music is, as Pythagoras believed and called it, numinous. The word 'numinous' comes from a Latin root NUMEN. It is a tremendously significant word, very pregnant with meaning. NUMEN means a nod from the above, a yes from the beyond. Music creates such a harmony that even God starts nodding at you, saying yes to you. Music is numinous... suddenly the sky starts touching you; you are overwhelmed by the beyond. 

And when the beyond is closer to you, when the footsteps of the beyond are heard, something inside you gets the challenge, becomes silent, quieter, calmer, cool, collected. In the Pythagorean mystery school, music was one of the greatest things -- and that's my effort here too. We have to create great music so that great meditative states become possible. Music is outer meditation: meditation is inner music. They go together, hand in hand, embracing each other. It is one of the greatest experiences of life when music is there surrounding you, overwhelming you, flooding you, and meditation starts growing in you -- when meditation and music meet, world and God meet, matter and consciousness meet. 

That is UNIO MYSTICA -- the mystic union. 

In the East we have called it 'yoga'. Yoga simply means union. The best definition of yoga, and the shortest, is by the great seer Vyasa. He says yoga is samadhi, yoga is ENSTASIS. Ordinarily samadhi is translated as ecstasy -- that is not right, because ecstasy literally means to stand out. Samadhi is to stand in! It should be translated as ENSTASIS not as ECSTASIS. Yoga is ENSTASIS -- standing in, doing nothing, just being. That state is meditation. And anything that can help from the outside will have some music in it, only then can it help. The sound of running water in the hills can help, because it has its own music. The roaring waves of the ocean can help, because they have their own music. The singing of the birds in the morning can help, or the sound of insects in the silent night, or the rain falling on the rooftop -- anything that creates music can also create meditation. The Pythagorean school was a school of music, of song and dance. of great celebration. You are again living in that kind of school (Osho Meditation Resort in Pune). People have forgotten that music can take you downwards, and can also take you upwards. The modern music takes you downwards; it is concerned with the lowest center of your being, with the sex center. It gives you sexuality; it is pornographic. It has lost all heights. It is ugly -- it is really noise and nothing else, noise that drowns you -- jazz or other pop music. It is simply a kind of intoxicant. It is so deafening that you feel lost and you think something is happening. All that is happening is that you are pulled more and more towards the earth, more and more towards the animal in you. The ancient music, the classical music, has a totally different effect: it pulls you upwards, it takes you beyond gravitation. It is part of levitation; you start floating upwards and upwards. It has a more meditative quality in it. It reaches to your higher centers. The real music worth calling music will have something to do with SAHASRAR -- your seventh center, but very rarely a genius reaches there to create such music. But if even your heart center is moved, it is more than enough. If your heart center starts dancing and revolving, you are very close to meditation. JUST AS MUSIC is the meeting of silence and sound, for Pythagoras philosophy is a meeting of religion and science. His concept of philosophy is that of a great synthesis. He is one of the greatest synthesizers ever -- he always brings polar opposites together and makes them complementary. He is a great artist in destroying opposition. Wherever he finds opposition he starts searching for something which must be bridging the opposition, and that bridge is important. Religion and science have been in conflict for centuries because they have not listened to Pythagoras. Otherwise, this division would never have happened. And this division has proved one of the most fatal calamities. Religion and science have been fighting as enemies; for centuries the church did not allow science to develop and grow. People like Galileo and Kepler and others were punished.

Religion was afraid of science. This is stupid, because science can only help religion, science can only prepare the ground for the inner science. The church people and the popes who were against science were simply behaving in a very stupid way -- without knowing what they were doing. Truth cannot be crushed; nobody can crucify truth. Slowly slowly, science gained ground, became powerful -- it was good that it became powerful. But it started behaving in the same stupid way by destroying religion. It became a revenge. 

For three hundred years, the mainstream of scientific thinkers has been trying to destroy religion as hard as possible. They have declared God is dead. They have declared there is no soul. They have declared there is no afterlife. They have declared there is NO inner being in man. They have reduced man to a machine. Man has lost all grandeur. Man cannot feel meaningful any more. It is because of this stupid approach of science, this revengeful approach of science, that all meaning has disappeared from the world. People are simply dragging themselves. There is no poetry -- there is no possibility of poetry, because without a God the world cannot be a cosmos. Then it is only a mechanical phenomenon; there is no consciousness behind it. Without God, the world cannot be caring; it cannot be your mother -- it is bound to be neutral. Whether you live or die, nature is not concerned at all. Science has created the idea of a nature indifferent to man. This is dangerous, because man is so small and nature is so vast. And if this vast existence is absolutely indifferent towards you, how can you feel significant, meaningful? You will feel a stranger, an outsider, something accidental. And science became so prominent that even philosophers started following the scientific way of thinking, which is a very lopsided way. Even philosophers lost hold of that great vision of unity, of oneness, of existence being a home. 

The modern philosopher has no beauty compared to Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Buddha, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. The modern philosopher is very ordinary; he is nothing but a professor of philosophy. His philosophy is not a delight in his being, it is not a song, it is not a music. All that he goes on doing is linguistic analysis. The modern philosopher is an ugly phenomenon. Modern philosophy has NO philosophy of life in it. At the most, it is a constant effort to go on sharpening logic -- but for what? The whole effort seems to be useless. And modern philosophy has become just a shadow of science. It has lost its glory. It is no more the science of sciences; it is no more the queen. 

With Pythagoras, philosophy was the highest peak of understanding, the highest flight towards truth. One wing has to be science, another wing has to be religion. Those were the days of great philosophers; the world came to know REALLY great philosophers. In China, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mencius, Lieh Tzu -- all close contemporaries of Zarathustra. In India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Prakuddha Katyayana, Sanjay Vilethiputta, Makkhli Goshal, Poorna Kashyapa, and many more. In Greece, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.... And the chain continues. In kan, the great Zarathustra. Twenty-five centuries ago, the world knew the highest flights of philosophy. Now, instead of a philosopher, what you find is just a poor specimen: a professor of philosophy.

Modern philosophy and the modern philosopher is just worthless. It has lost it's peaks: it no more moves into the beyond. It is neither science nor religion. It is just a very confused affair today. For Pythagoras, science is a search for truth in the objective world and religion is a search for truth in the subjective world -- and philosophy is a search for the truth. So science and religion are like two hands or two wings. They are not opposites but complementaries. And the world would be better if we were reminded of it again. The church, the temple and the lab need not be enemies. They should exist in a kind of friendship. Man will be far richer then. Now, if he chooses science he becomes rich outside and goes on becoming poorer and poorer inside. If he chooses religion, he becomes rich inside, but goes on becoming poorer and poorer on the outside. And both are ugly scenes. 

The West has chosen science; it has all the riches of the world, but the man is completely lost, feeling meaningless, suicidal. The man, when he looks inside, finds nothing but hollowness, emptiness. The inner world has become very poor in the West. 

In the East, just the opposite has happened: people have chosen religion against science. Their inner world is calmer, quieter, richer; but on the outside they are starving, dying -- no food, no medicine, no facilities to live a human life, living almost like animals or even worse. This is the consequence of not listening to Pythagoras. 

The whole history of humanity would have been totally different if Pythagoras had been listened to, understood. There is no need for the East to be East and the West to be West. There is no need for anybody to be just a materialist or just a spiritualist. If body and soul can exist together -- they ARE existing together in you, in everybody -- then why can't materialism and spiritualism exist together? They SHOULD! A man must be materialist and spiritualist. To choose is fatal. There is no need to choose; you can have both the worlds -- you SHOULD have both the worlds; that is your birthright. I teach you this synthesis: you have to be a materialist, as materialistic as any materialist, and a spiritualist, as much a spiritualist as any spiritualist. And remember: both will be angry at you, because the spiritualist will not be able to forgive you for your materialism, and the materialist will not be able to forgive you for your spiritualism. That's why people are against me -- all kinds of people! 

The religious people are against me because they cannot accept my materialist approach; and the materialists are against me because they cannot accept my spiritualist approach. I would like to remind you that you have to be both together. This will bring a new man and a new humanity on the earth -- and it is utterly needed, absolutely needed: a new man, a new humanity, a new concept. There is no need to choose. God has given you a body -- that means you have to be a materialist; and God has given you a soul -- that means you have to be a spiritualist. You have to be a meeting of the two: you have to be a yogi, a union. And if your body and soul ARE balanced, and your spiritualism and your materialism are balanced, in a rhythm, you will attain to the greatest music possible. And that music is meditation, that music is samadhi. 

The sutras... purification continues: LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS, KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR GAINST PREJUDICE, OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; 

THINK FOR THYSELF. LISTEN, SAYS PYTHAGORAS. Down the ages the Masters have always been saying: Listen. But what you do at the most is you hear -- you don't listen. And there is a tremendous difference between these two words. Hearing is very superficial. You can hear because you have ears, that's all. Anybody who has ears can hear. It is an ordinary phenomenon. Listening has a different quality to it. When you hear attentively, then it is listening. Hearing is only physical; when your soul also gets involved in it, then it becomes listening. And to listen is to understand. Truth needs no proof. Truth is self-evident. All that is needed is the capacity to listen. The student hears; the disciple listens. The curious hears, because his inquiry is intellectual. But the one who is a seeker, whose inquiry is not only a kind of curiosity, whose inquiry is a question of life and death to him, he listens. Everything is at stake. How can you afford not to listen? Listening means your body and soul function together in a deep harmony. You become all ears; your whole body functions as an ear -- your legs, your hands, every cell of your body and your whole being inside is attentive. Something immensely important is imparted to you. Something is communicated and you would not like to miss it. If you are a seeker, a disciple, only then do you know what listening is. When you hear with great love, intensity, passion, when you hear aflame, when you hear totally, when you hear in silence, it is listening. 

Pythagoras says: LISTEN...! One of the great contemporaries of Pythagoras, Mahavira, has said that there are two ways to move into the world of truth. One is by RIGHT listening -- just by right listening. Those who fail in right listening, for them the other is by right practice. You will be surprised. Right practice is needed for those who have failed in right listening. Otherwise, to listen to a man who has arrived is enough. To listen to a Buddha is ENOUGH. He IS fire, and in listening you will become afire. Something will jump from the enlightened person to the disciple; something mysterious will be communicated -- a transmission beyond scriptures and beyond words. But for that, listening is needed. I was travelling in this country for many years, almost for fifteen years, talking to millions of people, but they were hearing, not listening. I tried hard to help them to listen, but it was impossible. I had to stop travelling. Now I wait only for those who can listen. You can see this silence, this presence of yours, this utter attentiveness, this being with me... this very moment a transformation starts happening. Something will be triggered in you. These moments are precious, and these moments are as precious as you are capable of listening. If your mind is wandering somewhere else, then physically you will be hearing but you will not be able to listen. If many thoughts are moving inside you and there is great traffic, then you will be hearing. Those thoughts won't allow what I am saying to reach you, AND they won't allow what I am to reach you. When the mind has no thoughts, when the traffic inside has stopped, when the inner talk is discontinued, in that gap, in that silence, in that state of love and being, listening happens. 

And to listen RIGHTLY IS to understand. There is no other effort needed. 

There is no need to practice truth because truth already is -- if you understand, it is there; if you open your eyes, you have found it. Truth is not lost, you have only fallen asleep. If you listen, you will be awakened. Truth is where it has always been. LISTEN, says Pythagoras, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS... If you listen, only then can the words reach the heart. If you hear, the words will only reach the head. The heart is your innermost core. If you are utterly silent, then only will the passage be available for the Master to reach you, to touch your heart, to engrave the message there. ... AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS... And that's enough. Once the seed of truth falls into the heart, you WILL become a garden, you WILL bloom. Then it is only a question of time and patience. The seed that falls into the soil of the heart is bound to grow. It will sprout when the season comes; it will come to grow great foliage. And when the spring is there, it will bloom in thousands of flowers, it will blossom. That's why Mahavira says right listening is enough. In right listening, your heart is available to the Master. And once the Master can reach the heart of the disciple, nothing else is needed. Then the flame jumps from one being into the being of the other. Then the lit candle can go on sharing its flame with all those candles which are not yet lit. It is literally a jump of the flame from one being to another. KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR GAINST PREJUDICE... Anything that can disturb you, anything that will not allow you to listen, is prejudice. If you come here as a Hindu you will not listen to me, you will hear, because constantly you will be judging, criticizing, evaluating, comparing. If you come here as a Mohammedan, as a Christian, as a communist, as a Catholic, you will not listen. You WILL hear, but you will be constantly engaged in inner work; you will not be available. Prejudice keeps one closed. And when you are prejudiced, when you have already decided something a priori, then you will listen only in a very choosing way. You will listen only to that which goes to support your prejudice. You will not be able to listen to that which goes against your prejudice. And that's how people hear, and that's how people see. Even seeing is prejudiced. You see only that which you want to see, and you hear only that which you want to hear. And then you go on interpreting according to your prejudice. If you don't come out of your prejudice, you will never come into the light. Your prejudice is your prison. And there are prejudices and prejudices... social, political, religious, philosophical, layers and layers of prejudice. And you are surrounded by so many layers that it is almost impossible to reach you. You will have to drop these prejudices. 

And Pythagoras is not saying, "Whatsoever I say, you have to believe in it." No. He is simply saying, "Listen!" There is no question of believing or not believing. And that's what I am saying to you. It is not a question of believing in whatsoever is said to you -- or disbelieving. Truth NEEDS nothing. Truth needs only to be listened to. Once you have listened to it, it will become your truth. And you will not need to believe in it. You have to believe in things only when you have not known them yourself, when you have not known them on your own, when they are not your own experience -- then you have to believe. The person who is ready to listen will not need to believe in anything or disbelieve. His clarity will immediately settle things. When you listen with open ears and open eyes, with clarity and transparency, truth is immediately understood as true, and falsehood is immediately understood as false. You need not think about them; you need not ponder what is right and what is wrong. In a transparent mind, right is known as right, and wrong is known as wrong. The transparent mind is the decisive factor -- it immediately concludes. 

And the conclusion is not a logical process either. But we go on carrying prejudices. And small prejudices can prevent. Just a small particle of dust in your eye is enough to prevent you seeing this beautiful world. You will not be able to open your eyes. You may be seeing the Himalayas and a dust particle goes into your eyes -- and the Himalayas disappear. Now, the particle of dust is so small, yet it helps the big, immense Himalayas to disappear. And your eyes are not only full of dust, they are full of mountains of prejudices. The first thing for a disciple is to be utterly nude as far as prejudices are concerned. Drop them. You have not experienced; you have been told what to believe and what not to believe. Drop everything, become just a pure mirror, and listen. 

LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS; KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR GAINST PREJUDICE; OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR, THINK FOR THYSELF. AND LOOK AT OTHERS AND SEE: 

they are all full of conclusions, prejudices, scriptures, philosophies, dogmas and creeds -- and yet where have they arrived? Look at them, and fear, be afraid that if you don't drop your prejudices you will remain the same. Go outside and look at people -- their lives have no joy. their lives have no authenticity, and they are all great believers. Somebody goes to the mosque, somebody goes to the church, somebody to the temple -- and they are all religious people. Somebody reads the Bible and somebody reads DAS KAPITAL and somebody reads the Gita -- they are all believers! Somebody believes in Kaaba and somebody in Kashi and somebody in the Kremlin, but they are ALL believers. But what has happened in their lives? God has not nodded yet. 

Their lives are not numinous -- God has not yet said yes to them. They know nothing of God. You can look into their eyes and you will find only sadness and nothing else -- frustration writ large. Watch their lives and you will see they are dragging; there is no dance to their steps. Look at what they talk about and you will not find any music in it. Watch their lives and you will not find any grace there. Beware! Are you going to be like this crowd that surrounds the world? Are you going to be just part of the herd? Or are you going to become numinous? That has to be decided by you. OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR... Pythagoras is absolutely right. Watch others and that will help you. Watch your parents -- where have they arrived. And they are guiding you, blind people guiding other blind people. Watch your leaders -- where have they arrived. Mad people leading other mad people! Watch your priests -- what is their experience? Look into their eyes, encounter them, and you will find them as afraid as you are, as dark as you are. You will not find even a ray of light in their being. Your rabbis, your pundits, your priests -- just go and see. Be a little more alert in watching people, and immediately this understanding will happen to you: "Am I going to be like this? Like these people? Then life has been lost." And if you can learn anything from the crowd around you -- from your parents, from your friends, from your neighbours -- one thing is certain: that the way to truth never goes through prejudices, and the way to God is not the way of the scripture and belief. The way of God goes through silence, purity of the mind, clarity of the mind. And the unprejudiced mind is a pure mind, remember. 

By 'purity' I don't mean anything moral; by 'purity' I simply mean something scientific. When you say, "This water is pure," do you mean this is moral? this water is moral? When you say, "This water is pure," the word 'pure' is not used in any moralistic sense. It simply says: this water contains nothing foreign in it. It is .simply itself, clear, no dust, no pollution. It is simply itself. natural; as it should be it is. I call a mind pure if it has no prejudices -- then there is clarity and the mind is functioning like a mirror, a pure mirror. The moralist's mind is never pure, because he has a prejudice -- what is good and what is bad. He is trying to be good and he is trying not to be bad. And he is against the bad, and he does not know what is bad -- because he does not know what is good: he has only been told. He is simply following others: he is part of a long chain of slavery. If you are born in a Jaina family, then to eat potatoes is wrong. Potatoes? Poor potatoes? They are such innocent people -- can you find more innocent people than potatoes? But it is wrong. Anything that grows underneath the earth Jainas avoid; that is immoral. You may never have thought about it; but if you had been born a Jaina, then this would have been your prejudice. Just watch your prejudices. They are ALL alike -- unless something is rooted in your own experience it remains a bondage. KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR AGAINST PREJUDICE; OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; THINK FOR THYSELF. Watch, look... never believe in others. Be aware of what is happening around you to people, but always THINK FOR THYSELF. Socrates says: Know thyself -- but you can know yourself only if you start thinking for yourself. But we have all given the right to think -- which is a very intrinsic right, a very fundamental right -- we have given it to others. Others are thinking for you! Your parents decide what is right and what is wrong, and your teachers and your priests and your politicians -- you have given your right to others to think for you, which is the most fundamental right. Nothing can be more basic than that. Never give your right of thinking to anybody else, whosoever he is. And the real Master never takes your right away from you. In fact, he helps you to regain it, to reclaim it, to rediscover it. He helps you to become a light unto yourself. Remember the last words of Buddha to his disciples: Be a light unto yourself. Pythagoras says: THINK FOR THYSELF... the same thing in other words. Watch, experience, see what is happening, but the ultimate decision has to be yours, totally yours. Never say, "I am doing this because my parents have been doing this," that is stupid. Do it if YOU feel that it is right to do, if you think it is right you have come upon it through your own meditation. If it has come as a conclusion of all your own experiences, then do it by all means; whether your parents were doing it or not does not matter. Never say, "Because it has always been done, that's why I am doing it." Never say, "Because it is written in the Vedas or in the Koran or in the Bible, that's why I am doing it." Everything has changed, times have changed. What was right in the times of the Vedas is not right any longer. And what was right in the times of the Koran is not right any longer, cannot be. 

For example, Mohammed said to his disciples: "Give birth to as many children as possible!" This was perfectly right for the people with whom Mohammed was talking. He was talking to warriors; and in those days, and particularly in the Arabian countries, it was such a bloody struggle to survive that more and more people were needed -- and particularly more and more male children were needed to be soldiers. There were many women; almost four times more than men. That's why Mohammed said, "You can have four wives." It was perfectly moral and perfectly right, because if Mohammed had insisted on one wife, then three women would have remained without husbands, without families, without children -- and that would have created great prostitution, that would have created great immorality. So he was perfectly right to say, "You can marry four wives." He himself married nine -- just to give an example. And of course the Master has to do it more perfectly than the disciple. And I am absolutely in agreement with him; he did well. And whatsoever he was saying was logical, rational, relevant. He was giving a very responsible commandment: Marry four wives. But Mohammedans are still marrying four wives -- that is the trouble. They say, "It has been said by the prophet!" Now the number of women in the world is equal, in fact, in some countries, less than the men. On the whole it is equal, so one woman to one man seems to be the rational way out. Now, if you marry four women then three men will remain unmarried and they will create trouble -- they are bound to create trouble. In fact, they will create more trouble than three unmarried women. Women are passive, patient, accepting. Have you ever heard of a woman raping a man? It doesn't happen. But those three men without women will become rapists; they will destroy the whole society, they will destroy all that is beautiful and good and intimate. It will become an ugly sexual, perverted society. Mohammed was right, but the right can only be relevant to a particular time. And then he said, "Give birth to as many children as possible." Mohammedans are still doing the same. Now the world is overcrowded, Mohammed was never aware of it, what was going to happen -- nobody can say about the future. Now the world is overcrowded; we don't need any more people. We need less and less people. If India has half of the population that it has today, that will be the greatest blessing to it. But Mohammedans say they cannot stop because it is written in their scripture. Now, because I am saying this, some Mohammedan is going to be against me. They will gather somewhere protesting that I am talking against the prophet. I am not talking against the prophet; I am simply talking against your stupidity. I am simply saying fourteen hundred years have passed since Mohammed, and much water has gone down the Ganges. 

Five thousand years have passed since Manu wrote the Hindu code of morality -- FIVE thousand years have passed. Everything has changed, but the Hindu mind remains Manuoriented. Three thousand years have passed since Moses gave you the commandments, but still you go on following them. Each MOMENT life goes on changing, and the really aware man will respond each moment -- to the situation! He will not carry any prejudices? he will not carry any past in his head. He will be a pure mirror of the situation in which he is, and he will act OUT of the situation -- he will be responsible. That is the meaning of the word 'responsible': a responsible person is a moral person according to me. But your so-called moral people are NOT responsible people. Responsibility is MORE fundamental than morality. And by 'responsibility' I mean ability to respond to the present moment -- not according to ready-made formulae, not according to already accumulated prejudices, but according to the situation. And when you respond to the moment, it is liberating, and it is always good, and it is always adequate. ... THINK FOR THYSELF Mohammed cannot think for you, neither can Krishna nor Christ. I cannot think for you. I can help you to become a mirror so that you can think for yourself. Remember, this is the difference between a real Master and a pseudo Master. The pseudo Master gives you what to think; the real Master gives you HOW to think. The pseudo gives you ready-made formulae; the real Master simply helps you to become a mirror, so whenever, wherever you are, you always respond adequately to the situation, your responses are never inadequate. The pseudo master gives you a philosophy, a creed, a belief; the real Master gives you wisdom, awareness, understanding. Then each act has to come out of that understanding. The world can really become a paradise if people are responsible. But it is easier to throw the responsibility of thinking on others. 

People don't like to think. They want somebody else to do the chewing for them, then they can simply swallow the food. They don't want to chew for themselves, and unless you chew for yourself you will not be nourished. Unless you chew for yourself you will never become an integrated individual. You will be only an anonymous number, not a real individual. And to be an individual is the goal of life -- only then are you accepted by God, are you ready to offer yourself to God. You have something to offer only then. Before that you are just hollow, full of straw; you don't have anything valuable. CONSULT, DELIBERATE, AND FREELY CHOOSE. Pythagoras says: CONSULT... he is not saying don't listen to others. Consult -- there are more experienced people than you. CONSULT, DELIBERATE... but don't accept. Take the advice, then contemplate, deliberate, meditate over it... AND FREELY CHOOSE. The ultimate choice has to be yours. Freely choose because if you don't freely choose, you will never have freedom. 

Freedom is the accumulated effect of all the free choices that you have made in your life. If you have never made a free choice, how can you have freedom? Freedom is not a commodity; freedom is a cumulative effect of all the choices that you have made in your life. You don't choose your woman -- your father chooses the woman for you. You will not have freedom. You don't choose your temple: your birth has already decided it, that you will go to the church -- Catholic, Protestant -- or you will go to the temple, Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist.

Your birth has decided it. Your marriage is decided by your parents, your education is decided by the parents. And then you want freedom?! And then everything is decided by others. And freedom is cumulative. If you go on deciding at each step of your life on your own, slowly slowly, you accumulate freedom. Then freedom becomes a power in you, and freedom is the greatest gift of God. But you have to be worthy of it. Don't throw your responsibilities on others. It is easier, because it gives you a chance to say, "What can I do?" If you have found a wrong wife, what can you do? Your parents are responsible, or the astrologers, palmists -- you are not responsible. You have shirked a responsibility, but by that you have shirked something valuable. Choosing your own woman, choosing your own man, you would have become integrated, crystallized. Every choice crystallizes you. LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT, CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE. FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY, AND SAGES ACT AIMLESSLY. That's why sometimes the sage looks like a fool and vice versa: the fool sometimes looks like a sage. There is one common thing between the sage and the fool, and that common thing is: both act aimlessly -- but for different reasons they act aimlessly. 

The fool acts aimlessly because he has no consciousness; he is functioning mechanically, unconsciously. 

The sage acts aimlessly because he is so fully conscious, he is so totally conscious, there is no need to think about the aim. 

The very consciousness is enough to take him in the right direction, to the right goal. But you are between the two: you are neither a fool nor a sage. Sages are rare just as fools are rare. 

Millions of people are just in between, in limbo. 

This sutra is for those who are in limbo, and that is the majority; ninety-nine percent of people are in limbo. LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT, CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE. Act consciously, deliberately, choose, think of the consequences. Whatsoever you are going to do, think of the consequences. 

But remember: Pythagoras is not saying to become too much future-oriented. Hence he says: ... IN THE PRESENT, CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE. Remain in the present, remain present-oriented. Don't get too much involved into the fantasy of the future. But he is saying you cannot drop the future completely yet. That can be dropped only when you have become totally alert. So right now you have to do one thing: remain in the present -- that will help you to become more and more conscious -- and think of the consequences -- that will make you less and less stupid. And, slowly slowly, great intelligence is released by these two things: being in the present and always moving aimfully, with a target, with a direction. Ultimately, direction and target, all disappear. That's why St Francis calls himself a 'fool of God'; Jesus Christ was also known as a fool, Ramakrishna is a fool -- but in a totally different sense. They are so innocent, they are again child-like. They act spontaneously, with no aim, with no idea of consequences. But their very awareness is such that they cannot go wrong. They have eyes so they need not think about the door, where the door is. But you are blind. If you don't think of the door, you may stumble into some furniture, into the wall; you may get hurt, wounded. THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST. INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL. THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW... that which you don't know, please don't pretend that you know. That is the way of the mediocre mind; it goes on pretending. It cannot accept, "There is something I am not knowledgeable about, I don't know." He goes on pretending. He goes on behaving in a way AS IF he knows -- and that's how he becomes more and more foolish. Those pretensions are not going to help you to become wise. 

Those pretensions will become the barriers to wisdom. When P. D. Ouspensky reached his Master, Gurdjieff, for the first time, Gurdjieff looked into his eyes and without saying a single word he gave him a piece of paper, empty, and told him to go in the next room and write on one side what he thought he knew and on the other side what he thought he did not know. Ouspensky was a little puzzled: "What kind of beginning is this?" He had not even asked his name, no formal introduction. He had not even asked, "Why have you come?" Simply gave him the piece of paper and told him, "Go into the next room and write on one side what you know and on the other what you don't know." Ouspensky went into the room. It was a cold night, a cold Russian night, but he started perspiring. He could not write a single word on the side where he was to write what he knew. For the first time he became aware that he knew nothing. He thought of many things -- God, truth, love, life, death -- and it was not that he was not knowledgeable. He was already a very famous author; he had already written his greatest book, TERTIUM ORGANUM. Just a few days before, I told you that is the third greatest book in the world. 

First is Aristotle's ORGANUM, second is Bacon's NOVUM ORGANUM, third is Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM -- the third canon of thought. He had already written it! He was already world famous. Gurdjieff was not known at all; in fact, Gurdjieff became known because of Ouspensky. A world famous mathematician, a world famous philosopher and thinker, a great author... he could have written thousands of things that he knew. He could have presented his great book, TERTIUM ORGANUM, to Gurdjieff: "These are all the things I know." And in that book he talks like an Upanishadic seer, like a prophet. If you read the book you will be surprised how a man who has not yet become enlightened can write such things. But they can be written -- just a little cleverness is needed. But that night he could not write a single word. He came back with tears in his eyes, fell at Gurdjieff's feet, gave him the blank paper, and said, "I don't know anything. You start instructing me -- from the very beginning. Start from ABC." This is the beginning of disciplehood. Only such a person can be a disciple, because he has dropped all prejudices, and it must have been hard for a man who was so famous. THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST. INSTRUCT THYSELF . . Learn. If you believe that you already know, how are you going to learn? ... FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL. And if you learn, don't be worried -- TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL. Existence always cares about you. If you are authentic, if your search is true and you are not a pretender, time will help you, will cooperate with you. Time from existence's side, and patience on your side. The English word 'patient' is beautiful, but has become very ugly, has gone into wrong hands. Now the patient means somebody who is ill. In fact, in the ancient days the ill person was called 'a patient' because illness means you have not learnt how to be healthy and whole. Hence, you have to learn. In the ancient world, the patient simply meant the student. The patient had to learn how to be healthy and whole. And because he would need great patience to learn it, that's why he was called patient. It had nothing to do with illness. And everybody is ill. It happens almost every day. 

People come here... one has come for only four weeks, and then it is difficult to go, and they come and ask me, "Osho, can we write back to our office, to our boss, that we are ill -- because only if we are ill can our stay be extended. But will it not be untrue? What do you say?" I say, "Write! -- because it can never be untrue. You are all ill! You don't need a certificate for it. It is the absolute truth. You can go on writing again and again for years and it will be true." Not to be ill means to become a Buddha. You can write till you have become a Buddha. INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL. NEGLECT NOT THY HEALTH... HEALTH TO PYTHAGORAS, HAS TWO ASPECTS TO IT. One is the physical, the other is the spiritual. The body is your temple -- don't neglect it. Your foolish, stupid ascetics have been telling you to neglect it -- not only to neglect but to destroy your body. Pythagoras is not an asCetic: he is a man of understanding. He says: Respect, don't neglect, your body. If your body is neglected, you will not be able to find the inner harmony -- because if the body is harmonious it helps to attain to inner harmony. Take every care of your health, of your body; love it, respect it, it is a great gift. It is a miracle! a mystery. ... DISPENSE WITH MODERATION FOOD TO THE BODY AND TO THE MIND REPOSE. What food is for the body repose is in exactly the same way for the soul: food nourishes the body and repose nourishes the soul. The materialist forgets about repose; that's why in the West there is so much restlessness -- they have forgotten repose, they don't know how to relax. 

They don't know how to be in a state of unoccupiedness; they don't know how to sit silently doing nothing. They have completely forgotten! The materialist is bound to forget. He goes on eating too much, and he has forgotten that only his body goes on becoming fatter and fatter, and his soul goes on becoming thinner and thinner. Sometimes I see people who have only bodies and no soul. Just layers and layers of fat, and nothing behind -- vegetables, cabbages. Howsoever sophisticated they may be, educated, full of knowledge, there is not much difference. They say the difference between a cauliflower and a cabbage is not much: when the cabbage goes through college it becomes a cauliflower. Repose is far more essential even than food. If sometimes you go on a small fast it is good, but repose should never be forgotten -- because basically the body is only a temple: the deity is within. 

The body has to be loved only because it is a temple of the deity. The body is only a means; the end is inside. Repose is food, meditation is food, for the soul. Repose means silence, rest, relaxation, calmness, coolness, collectedness, meditativeness. A state of unoccupied mind, empty, silent, with no idea of any doing, not going anywhere, not rushing anywhere -- just being herenow. That is repose. And to be herenow is tremendously nourishing, because then you are deeply in tune with God, then music showers on you. The past is no more, it is dead; the future is not yet, it is unborn. Only the present is. Only the present is alive. When you are herenow, life flows in you. When you are herenow, you are in God. And that is nourishment, that is real food. In that sense the Upanishads have said: ANAM BRAHM -- food is God, God is food. In the sense of repose it is REALLY food. As the body will die without food, the soul dies without repose. The materialist thinks only of the body, and the spiritualist thinks only of repose, and both remain lopsided. One has a very nourished soul but an undernourished body; the temple is in ruins. And one has a beautiful temple, a marble temple, but the deity is dead, or has not come yet. Both are missing something. We need a music of earth and sky, of body and soul; we need a harmony between the visible and the invisible. The food is visible, repose is invisible. And you need both, and you need a rhythm between the two. 

The person who has not known what repose is starts stuffing too much food in himself. Nothing can help him unless he learns repose -- no dieting is going to help, no exercises are going to help, no disciplining is going to help. Sooner or later he will start eating again, because his inner being feels so empty and he knows no other way to fill it -- he knows only one way: to go on throwing food inside himself. When people come to me with the problem of too much obsession with food, my only suggestion is: become more meditative. Don't be worried about food. Become more loving, become more meditative, and the problem will disappear. When you are full of love and meditativeness, you need not stuff yourself with food. The food is only a substitute -- because you are missing the inner food, you are trying to substitute it by outer food. The man of repose always remains very very alert, aware, of what he is eating, how much he is eating. He cannot eat more than is needed, and he will not eat less than is needed. He is always in the middle, he is a balance. 

TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN, FOR ENVY THUS, TO EITHER EXCESS IS ALIKE ATTACHED. Pythagoras is always reminding you about the golden mean: be in the middle -- as much as Buddha goes on reminding about MAJJHIM NIKAYA, the middle path. TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN... Don't hanker for too much attention from people -- that is an ego trip. Don't try to become very famous, well-known, this and that -- that is an ego trip. But that does not mean start trying to become a nonentity -- that nobody should know you, that you should remain anonymous -- that is again the same trip on the other extreme. Avoid both. All extremes have to be avoided. Excess is evil according to Pythagoras -- and it is. And to be in the middle, to be exactly in the middle, is virtue. Never be an ascetic, and never become indulgent. Don't eat too much food and don't go on long fasts. Don't become too much obsessed with luxury, and don't become too much anti-luxury, anti-comfort. LUXURY AND AVARICE HAVE SIMILAR RESULTS. ONE MUST CHOOSE IN ALL THINGS A MEAN JUST AND GOOD. Don't renounce the world, and don't be worldly either. Rejoice in the balance -- dance, because balance is dance. Sing because balance is a song. Become musical because balance creates music. And remember, in each and everything the golden mean has to be followed. And if you can follow the golden mean, you will become gold, your baser metal will be transformed into the highest metal, gold. Gold is a symbol of the ultimate peak -- that's why Pythagoras has called these sutras, GOLDEN VERSES. It is an alchemical expression. Down the ages alchemists have been trying to find ways to transmute baser metals into gold. Remember, they were not concerned with baser metals and gold at all: their whole purpose was how to transform man from a sexual animal into an ecstatic consciousness, how to transform the animal in man into God. That state is represented by gold. Follow the golden mean and you will become the gold. Follow the path of balance and all the mysteries will be revealed to you. That's my message to my sannyasins too: Don't leave the world and yet be not of it.

Five techniques of attentiveness

"WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT.

PRACTICING, IN A FEW DAYS BE BORN ANEW.

MOMENT OF SLEEP, HAVE DIRECTION OVER DREAMS AND OVER DEATH ITSELF.

THE KNOWER.

EYELASH. OR SUCK SOMETHING AND BECOME THE SUCKING."

When the great Greek philosopher Pythagoras, reached Egypt to enter a school - a secret esoteric school of mysticism - he was refused. And Pythagoras was one of the best minds ever produced. He could not understand it. He applied again and again, but he was told that unless he goes through a particular training of fasting and breathing he cannot be allowed to enter the school.

Pythagoras is reported to have said, "I have come for knowledge, not for any sort of discipline." But the school authorities said, "We cannot give you knowledge unless you are different. And really, we are not interested in knowledge at all, we are interested in actual experience. No knowledge is knowledge unless it is lived and experienced. So you will have to go on a forty-day fast, continuously breathing in a certain manner, with a certain awareness on certain points."

There was no other way, so Pythagoras had to pass through this training. After forty days of fasting and breathing, aware, attentive, he was allowed to enter the school. It is said that Pythagoras said, "You are not allowing Pythagoras in. I am a different man, I am reborn. You were right and I was wrong, because then my whole standpoint was intellectual. Through this purification, my center of being has changed. From the intellect it has come down to the heart. Now I can feel things. Before this training I could only understand through the intellect, through the head. Now I can feel. Now truth is not a concept to me, but a life. It is not going to be a philosophy, but rather, an experience - existential."

What was that training he went through? This fifth technique was the technique that was given to Pythagoras. It was given in Egypt, but the technique is Indian.

The fifth technique:

ATTENTION BETWEEN EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT. This was the technique given to Pythagoras. Pythagoras went with this technique to Greece, and really, he became the fountainhead, the source of all mysticism in the West. He is the father of all mysticism in the West.

This technique is one of the very deep methods. Try to understand this: ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS... Modern physiology, scientific research, says that between the two eyebrows is the gland which is the most mysterious part of the body. This gland, called the pineal gland, is the third eye of the Tibetans - SHIVANETRA: the eye of the Shiva, of the tantra. Between the two eyes there exists a third eye, but it is non-functioning. It is there, it can function any moment, but it does not function naturally. You have to do something about it to open it. It is not blind; it is simply closed.

This technique is to open the third eye.

ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS... Close your eyes, then focus both of your eyes just in the middle of the two eyebrows. Focus just in the middle, with closed eyes, as if you are looking with your two eyes. Give total attention to it.

This is one of the simplest methods of being attentive. You cannot be attentive to any other part of the body so easily. This gland absorbs attention like anything. If you give attention to it, both your eyes become hypnotized with the third eye. They become fixed; they cannot move. If you are trying to be attentive to any other part of the body it is difficult. This third eye catches attention, forces attention; It is magnetic for attention. So all the methods all over the world have used it. It is the simplest to train you in attention because not only are you trying to be attentive, the gland itself helps you; it is magnetic. Your attention is brought to it forcibly. It is absorbed.

It is said in the old tantra scriptures that for the third eye attention is food. It is hungry; it has been hungry for lives and lives. If you pay attention to it, it becomes alive. It becomes alive! The food is given to it. And once you know that attention is food, once you feel that your attention is magnetically drawn, attracted, pulled by the gland itself, attention is not a difficult thing then. One has only to know the right point. So just close your eyes, let your two eyes move just to the middle, and feel the point.

When you are near the point, suddenly your eyes will become fixed. When it becomes difficult to move them, then know you have caught the right point.

ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS, LET MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT... If this attention is there, for the first time you will come to experience a strange phenomenon. For the first time you will see thoughts running before you; you will become the witness. It is just like a film screen:

thoughts are running and you are a witness. Once your attention is focused at the third eye center, you become immediately the witness of thoughts.

Ordinarily you are not the witness, you are identified with thoughts. If anger is there, you become anger. If a thought moves, you are not the witness, you become one with the thought, identified, and you move with it. You become the thought; you take the form of the thought. When sex is there you become sex, when anger is there you become anger, when greed is there you become greed.

Any thought moving becomes identified with you. You do not have any gap between you and the thought.

But focused at the third eye, suddenly you become a witness. Through the third eye you become the witness. Through the third eye you can see thoughts running like clouds in the sky or people moving on the street.

You are sitting at your window looking at the sky or at people in the street; you are not identified. You are aloof, a watcher on the hill - different. Now if anger is there you can look at it as an object. Now you do not feel that YOU are angry. You feel that you are surrounded by anger - a cloud of anger has come around you - but you are not the anger. And if you are not the anger, anger becomes impotent, it cannot affect you; you remain untouched. The anger will come and go and you will remain centered in yourself.

This fifth technique is a technique of finding the witness. ATTENTION BETWEEN THE EYEBROWS, LET THE MIND BE BEFORE THOUGHT. Now look at your thoughts; now encounter your thoughts.

LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD AND THERE SHOWER AS LIGHT. When attention is focused at the third eye center, between the two eyebrows, two things happen. One is, suddenly you become a witness.

This can happen in two ways. You become a witness and you will be centered at the third eye. Try to be a witness. Whatsoever is happening, try to be a witness. You are ill, the body is aching and painful, you have misery and suffering, whatsoever - be a witness to it. Whatsoever is happening, do not identify yourself with it. Be a witness, an observer. Then if witnessing becomes possible, you will be focused in the third eye.

The vice versa is the case also. If you are focused in the third eye, you will become a witness.

These two things are part of one. So the first thing: by being centered in the third eye there will be the arising of the witnessing self. Now you can encounter your thoughts. This will be the first thing.

And the second thing will be that now you can feel the subtle, delicate vibration of breathing. Now you can feel the form of breathing, the very essence of breathing.

First try to understand what is meant by "the form," by "the essence of breathing." While you are breathing, you are not only breathing air. Science says you are breathing only air - just oxygen, hydrogen, and other gases in their combined form of air. They say you are breathing air! But tantra says that air is just the vehicle, not the real thing. You are breathing prana - vitality. Air is just the medium; prana is the content. You are breathing prana, not only air.

Modern science is still not able to find out whether there is something like prana, but some researchers have felt something mysterious. Breathing is not simply air. It has been felt by many modern researchers also. In particular, one name is to be mentioned - Wilhelm Reich, a German psychologist who called it "orgone energy." It is the same thing as prana. He says that while you are breathing, air is just the container and there is a mysterious content which can be called orgone or prana or ELAN VITAL. But that is very subtle. Really, it is not material. Air is the material thing - the container is material - but something subtle, non-material, is moving through it.

The effects of it can be felt. When you are with a very vital person, you will feel a certain vitality arising in you. If you are with a very sick person you will feel sucked, as if something has been taken out of you. When you go to the hospital, why do you feel so tired? You are being sucked from everywhere. The whole hospital atmosphere is ill, and everyone there needs more elan vital, more prana. So if you are there, suddenly your prana begins to flow out of you. Why do you feel suffocated sometimes when you are in a crowd? Because your prana is being sucked. While you are alone under the sky in the morning, under the trees, suddenly you feel a vitality in you - the prana. Each person needs a particular space. If that space is not given, your prana is sucked.

Science has its own superstitions, and science is a very orthodox thing. Science cannot feel yet that there is anything more than air, but India has been experimenting with it for centuries.

You may have heard or you may have even seen someone going into SAMADHI, cosmic consciousness - underground samadhi - for days together, with no air penetrating. One man went into such underground samadhi in Egypt in 1880 for forty years. Those who had buried him all died, because he was to come out of his samadhi in 1920, forty years afterwards. In 1920 no one believed that they would find him alive, but he was found alive. He lived afterwards for ten years more. He had become completely pale, but he was alive. And there had been no possibility of air reaching to him.

He was asked by medical doctors and others, "What is the secret of it?" He said, "We do not know.

We only know this, that prana can enter and flow anywhere." Air cannot penetrate, but prana can penetrate. Once you know that you can suck prana directly, without the container, then you can go into samadhi for centuries even.

By being focused in the third eye, suddenly you can observe the very essence of breath - not breath, but the very essence of breath, prana. And if you can observe the essence of breath, prana, you are at the point from where the jump, the breakthrough happens.

The sutra says, LET FORM FILL WITH BREATH ESSENCE TO THE TOP OF THE HEAD... And when you come to feel the essence of breathing, prana, just imagine that your head is filled with it - just imagine. No need of any effort. I will explain to you how imagination works. When you are focused at the third eye center, imagine, and the thing happens - then and there.

Now your imagination is just impotent; you go on imagining and nothing happens. But sometimes, unknowingly, in ordinary life also things happen. You are imagining about your friend and suddenly there is a knock on the door. You say it is a coincidence that the friend has come. Sometimes your imagination works just like coincidence. But whenever this happens, now try and remember and analyze the whole thing. Whenever it happens that you feel your imagination has become actual, go inside and observe. Somewhere your attention must have been near the third eye. Whenever this coincidence happens, it is not a coincidence. It looks that way because you do not know the secret science. Your mind must have moved unknowingly near the third eye center. If your attention is in the third eye, just imagination is enough to create any phenomenon.

This sutra says that when you are focused between the eyebrows and you can feel the very essence of breathing, LET FORM FILL. Now imagine that this essence is filling your whole head, particularly the top of the head, the SAHASRAR - the highest psychic center. And the moment you imagine, it will be filled. THERE - at the top of the head - SHOWER AS LIGHT. This prana essence is showering from the top of your head as light. And it WILL begin to shower, and under the shower of light you will be refreshed, reborn, completely new. That is what inner rebirth means.

So two things: first, focused at the third eye your imagination becomes potent, powerful. That is why so much insistence has been given on purity. Before doing these practices, be pure. Purity is not a moral concept for tantra, purity is significant - because if you are focused at the third eye and your mind is impure, your imagination can become dangerous: dangerous to you, dangerous to others. If you are thinking to murder someone, if this idea is in the mind, just imagining may kill the man. That is why there is so much insistence on being pure first.

Pythagoras was told to go through fasting, through particular breathing - this breathing - because here one is traveling in a very dangerous land. Because wherever there is power there is danger, and if the mind is impure, whenever you get power your impure thoughts will take hold of it immediately.

You have imagined many times to kill but the imagination cannot work, fortunately. If it works, if it is actualized immediately, then it will become dangerous - not only to others, but to yourself also, because so many times you have thought to commit suicide. If the mind is focused at the third eye, just thinking of suicide will become suicide. You will not have any time to change, immediately it will happen.

You might have observed someone being hypnotized. When someone is hypnotized, the hypnotist can say anything and immediately the hypnotized person follows. Howsoever absurd the order, howsoever irrational or even impossible, the hypnotized person follows it. What is happening? This fifth technique is at the base of all hypnotism. Whenever someone is being hypnotized he is told to focus his eyes at a particular point - on some light, some dot on the wall or anything, or on the eyes of the hypnotist.

When you focus your eyes at any particular point, within three minutes your inner attention begins to flow toward the third eye. And the moment your inner attention begins to flow toward the third eye, your face begins to change. And the hypnotist knows when your face begins to change. Suddenly your face loses all vitality. It becomes dead, as if deeply asleep. The hypnotist knows immediately when your face has lost the luster, the aliveness. It means that now attention is being sucked by the third eye center. Your face has become dead; the whole energy is running toward the third eye center.

Now the hypnotist immediately knows that anything said will happen. He says, "Now you are falling into a deep sleep" - you will fall immediately. He says, "Now you are becoming unconscious" - you will become unconscious immediately. Now anything can be done. If he says, "Now you have become Napoleon," you will become. You will begin to behave like a Napoleon, you will begin to talk like Napoleon. Your gestures will change. Your unconscious will take the order and will create the actuality. If you are suffering from a disease, now it can be ordered that the disease has disappeared and it will disappear. Or any new disease can be created.

Just putting an ordinary stone from the street in your hand, the hypnotist can say, "This is fire in your hand," and you will feel intense heat; your hand will get burned - not only in the mind, but actually.

Actually your skin will get burned. You will have a burning sensation. What is happening? There is no fire, there is just an ordinary stone, cold. How? How does this burning happen? You are focused at the third eye center, your imagination is being given suggestions by the hypnotist, and they are being actualized. If the hypnotist says, "Now you are dead," you will die immediately. Your heart will stop. It WILL stop.

This happens because of the third eye. In the third eye, imagination and actualization are not two things. Imagination is the fact. Imagine, and it is so. There is no gap between dream and reality.

There is NO gap between dream and reality! Dream, and it will become real. That is why Shankara has said that this whole world is nothing but the dream of the divine... the DREAM of the divine!

This is because the divine is centered in the third eye - always, eternally - so whatsoever the divine dreams becomes real. If you are also centered in the third eye, whatsoever you dream will become real.

Sariputta came to Buddha. He meditated deeply, then many things, many visions started coming, as it happens with anyone who goes into deep meditation. He began to see heavens, he began to see hells, he began to see angels, gods, demons. And they were actual, so real that he came running to Buddha to tell him that such and such a vision had come to him. But Buddha said, "It is nothing - just dreams. Just dreams!"

But Sariputta said, "They are so real. How can I say that they are dreams? When I see a flower in my vision it is more real than any flower in the world. The fragrance is there; I can touch it. When I see you," he said to Buddha, "I do not see you as real. That flower is more real than your being here just before me, so how can I differentiate between what is real and what is dream?" Buddha said, "Now that you are centered in the third eye, dream and reality are one. Whatsoever you are dreaming will be real, and vice versa also."

For one who is centered in the third eye dreams will become real and the whole reality will become just a dream, because when your dream can become real you know there is no basic difference between dream and reality. So when Shankara says that this whole world is just MAYA, a dream of the divine, it is not a theoretical proposition, it is not a philosophical statement. It is, rather, the inner experience of one who is focused in the third eye.

When you are focused in the third eye, just imagine that the essence of prana is showering from the top of the head, just as if you are sitting under a tree and flowers are showering, or you are just under the sky and suddenly a cloud begins to shower, or you are just sitting in the morning and the sun rises and rays begin to shower. Imagine, and immediately there is a shower - a shower of light falling down from the top of your head. This shower recreates you, gives you a new birth. You are reborn.

Osho Talks on Pythagoras 

in the Books of Philosophia Perennis & in Vigyan Bhairav Tantra