OSHO : The Discipline of Transcendence, Volume 1, Chapter 5
The Buddha said:
If a man who has committed many a misdemeanour does not repent and cleanse his heart of the evil, retribution will come upon his person as sure as the streams run into the ocean which becomes ever deeper and wider.
If a man who has committed a misdemeanour come to the knowledge of it, reform himself and practice goodness, the force of retribution will gradually exhaust itself as a disease gradually loses its baneful influence when the patient perspires.
The Buddha said:
When an evil-doer, seeing you practice goodness, comes and maliciously insults you, you should patiently endure it and not feel angry with him. For the evil-doer is insulting himself by trying to insult you.
The Buddha said:
Once a man came unto me and denounced me on account of my observing the way and practicing great loving kindness. But I kept silent and did not answer him. The denunciation ceased.
I then asked him, if you bring a present to your neighbor and he accepts it not, does the present come back to you? the man replied, it will. I said, you denounce me now, but as I accept it not, you must take the wrong deed back upon your own person. It is like an echo succeeding sound, it is like shadow following object. You never escape the effect of your own evil deeds. Be therefore mindful and cease from doing evil.
Man is a crowd, a crowd of many voices -- relevant, irrelevant, consistent, inconsistent -- each voice pulling in its own way; all the voices pulling man apart. Ordinarily man is a mess, virtually a kind of madness. You somehow manage, you somehow manage to look sane. Deep down layers and layers of insanity are boiling within you. They can erupt any moment, your control can be lost any moment, because your control is enforced from without. It is not a discipline that has come from your center of being.
For social reasons, economic reasons, political reasons, you have enforced a certain character upon yourself. But many vital forces exist against that character within you. They are continuously sabotaging your character. Hence every day you go on committing many mistakes, many errors. Even sometimes you feel that you never wanted to do it. In spite of yourself, you go on committing many mistakes -- because you are not one, you are many.
Buddha does not call these mistakes sins, because to call them sin will be condemning you. He simply calls them misdemeanors, mistakes, errors. To err is human, not to err is divine. And the way from the human to the divine goes through mindfulness. These many voices within you can stop torturing you, pulling you, pushing you. These many voices can disappear if you become mindful.
In a mindful state mistakes are not committed -- not that you control them, but in a mindful state, in an alert, aware state, voices, many voices cease; you simply become one, and whatsoever you do comes from the very core of your being. It is never wrong. This has to be understood before we enter into these sutras.
In the modern Humanistic Potential Movement there is a parallel to understand it. That's what Transactional Analysis calls the triangle of PAC. P means parent, A means adult, C means child. These are your three layers, as if you are a three-storied building. First floor is that of the child, second floor is that of the parent, third floor is that of the adult. All three exist together.
This is your inner triangle and conflict. Your child says one thing, your parent says something else, your adult, rational mind says something else.
The child says enjoy. For the child this moment is the only moment; he has no other considerations. The child is spontaneous, but unaware of the consequences -- unaware of past, unaware of future. He lives in the moment. He has no values and he has no mindfulness, no awareness. The child consists of felt concepts; he lives through feeling. His whole being is irrational.
Of course he comes into many conflicts with others. He comes into many contradictions within himself, because one feeling helps him to do one thing, then suddenly he starts feeling another feeling. A child never can complete anything. By the time he can complete it his feeling has changed. He starts many things but never comes to any conclusion. A child remains inconclusive. He enjoys -- but his enjoyment is not creative, cannot be creative. He delights -- but life cannot be lived only through delight. You cannot remain a child forever. You will have to learn many things, because you are not alone here.
If you were alone then there would be no question -- you could have remained a child forever. But the society is there, millions of people are there; you have to follow many rules, you have to follow many values. Otherwise there will be so much conflict that life would become impossible. The child has to be disciplined -- and that's where the parent comes in.
The parental voice in you is the voice of the society, culture, civilization; the voice that makes you capable of living in a world where you are not alone, where there are many individuals with conflicting ambitions, where there is much struggle for survival, where there is much conflict. You have to pave your path, and you have to move very cautiously.
The parental voice is that of caution. It makes you civilized.
The child is wild, the parental voice helps you to become civilized. The word,"civil" is good. It means one who has become capable of living in a city; who has become capable of being a member of a group, of a society.
The child is very dictatorial. The child thinks he is the center of the world. The parent has to teach you that you are not the center of the world -- everybody thinks that way. He has to make you more and more alert that there are many people in the world, you are not alone. You have to consider them if you want yourself to be considered by them. Otherwise you will be crushed. It is a sheer question of survival, of policy, of politics.
The parental voice gives you commandments -- what to do, what not to do. The feeling simply goes blind. The parent makes you cautious. It is needed.
And then there is the third voice within you, the third layer, when you have become adult and you are no more controlled by your parents; your own reason has come of age, you can think on your own.
The child consists of felt concepts; the parent consists of taught concepts, and the adult consists of thought concepts. And these three layers are continuously in fight. The child says one thing, the parent says just the opposite, and the reason may say something totally different.
You see beautiful food. The child says to eat as much as you want. The parental voice says that many things have to be considered -- whether you are really feeling hungry, or just the smell of the food, the taste of the food is the only appeal. Is this food really nutritious? Is it going to nourish your body or can it become harmful to you? Wait, listen, don't rush. And then there is the rational mind, the adult mind, which may say something else, totally different.
There is no necessity that your adult mind may agree with your parents. Your parents were not omniscient, they were not all-knowing. They were as fallible human beings as you are, and many times you find loopholes in their thinking. Many times you find them very dogmatic, superstitious, believing in foolish things, irrational ideologies.
Your adult says no, your parent says do it, your adult says it is not worth doing, and your child goes on pulling you somewhere else. This is the triangle within you.
If you listen to the child, your parent feels angry. So one part feels good -- you can go on eating as much ice cream as you want -- but your parent inside feels angry; a part of you starts condemning. And then you start feeling guilty. The same guilt arises as it used to arise when you were really a child. You are no more a child -- but the child has not disappeared. It is there; it is just your ground floor, your very base, your foundation.
If you follow the child, if you follow the feeling, the parent is angry and then you start feeling guilt. If you follow the parent then your child feels that he is being forced into things which he does not want to do. Then your child feels he is being unnecessarily interfered with, unnecessarily trespassed upon. Freedom is lost when you listen to the parent, and your child starts feeling rebellious.
If you listen to the parent, your adult mind says, What nonsense! These people never knew anything. You know more, you are more in tune with the modern world, you are more contemporary. These ideologies are just dead ideologies, out of date -- why are you bothering? If you listen to your reason then also you feel as if you are betraying your parents. Again guilt arises. What to do? And it is almost impossible to find something on which all these three layers agree.
This is human anxiety. No, never do all these three layers agree on any point. There is no agreement ever.
Now there are teachers who believe in the child. They emphasize the child more. For example, Lao Tzu. He says, The agreement is not going to come. You drop this parental voice, these commandments, these Old Testaments. Drop all "shoulds" and become a child again. That's what Jesus says. Lao Tzu and Jesus, their emphasis is: become a child again -- because only with the child will you be able to gain your spontaneity, will you again become part of the natural flow, tao.
Their message is beautiful, but seems to be almost impractical. Sometimes, yes, it has happened -- a person has become a child again. But it is so exceptional that it is not possible to think that ever the humanity is going to become a child again. It is beautiful like a star... far distant, but out of reach.
Then there are other teachers -- Mahavir, Moses, Mohammed, Manu -- they say listen to the parental voice, listen to the moral, what the society says, what you have been taught. Listen and follow it. If you want to be at ease in the world, if you want to be peaceful in the world, listen to the parent. Never go against the parental voice.
That's how the world has followed, more or less. But then one never feels spontaneous, one never feels natural. One always feels confined, caged. And when you don't feel free, you may feel peaceful, but that peacefulness is worthless. Unless peace comes with freedom you cannot accept it. Unless peace comes with bliss you cannot accept it. It brings convenience, comfort, but your soul suffers.
Yes, there have been a few people again who have achieved through the parental voice, who have really attained to the truth. But that too is very rare. And that world is gone. Maybe in the past, Moses and Manu and Mohammed were useful. They gave commandments to the world. Do this. Don't do that. They made things simple, very simple. They have not left anything for you to decide; they don't trust that you will be able to decide. They simply give you a readymade formula -- These are the ten commandments to be followed. You simply do these and all that you hope, all that you desire will happen as a consequence. You just be obedient.
All the old religions emphasized obedience too much. Disobedience is the only sin -- that's what christianity says. Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of god because they disobeyed. God had said not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and they disobeyed. That was their only sin. But every child is committing that sin. The father says, Don't smoke, and he tries it. The father says, Don't go to the movie, and he goes. The story of Adam and Eve is the story of every child. And then condemnation, expulsion....
Obedience is religion for Manu, Mohammed, Moses. But that world has gone, and through it many have not attained. Many became peaceful, good citizens, good members, respectable members of the society, but nothing much.
Then there is the third emphasis on being adult.
Confucius, Patanjali, or modern agnostics -- Bertrand Russell -- all humanists of the world, they all emphasize: Believe only in your own reason. That seems very arduous, so much so that one's whole life becomes just a conflict. Because you have been brought up by your parents, you have been conditioned by your parents. If you listen only to your reason, you have to deny many things in your being. In fact, your whole mind has to be denied. It is not easy to erase it.
And you were born as children without any reason. That too is there. Basically you are a feeling being; reason comes very late. It comes when, in fact, all that has to happen has happened. Psychologists say a child learns almost seventy-five percent of his whole knowledge by the time he is seven years old. Seventy-five percent of his whole knowledge he has learned by the time he is seven years old, fifty percent by the time he is four years old. And this whole learning happens when you are a child, and reason comes very late. It is a very late arrival. It comes when, in fact, all that has to happen has happened.
It is very difficult to live with the reason. People have tried -- a Bertrand Russell here and there -- but nobody has achieved truth through it, because reason alone is not enough.
All these angles have been chosen and tried, and nothing has worked. Buddha's standpoint is totally different. That's his original contribution to human consciousness. He says not to choose any, he says move in the center of the angle. Don't choose reason, don't choose parent, don't choose the child; just move in the very center of the angle and remain silent and become mindful. His approach is tremendously meaningful. And then you will be able to have a clear perspective of your being. And out of that perspective and clarity let the response come.
We can say it in another way. If you function as a child, that is a childish reaction. Many times you function as a child. Somebody says something and you get hurt, and a tantrum and anger and temper... you lose everything. Later on you feel very bad about it -- that you lost your image. Everybody thinks you so sober and you were so childish, and nothing much was at stake.
Or you follow your parental voice, but later on you think that still you are dominated by your parents. You have not yet become an adult, mature enough to take the reins of your life into your own hands. Or sometimes you follow reason, but then you think that reason is not enough, feeling also is needed. And without feeling, a rational being becomes just head; he loses contact with the body, he loses contact with life, he becomes disconnected. He functions only as a thinking mechanism. But thinking cannot make you alive, in thinking there is no juice of life. It is a very dry thing. Then you hanker, you hanker for something which can again allow your energies to stream, which can again allow you to be green and alive and young. This goes on and you go on chasing your own tail.
Buddha says these are all reactions and any reaction is bound to be partial -- only response is total -- and whatsoever is partial is a mistake. That's his definition of error: whatsoever is partial is a mistake. Because your other parts will remain unfulfilled and they will take their revenge.
Be total. Response is total, reaction is partial.
When you listen to one voice and follow it you are getting into trouble. You will never be satisfied with it. Only one part will be satisfied, the other two parts will be very much dissatisfied. So two thirds of your being will be dissatisfied, one third of your being will be satisfied, and you will always remain in a turmoil. Whatsoever you do, reaction can never satisfy you, because reaction is partial.
Response -- response is total. Then you don't function from any triangle, you don't choose; you simply remain in a choiceless awareness. You remain centered. And out of that centering you act, whatsoever it is. It is neither child nor parent nor adult. You have gone beyond PAC. It is you now -- neither the child nor the parent nor the adult. It is you, your being. That PAC is like a cyclone and your center is the center of the cyclone.
So whenever there is a need to respond, the first thing, Buddha says, is become mindful, become aware. Remember your center. Become grounded in your center. Be there for a few moments before you do anything. There is no need to think about it because thinking is partial. There is no need to feel about it because feeling is partial. There is no need to find clues from your parents, Bible, Koran, Gita -- these are all P -- there is no need. You simply remain tranquil, silent, simply alert -- watching the situation as if you are absolutely out of it, aloof, a watcher on the hills.
This is the first requirement -- to be centered whenever you want to act. Then out of this centering let the act arise -- and whatsoever you do will be virtuous, whatsoever you do will be right.
Buddha says right mindfulness is the only virtue there is. Not to be mindful is to fall into error. To act unconsciously is to fall into error.
Now the sutras.
The Buddha said:
If a man who has committed many a misdemeanour does not repent and cleanse his heart of the evil, retribution will come upon his person as sure as the streams run into the ocean which becomes ever deeper and wider.
If a man who has committed many a misdemeanour does not repent...
Repentance means retrospective awareness, repentance means looking backwards. You have done something. If you were aware then no wrong can happen, but you were not aware at the time you did it. Somebody insulted -- you became angry, you hit him on the head. You were not aware what you were doing. Now things have cooled down, the situation has gone, you are no more in anger; you can look backwards more easily. You missed awareness at that time. The best thing was to have awareness at that time, but you missed it, and now there is no point in crying and weeping over the spilt milk. But you can look, you can bring awareness to that which has already happened.
That is what Mahavir calls pratycraman, looking back; what Patanjali calls pratyahar, looking in. That's what Jesus calls repentance. That's what Buddha calls pashchattap. It is not feeling sorry, it is not just feeling bad about it, because that is not going to help. It is becoming aware, it is reliving the experience as it should have been. You have to move into it again.
You missed awareness in that moment; you were overflooded by unconsciousness. Now things have cooled, you'll take your awareness, the light of awareness, back. You move in that incident again, you look into it again as you should have really done; that is gone, but you can do it retrospectively in your mind. And Buddha says this cleanses the heart of the evil.
This looking back, continuously looking back, will make you more and more aware. There are three stages. You have done something, then you become aware -- first stage. Second stage: you are doing something, and you become aware. And third stage: you are going to do something, and you become aware. Only in the third stage will your life be transformed. But the first two are necessary for the third, they are necessary steps.
Whenever you can become aware, become aware. You have been angry -- now sit down, meditate, become aware what has happened. Ordinarily we do it, but we do for wrong reasons. We do it to put our image back in its right place. You always think you are a very loving person, compassionate, and then you suddenly become angry. Now your image is distorted in your own eyes. You do a sort of repentance. You go to the person and you say, I am sorry. What are you doing? You are repainting your image.
Your ego is trying to repaint the image, because you have fallen in your own eyes, you have fallen in others' eyes. Now you are trying to rationalize. At least you can go and say, I am sorry. I did it in spite of myself. I don't know how it happened, I don't know what evil force took possession of me, but I am sorry. Forgive me.
You are trying to come back to the same level where you were before you became angry. This is a trick of the ego, this is not real repentance. Again you will do the same thing.
Buddha says real repentance is remembering it, going into the details fully aware of what happened; going backwards, reliving the experience. Reliving the experience is like unwinding; it erases. And not only that -- it makes you capable of more awareness, because awareness is practiced when you are remembering it, when you are becoming again aware about the past incident. You are getting a discipline in awareness, in mindfulness. Next time you will become aware a little earlier.
This time you were angry; after two hours you could cool dawn. Next time after one hour you will cool down. Next time after a few minutes. Next time, just as it has happened you will cool down and you will be able to see. By and by, by slow progression, one day while you are angry you will catch hold of yourself red-handed. And that is a beautiful experience -- to catch yourself red-handed committing an error. Then suddenly the whole quality changes, because whenever awareness penetrates you, reactions stop.
This anger is a childish reaction, it is the child in you. It is coming from the C. And later on, when you feel sorry, that is coming from the P, from the parent. The parent forces you to feel sorry and go and ask forgiveness. You have not been good to your mother or to your uncle -- go and put things right.
Or it can come from A, from your adult mind. You have been angry and later on you recognize that this is going to be too much; there is a financial loss in it. You have been angry with your boss, now you become afraid. Now you start thinking he may throw you out, or he may carry the anger within him. Your salary was going to be raised; he may not raise it -- a thousand and one things... you would like to put things right.
When Buddha says repent, he's not telling you to function from C or P or A. He is saying when you become aware, sit down, close your eyes, meditate upon the whole thing -- become a watcher. You missed the situation, but still something can be done about it: you can watch it. You can watch it as it should have been watched. You can practice, this will be a rehearsal, and by the time you have watched the whole situation you will feel completely okay.
If then you feel like going and asking forgiveness, for no other reasons -- neither the parent, nor the adult, nor the child -- but out of sheer understanding, out of sheer meditation that it was wrong.... It was not wrong for any other reason; it was wrong because you behaved in an unconscious way. Let me repeat it. You go and you ask for forgiveness not for any other reason -- financial, social, political, cultural; no -- you simply go there because you meditated on it and you recognized and you realized the fact that you acted in unawareness; you have hurt somebody in unawareness.
You have to go and console the person at least. You have to go and help the person to understand your helplessness -- that you are an unconscious person, that you are a human being with all the limitations, that you are sorry. It is not putting your ego back, it is simply doing something which your meditation has showed you. It is totally a different dimension.
If a man who has committed many a misdemeanour does not repent and cleanse his heart of the evil, retribution will come upon his person as sure as the streams run into the ocean which becomes ever deeper and wider.
Ordinarily what do we do? We become defensive. If you have been angry at your wife or at your child, you become defensive; you say it had to be done that way, it was needed -- it was needed for the child's own good. If you are not angry, how are you going to discipline the child? If you are not angry with somebody people will take advantage of you. You are not a coward, you are a brave man. How can you just let people do things which should not be done to you? You have to react.
You become defensive, you rationalize. If you go on rationalizing your errors... and all errors can be rationalized, remember it. There exists not a single error which cannot be rationalized. You can rationalize everything. But then, Buddha says, such a person is bound to become more and more unconscious, more and more deeply unaware... As sure as the streams run into the ocean which becomes ever deeper and wider.
If you go on defending yourself then you will not be able to transform yourself. You have to recognize that there is something wrong. The very recognition helps change.
If you feel healthy and you are not ill, you are not going to go to a physician. Even if the physician comes to you, you are not going to listen to him. You are perfectly okay. You will say, I'm perfectly well. Who says I am ill? If you don't think you are ill, you will go on protecting your illness. That is dangerous; you are on a suicidal path.
If there has been anger, there has been greed, there has been something that happens only when you are unconscious, recognize it -- the sooner you do it the better. Meditate upon it. Move to your center and respond from the center.
If a man who has committed a misdemeanour come to the knowledge of it, reform himself and practice goodness, the force of retribution will gradually exhaust itself as a disease gradually loses its baneful influence when the patient perspires.
If you acknowledge it you have taken one very meaningful step towards changing it. Now Buddha says one very important thing: If you come to acknowledge it, if you come to the knowledge of it, reform yourself.
Ordinarily, even if we sometimes recognize that yes, something wrong has happened, we don't try to reform ourselves, we only try to reform our image. We want everybody to feel that they have forgiven us. We want everybody to recognize that it was wrong on our part, but we have asked for their forgiveness, and things are put right again. We are again on our pedestal. The fallen image is replaced back on the throne. We don't reform ourselves.
You have many times asked forgiveness, but again and again you go on doing the same thing. That simply shows that it was a policy, a politics, a trick to manipulate people -- but you have remained the same, you have not changed at all. If you have really asked forgiveness for your anger or any offence against anybody, then it should not happen again. Only that can be a proof that you are really on the path of changing yourself.
