Walking the Tightrope__

Now this story.

A few things about Hasidism: First, the word 'hasid' comes from a Hebrew word which means pious, pure. It is derived from the noun 'hased' which means grace. This word 'hasid' is very beautiful. The whole standpoint of Hasidism is based on grace.

It is not that YOU do something - life is already happening, you just be silent, passive, alert, receiving. God comes through this grace, not through your effort. So Hasidism has no austerities prescribed for you. Hasidism believes in life, in joy. Hasidism is one of the religions in the world which is life-affirmative. It has no renunciation in it; you are not to renounce anything. Rather, you have to celebrate. The founder of Hasidism, Baal-Shem, is reported to have said, 'I have come to teach you a new way. It is not fasting and penance, and it is not indulgence, but joy in God.'

The Hasid loves life, tries to experience life. That very experience starts giving you a balance. And in that state of balance, some day, when you are really balanced, neither leaning on this side nor leaning on that side, when you are exactly in the middle, you transcend. The middle is the beyond, the middle is the door from where one goes beyond.

If you really want to know what existence is, it is neither in life nor in death. Life is one extreme, death is another extreme. It is just exactly in the middle where neither death is nor life is, where one is simply unborn, deathless. In that moment of balance, equilibrium, grace descends.

I would like you all to become Hasids, receivers of grace. I would like you to learn this science, this art of balance.

The mind very easily chooses the extreme. There are people who indulge: they indulge in sensuality, sexuality, food, clothes, houses, this and that. There are people who indulge - they lean too much towards life, they fall down, they topple. Then there are people, who, seeing people toppling down from the tightrope of existence into indulgence, falling into the abyss of indulgence, become afraid; they start leaning towards the other extreme. They renounce the world, they escape to the Himalayas. They escape from the wife, the children, the home, the world, the marketplace and they go and hide themselves in monasteries. They have chosen another extreme. Indulgence is the extreme life; renunciation is the extreme death.

So there is some truth in Friedrich Nietzsche's comment upon Hinduism - that Hinduism is a religion of death. There is some truth when Nietzsche says that Buddha seems to be suicidal. The truth is this: you can move from one extreme to another.

The whole Hasidic approach is not to choose any extreme, just to remain in the middle, available to both and yet beyond both, not getting identified with either, not getting obsessed and fixated with either - just remaining free and joyously enjoying both. If life comes, enjoy life; if death comes, enjoy death. If out of his grace God gives love, life - good; if he sends death, it must be good - it is his gift.

Baal-Shem is right when he says, 'I have come to teach you joy in God.' Hasidism is a celebrating religion. It is the purest flowering of the whole Judaic culture. Hasidism is the fragrance of the whole Jewish race. It is one of the most beautiful phenomena on the earth.

Hasidism teaches life in community. It is a very communal approach. It says that man is not an island, man is not an ego - should not be an ego - should not be an island. Man should live a life of community.

We are growing a Hasidic community here. To live in a community is to live in love; to live in a community is to live in commitment, caring for others.

There are many religions which are very, very self-oriented: they only think of the self, they never think of the community. They only think of how I am going to become liberated, how I am going to become free, how I should attain moksha - MY moksha, MY freedom, MY liberation, MY salvation. But everything is preceded by MY, by the self. And these religions try hard to drop the ego but their whole effort is based on the ego. Hasidism says if you want to drop the ego, the best way is to live in a community, live with people, be concerned with people - with their joy, with their sadness, with their happiness, with their life, with their death. Create a concern for the others, be involved, and then the ego will disappear on its own accord. And when the ego is not, one is free. There is no freedom of the ego, there is only freedom FROM the ego.

Hasidism uses community life as a device. Hasids have lived in small communities and they have created beautiful communities, very celebrating, dancing, enjoying the small things of life. They make the small things of life holy - eating, drinking. Everything takes the quality of prayer. The ordinariness of life is no longer ordinary, it is suffused with divine grace.

This is the difference. If you see Jaina monks sitting, you never see any brotherliness - it is not possible. The very approach is different. Each Jaina monk is an island, but the Hasids are not islands. They are a continent, a deep brotherliness.

Remember it. The community I would like to grow here should be more like the hasidim, less like Jaina monks, because a man alone, confined to himself, is ugly. Life is in love, life is in flow, in give and take and sharing.

You can go to a Jaina monastery or a Jaina temple where Jaina monks are sitting - you can just watch. You will see exactly how everybody is confined to himself; there is no relationship. That is the whole effort: how not to be related. The whole effort is how to disconnect all relationship. But the more you are disconnected with community and life, the more dead you are. It is very difficult to find a Jaina monk who is still alive. And I know it very deeply because I was born a Jaina and I have watched them from my very childhood. I was simply surprised! What calamity has happened to these people? What has gone wrong? They are dead. They are corpses. If you don't go near them already prejudiced, thinking that they are great saints. if you simply go, observing without any prejudice, you will be simply puzzled, confused. What illness, what disease has happened to these people? They are neurotic. Their concern about themselves has become their neurosis.

Community has completely lost meaning for them - but all meaning is in community.

Remember...when you love somebody, it is not only that you give love to them - in giving, you grow. When love starts flowing between you and the other, you both are benefitted. And in that exchange of love your potentialities start becoming actualities.

That's how self-actualisation happens. Love more and you will be more; love less and you will be less. You are always in proportion to your love. The proportion of your love is the proportion of your being.

Can you think of any saint with pipe in hand?

Ordinary life has to be hallowed, has to be made holy, even a pipe. You can smoke in a very prayerful way. Or, you can pray in a very unprayerful way. It is not a question of what you do...you can go into the temple, you can go into the mosque, but still you can pray in a very unprayerful way. It depends on you; it depends on the quality you bring to your prayer. You can eat, you can smoke, you can drink, and you can do all these small thingS, mundane things, in such gratitude that they become prayers.

Just the other night a man came. He bowed down and touched my feet. The way he was doing it was, I could see, very unprayerful. He was an Indian so he was doing it just out of duty, it seemed. Or he was not even conscious of what he was doing - he must have been taught. But I could feel, I could see his energy was absolutely unprayerful. And I was wondering why he had come. He wanted to become a sannyasin. I never refuse but I wanted to refuse him. I thought for a moment what to do. If I refuse, it doesn't look good - but the man was absolutely wrong. Finally I said, 'Okay, I will give you sannyas' - because I cannot refuse, I cannot say no. I find that word very difficult to use.

So I gave him sannyas, and then everything became clear. Immediately after sannyas he said, 'I have come to your feet, now help me. I am posted' - he is in the army - 'I have been posted somewhere in Palanpur. Now, Osho, with your spiritual power, help me to be transferred to Ranchi.' My spiritual power has to be used for his transfer to Ranchi. Now what type of concept does he have of spiritual power? Now everything was clear. He was not interested in sannyas - that taking sannyas was just a bribery. He must have thought that if he asks for the transfer without sannyas it won't look good. So first become a sannyasin and then ask.

Just to THINK in these terms is unprayerful, unspiritual. And that man thinks he is very spiritual. He says he is a follower of Paramahansa Yogananda and the way he said it was so egoistic, he felt so good, so superior - 'I am a follower of Paramahans Yogananda; I am a disciple. And I have been working on myself for many years...and that's why 'I want to go to Ranchi.' Ranchi is the centre of Paramahans Yogananda's disciples.

Now this man is absolutely unspiritual. His whole approach is unspiritual, unprayerful.

The point that I want to make clear to you is this: that it does not depend on what you DO. You can touch my feet in a very unprayerful way - then it is meaningless; but you can smoke and you can do it in a prayerful way and your prayer will reach to God.

It is very difficult for people who have very fixed concepts about religion, spirituality, but I would like you to become more liquid. Don't have fixed concepts. Watch.

Yes, only in deep friendliness can something be asked. And only in deep friendliness can something be answered. Between the Master and the disciple there is a deep friendship. It is a love affair. And the disciple has to wait for the right moment and the Master has also to wait for the right moment; when the friendship is flowing, when there is no hindrance, then things can be answered. Or even, sometimes, without answering them, they can be answered; even without using verbalisation the message can be delivered.

In fact, that is the answer of all those who know. 'How should I know?' - 'How to serve God? You are asking such a great question, I am not worthy to answer it,' said the Master. 'How should I know?' Nothing can be known about love; nothing can be known about how to serve God - it is very difficult.

First he says, 'How should I know?' First he says that knowledge is not possible about such things. First he says that he cannot give you any knowledge about such things. First he says that he cannot make you more knowledgeable about these things - there is no way. But then he tells his story.

A story is totally different to talking in terms of theories. A story is more alive, more indicative. It does not say much but it shows much. And all the great Masters have used stories, parables, anecdotes. The reason is that if you say something directly, it kills much. A direct expression is too crude primitive, gross, ugly. The parable is saying the thing in a very indirect way. It makes things very smooth; it makes things more poetic, less logical, closer to life, more paradoxical. You cannot use a syllogism for God, you cannot use any argument, but you can tell stories.

And the Jewish race is one of the richest races on the earth for parables. Jesus was a Jew and he has told a few of the most beautiful parables ever uttered. Jews have learnt how to tell stories. In fact, Jews don't have much philosophy but they have beautiful philosophical parables. They say much; without saying, without hinting anything directly, they create an atmosphere. In that atmosphere something can be understood. That is the whole device of a parable.

First he said, 'How should I know?' First he simply denies knowledge of any possibility of knowing about it. A philosopher says, 'Yes, I know' and a philosopher proposes a theory in clear-cut statements, logical, mathematical, syllogistic, argumentative. He tries to convince. He may not convince but he can force you into silence.

A parable never tries to convince you. It takes you unawares, it persuades you, it tickles you deep inside.

The moment the Master says, 'How should I know?' he is saying to them, 'Relax, I am not going to give any argument for it, any theory for it. And you need not be worried that I am going to convince you about something. Just enjoy a little parable, a little story.' When you start listening to a story, you relax; when you start listening to a theory, you become tense. And that which creates tension in you cannot be of much help. It is destructive.

A parable has an atmosphere, a very homely atmosphere - as if your grandmother is telling you a story when you are falling asleep. Children ask, 'Tell us stories.' It helps them relax and go into sleep. A story is very relaxing and does not create any pressure on your mind; rather, it starts playing with your heart. When you listen to a story, you don't listen from the head - you cannot listen to a story from the head - you listen from the head you will miss. If you listen from the head there is no possibility of understanding a story; a story has to be understood from the heart. That's why races and countries which are very 'heady' cannot understand beautiful jokes. For example, Germans! They cannot understand. They are one of the most intelligent races of the world but they don't have any good stock of jokes.

A man was telling a German that he had heard a very beautiful German joke.

The German said, 'But remember, I am a German.'

So the man said, 'Okay, then I will tell it very, very slowly.'

lt is very difficult. Germany is the country of the professors, logicians - Kant, Hegel, and Feuerbach - and they have always been thinking through the head. They have cultivated the head, they have created great scientists, logicians, philosophers, but they have missed something.

In India we don't have many jokes; there is a great poverty of spirit. You cannot find a specifically Hindu joke, no. All the jokes that go on in India are borrowed from the West. No Indian joke exists. I have not come across any. And you can rely on me because1 have come across all the jokes of the world! No Hindu joke, as such, exists. What is the reason?Again, very intellectual people. They have been weaving and spinning theories; from Vedas to Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan they have been just weaving and spinning theories and theories and they have got into it so deeply that they have forgotten how to tell a beautiful story or how to create a joke.

The Rabbi started telling this story - the disciples must have become relaxed, must have become relaxed AND attentive. That's the beauty of a story: when a story is told you are attentive and yet not tense. You can relax and yet you are attentive. A passive attentiveness arises when you listen to a story. When you listen to a theory you become very tense because of you miss a single word you may not be able to understand it. You become more concentrated. When you listen to a story you become more meditative - there is nothing much to be lost. Even if a few words are lost here and there, nothing will be lost because if you just have the feel of the story you will understand it, it does not depend so much on the words.

The disciples must have relaxed, and the Master told this story.

Now, this sentence is very pregnant -

JESUS says many times to his disciples, 'Come unto me if you want life in abundance. If you want life in abundance, come to me.' But life in abundance happens only to people who go beyond birth and death, who go beyond the duality, to the other shore. The other shore, the other side, is just symbolic of the transcendental. But it is just a hint. Nothing is particularly said, just a hint is given.

And then the story moves on.

Now these are the two types of people.

The first simply got safely across. Ordinarily we would like to enquire how to go on a rope. A tightrope stretched over a chasm - it is dangerous. Ordinarily we would like to know the ways, the means, the method, how to go. We would like to know how? The technique - there must be a technique. For centuries people have walked on tightropes.

But the first one simply walked without enquiring, without even waiting for the other.

This is the natural tendency: to let the other go first. At least you will be able to watch and observe and that will be helpful for you. No, the first simply walked. He must have been a man of tremendous trust; he must have been a man of undoubting confidence. He must have been a man who has learnt one thing in life: that there is only one way to learn and that is to live it, to experience. There is no other way.

You cannot learn tightrope-walking by watching a tightrope-walker - no, never. Because the thing is not like a technology that you can observe from the outside, it is some inner balance that only the walker knows. And it cannot be transferred. He cannot just tell you about it; it cannot be verbalised. No tightrope-walker can tell anybody how he manages.

You ride a bicycle. Can you tell anybody how you ride it? You know the balance; it is a sort of tightrope-walking, just on two wheels straight in one line. And you go fast and you go so trustingly. If somebody asks what the secret is, can you reduce it to a formula, just like H20? Can you reduce it to a maxim? You don't say, 'This is the principle, I follow this principle,' you will say, 'The only way is for you to come and sit on the bike and I will help you to go on it. You are bound to fall a few times and then you will know the only way to know is to know.' The only way to know swimming is to swim - with all the dangers involved in it.

The first man must have come to a deep understanding in his life - that life is not like a textbook. You cannot be taught about it, you have to experience it. And he must have been a man of tremendous awareness. He did not hesitate, he simply walked, as if he had always been walking on a tightrope. He had never walked before; it was for the first time.

But for a man of awareness everything is for the first time, and a man of awareness can do things - even when he is doing them for the first time - perfectly. His efficiency does not come out of his past, his efficiency comes out of his present. Let this be remembered. You can do things in two ways. You can do something because you have done it before - so you know how to do it, you need not be present, you can simply do it in a mechanical way. But if you have not done it before, and you are going to do it for a first time, you have to be tremendously alert because now you don't have any past experience. So you cannot rely on the memory, you have to rely on awareness.

These are the two sources of functioning: either you function out of memory, out of knowledge, out of the past, out of mind; or you function out of awareness, out of the present, out of no-mind.

The first man must have been a man of no-mind, a man who knows that you can simply be alert and go on and see what happens. And whatsoever happens is good. A great courage.

The second is the majority mind, the mass mind. The second wants to Know first how to cross it. Is there a method to it? Is there a technique to be learnt? He is waiting for the other to say.

The other must be a believer in knowledge. The other must have been a believer in others' experiences.

Many people come to me. They say, 'Osho, tell us. What happened to you?' But what are you going to do about it? Buddha has told it, Mahavir has told it, Jesus has told it - what have you done about it? Unless it happens to you it is futile. I can tell you one more story and then you can join that story also in your record of memories, but that is not going to help.

Waiting for others' knowledge is waiting in vain because that which can be given by the others has no worth, and that which is of any worth cannot be given and cannot be transferred.

Even though he had crossed he still said, 'I don't know anything but this....' Because, in fact, life never becomes knowledge; it remains a very suffused experience, never knowledge. You cannot verbalise it, conceptualise it, put it into a clear-cut theory.

'This much only can be said: that there were two extremes, left and right, and whenever I felt that I was going too much towards the left and the balance was getting lost, I leaned towards the right. But again I had to balance because then I started going too much to the right and again I felt the balance was getting lost. Again I leant towards the left.'

So he said two things. One, 'I cannot formulate it as knowledge. I can only indicate. I don't know exactly what happened but this much I can give as a hint to you. And that is not much; in fact, you need not have it. You will come across the experience yourself. But this much can be said.'

Buddha was asked again and again, 'What has happened to you?' And he would always say, 'That cannot be said but this much I can say to you - I can say in what circumstances it happened. That may be of some help to you. I cannot tell about the ultimate truth but I can tell how, on what path, with what method, in what situation I was when it happened, when the grace descended on me, when the benediction came to me.'

The man says,

'That's all. Nothing much to it. That's how I balanced, that's how I remained in the middle.' And in the middle is grace.

The Rabbi is saying to his disciples, 'You ask how we should serve God?' He was indicating with this parable: remain in the middle.

Don't indulge too much and don't renounce too much. Don't be only in the world and don't escape out of it. Go on keeping a balance. When you feel that now you are falling into too much indulgence, lean towards renunciation, and when you feel that now you are going to become a renunciate, an ascetic, lean back again to indulgence. Keep in the middle.

On the road in India you will find boards saying 'Keep to the Left' - in America you will find 'Keep to the Right'. In the world there are only two types of people: a few keep to the left, a few keep to the right. The third type is the very pinnacle of consciousness. And there the rule is 'Keep to the Middle'. Don't try it on the road but on life's way keep to the middle: never to the left, never to the right. Just to the middle.

And in the middle there will be glimpses of balance. There is a point - you can understand, you can feel it - there is a point when you are not leaning to either extreme, you are exactly in the middle. In that split-second suddenly there is grace, everything is in equilibrium.

And that's how one can serve God. Remain in balance and it becomes a service to God; remain in balance and God is available to you and you are available to God.

Life is not a technology, not even a science; life is an art - or it would even be better to call it a hunch. You have to feel it. It is like balancing on a tightrope.

The Rabbi has chosen a beautiful parable. He has not talked about God at all; he has not talked about service at all; he has not really answered the question at all directly. The disciples must have themselves forgotten about the question - that's the beauty of a parable. It doesn't divide your mind into a question and an answer, it simply gives you a hunch that this is how things are.

Life has no 'know-how' about it. Remember, life is not American, it is not a technology.

The American mind, or to be more specific, the modern mind, tends to create technologies out of everything. Even when there is meditation the modern mind immediately tends to create a technology out of it. Then we create machines, and man is getting lost, and we are losing all contact with life.

Remember, there are things which cannot be taught but which can only be caught. I am here, you can watch me, you can look into me and you will see a balance and you will see a silence. It is almost tangible, you can touch it, you can hear it, you can see it. It is here.

I cannot say what it is, I cannot specifically give you techniques how to attain to it. At the most I can tell you a few parables, a few stories. They will be just hints. Those that understand will allow those hints to fall into their hearts like seeds. In their time, in the right season, they will sprout and you will understand me really only on the day you also experience the same that I am experiencing. I have crossed to the other shore, you are shouting from the other side, 'Tell me, friend, how did you manage to cross?' I can tell you only one thing:

Keep to the middle. Keep continuously alert that you don't lose the balance, and then everything will take care of itself.

If you can remain in the middle, you remain available to God, to his grace. If you can remain in the middle you can become a Hasid; you can become a receiver of grace. And God is grace. You cannot do anything to find him, you can only do one thing: not stand in his way. And whenever you move to an extreme you become so tense that that very tension makes you too solid; whenever you are in the middle, tension disappears, you become liquid, fluid. And you are no longer i n the way. When you are in the middle you are no longer in God's way - or let me tell you it in this way: when you are in the middle you are not. Exactly in the middle that miracle happens - that you are nobody, you are a nothingness.

This is the secret key. It can open the lock of mystery of existence to you.

 

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