Tale 56 ~ 100 Tales For 10,000 Buddhas

Meditation camp at Manali has started. Today, I go to see Osho in my regular clothes. He asks me, “Where is your orange dress? Why have you put it on?” I tell Him, “I will put it tomorrow.”

Next morning, I am dressed in my orange lunghi and kurta and have come to see Him before discourse with my girl friend Veena from Bombay. We both are waiting in the living room with much excitement. After a few minutes, He comes out of the bathroom. His face is very radiant with an aura of light around Him. He greets me with a big smile as I go neat Him to touch His feet. He blesses me placing His hand on my head.

As I get up, He says, “You look good in this dress. Now you are a Sannyasin. What name should be given to you?” He places a huge Mala with big beads around my neck. I am just surprised, not knowing what is going on. I take it all as a joke and simply laugh. He looks at Veena, and the name ‘Jyoti’ slips out of her mouth. Osho likes this name and says, “It is good name but not complete. ‘Dharm Jyoti’ will be the right name for you.” It all happens standing in the living room. That is how I am initiated into Sannyas. Not a big deal. I feel pulled towards Him and hug Him. He receives my hug, showering all His love on me by placing His hand on my head. I feel drowned in utter silence and joy.

Osho on Uniqueness – Uniqueness is religious, specialness is political

Question – What is the difference between being special and being unique?
Osho – BEING unique is everybody’s nature, being special is relative. When you start feeling that you are special you are comparing yourself with somebody. Special: in comparison to somebody; unique: there is no comparison. Unique means you are alone as you are – how can you be compared?
You cannot compare a car with an elephant. They are so different, how can you compare? Each individual is so different from any other individual that there is no possibility of comparing. Uniqueness is everybody’s nature, but specialness is comparative. Uniqueness is religious, specialness is political. When you claim that you are special you are claiming that you are higher, superior to others; that others are lower. inferior to you. You bring the other in when you use the word ’special’ and this is violent. To compare yourself with somebody in any way is violent because he is he and you are you and you are both so different. The very idea of comparing is stupid.
And through comparison misery arises: either you feel you are inferior, then there is misery, or you start feeling you are superior, then too there is misery. If you feel superior. ego arises – and ego hurts. If you feel inferior, ego is wounded – and those wounds hurt. And you may feel superior to one person but what about others? You may one day or other come across somebody to whom you feel inferior. With one person you may feel intelligent, with another you may look like a pygmy. With one you may feel beautiful, with another you may start feeling ugly.
To carry the idea of comparison you are carrying seeds of illness which will create misery and nothing else. Comparison creates hell. Heaven is an inner space where you live a life uncompared. You simply live yourself, it is your life, you are you just think of the beauty of it, the tremendous purity of it. You are simply you. Then are you beautiful? Are you ugly? Are you intelligent, or unintelligent? If you are simply you and there is no comparison, how can you say you are this or that? Then both disappear. There arises neti-neti, neither this nor that. Then you are simply there.
Just think… the whole world disappears and you alone are left. God takes away the whole world and only you are left, nobody else. Then what will you be – strong, weak, intelligent, unintelligent, beautiful, ugly? Then who will you be? All comparisons will disappear, you will simply be yourself. That is the way to be. Right now, be that! Don’t create unnecessary misery for yourself and for others. Start living a unique life.
Uniqueness is everybody’s nature. With the feeling of being special ambition enters, comparison enters, jealousy enters, conflict enters. You become political. Then you start pulling others down because you have to be superior. Then you start fighting, struggling, and then you start using all sorts of means. You have to prove and perform and your whole life is wasted in this nonsense.
Three ambitious politicians were walking along the beach, planning a strategic move to defeat a powerful rival, when they came upon Mulla Nasrudin looking for crabs. As each crab was caught, the Mulla put it into a wicker basket. Looking into the container, one of the politicians warned Nasrudin, ’Mulla, you should cover your basket. If you are not careful the crabs will climb out and run away.’
’Oh, I don’t need any cover,’ explained Nasrudin. ’These crabs are born politicians and if one crab tries to climb up, the others will pull him down.’
This is what is happening continuously in life. You are pulling others down, others are pulling you down, and the whole life is wasted in this unnecessary struggle. Just be yourself and you are unique. and that uniqueness is non-violent.
Never try to be special. In the very idea of being special you are feeling inferior. In the very idea of being superior to somebody or inferior to somebody you have lost contact with yourself, with your uniqueness. In that very idea you have become your own enemy. Now you will be in trouble, you will create more and more misery for yourself and for others, you will create ripples of misery all around you.
A man who simply relaxes in his uniqueness is a man who creates ripples of bliss around him. He lives in bliss and he creates pulsations of bliss for others also. If you are around such a person you will suddenly be showered with great peace and love and silence and happiness – because he is happy. The moment you accept your uniqueness, your individuality, how can you be unhappy?
Just think of it in this way: God has never created anybody else like you and he will never create anybody else like you. God has created only one you – only ONE you, mind – and he is never going to repeat you again. This is your uniqueness. Feel grateful, feel thankful. once you start comparing you feel ungrateful. Why has he created somebody more beautiful than you, or somebody more intelligent than you? You are bringing misery upon yourself. He has created only you, he has conferred uniqueness on you. It is a gift. Uniqueness is a gift of God, speciality is your own effort. Your effort is not going to be of much use, your doing always proves your undoing.
Ambitious persons become cruel and hard; ambitious persons become rock-like, they lose their softness, they become closed. Their heart is no longer like a flower. How can you be like a flower when you have to fight and struggle? And it is a very difficult world then – cut-throat competition everywhere. Everybody is at your neck and you are at everybody’s neck; everybody is trying to destroy you and you are trying to destroy everybody. Where will you find a creative break? Where will you find a break-through? Where will you enjoy and how?
No, all your moments of so-called joy will only be when you are able to crush somebody, when you are able to destroy somebody. But how can destruction bring joy? It is not the law of life. A grocer was delivering some groceries in his wagon one morning when he ran down and badly injured an old lady. The old lady sued him and collected big damages. A few weeks later he ran down an old gentleman. The old gentleman also sued and collected big damages, which almost ruined him.
One Sunday the grocer was sitting at home when his son came running through the door. ’Father! Father!’ the little boy cried. ’Mother’s been run over by a hundred-and-eighty-horsepower touring car.’
The grocer’s eyes filled with tears and, in a voice trembling with genuine emotion, he cried, ’Thank the Lord, the luck’s changed at last.’
His wife is dying on the road but he says, ’Thank the Lord, the luck’s changed at last.’ Now he call sue somebody and get all the money back.
An ambitious mind, a greedy mind, a jealous mind, becomes hard, stone-like. And remember, if you are stone-like you will hurt others – but that is only secondary, you ill he hurting yourself continuously. Only sometimes will your stone hurt others but your stoniness will hurt you continuously, twenty-four hours, day in, day out, year in, year out. The stone will be there in your heart pinching, hurting, wounding.
One is happy only when one is flower-like delicate. soft, a lotus: To remain a lotus one has to drop all Comparisons, all jealousies – and they are stupid anyway. meaningless .
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol 2″

Osho on Ambition and Competitiveness, Nothing kills love more than Ambitiousness

Question – Osho, What is ambition? To live without ambition seems frightening, like starting a new life up from the beginning.
Osho – Latifa, Ambition is the greatest poison there is. It brings all other poisons in: greed, violence, competitiveness, struggle, a constant state of war with everybody else. It does not allow you any space for love to grow, and your real being flowers only with love. Ambition is against love. Anything that is against love is against you and your real life, your real destiny. And nothing kills love more than ambitiousness.
Ambition means you want to be ahead of others. Ambition depends on creating an inferiority complex in you. It creates an ill state of affairs; it depends on that. Unless inferiority complex starts existing in you, unless you are full of it, ambition cannot function.
So each child has to be wounded in such a way that he starts feeling a deep inferiority: that others are superior and he has to surpass them, otherwise he is nobody Each child is taught to create a name in the world, fame in the world. Each child is told, ”The way you are is not right. You have to prove your mettle, you have to become ”somebody” – as if you are not anybody yet!
You are born with a certain flavor of your own, with a uniqueness, with an individuality. Nobody else is like you – nobody else has ever been like you – and nobody else will ever be like you. But this truth is never told to you. You are told, ”Become somebody; as if you are nothing. So you have to become, you have to compete to become. And of course then struggle starts, because everybody is told to become somebody, everybody is told to become the president or the prime minister. Now how many people can be presidents and prime ministers? Then naturally there arises a cut-throat competition. Everybody is against everybody else. life becomes a war, a constant war. In this state there is no possibility of peace, love, silence, joy, celebration. All is lost.
John Lennon, in one of his creative moods, was sitting alone in his room strumming his guitar. While doing this he saw a beetle scuttle across the floor.
”Hello, little beetle,” said John, ”I named my group after you.”
The beetle stopped, turned around and said, ”You called your group Eric?”
That was his name. You think only man is competitive? Even beetles are!
Latifa, this competitiveness in the individuals becomes competitiveness on many planes, on many levels. Societies compete with each other, nations compete with each other. Everybody is trying that ”I am superior to you” and naturally nobody will allow that ”You are superior to me” – it hurts.
Hence so many wars. In three thousand years there have been five thousand wars. If somebody comes from some other planet and looks at us and our history he will think that this earth is a madhouse. Five thousand wars in three thousand years! What we have been doing except fighting? our seventy percent energies go into war; we could have transformed the whole earth into a paradise and we have made a hell of it.
But about everything there is competitiveness.
The NATO forces were on maneuvers in Europe and each country had a separate camp in close proximity to each other. One day the British camp received a message from the American camp which read: ”Please send three dozen condoms, as we have run out of stock. Size: twelve inches long by three inches thick.”
The message was taken to the Commanding Officer who did not know what to do with it, so he sent for the Intelligence Officer. ”Matter of prestige, old man,” said the Commanding officer. ”Have to do something!”
The Intelligence Officer returned within the hour. ”All taken care of, sir. The motor workshop is making something out of old inner tubes and the silkscreen department is going to do the final touches.”
”What are the final touches?” asked the Commanding officer.
”Well, sir,” said the Intelligence officer, ”on the package will be printed: ’Condoms, Made in England, Size – Medium’.”
This stupidity, about everything! But we are brought up in this way; our whole educational system depends on this foundation – and we think we are creating intelligence. If this stupidity is the foundation of our educational system, how can we create intelligence out of it? We can destroy intelligence, but we cannot create intelligence out of it.
An intelligent person is one who comes to see that there is no need to compete at all. ”I am myself, you are yourself I need not be you, you need not be me.” A rose is a rose is a rose; it need not be a lotus. The lotus need not become anxious, worried about becoming a rose flower.
The whole nature is in deep peace for the simple reason that competition has not poisoned it. There is no competition at all. The biggest cedar of Lebanon has no ego about it, that ”I am bigger than others.” Just a small rosebush has no inferiority complex that, ”I am so small.” Nothing of superiority, nothing of inferiority, but each is unique. This stupidity has entered only human consciousness – human consciousness is being conditioned for it.
Latifa, you ask me: WHAT IS AMBITION?
It is a feverish state, it is an insane state. It is not healthy.
You say: TO LIVE WITHOUT AMBITION SEEMS FRIGHTENING…
Of course, because you have lived with ambition for so long, it has become your very lifestyle. You have become identified with it; you don’t know any other way of living. I o drop it means as if you are dying. And in fact that’s what has to be done by a sannyasin: he has to die in many ways before he can be reborn. And this is a must: that you should die as an ambitious person, you should die as an ambitious mind completely, totally. Not even a trace of ambition should be left in you because even if a small trace is there it will start growing again. It is like a root: it will again sprout, again leaves will grow, again there will be foliage. It has to be completely thrown out of your being.
Yes, it feels difficult, Latifa, very arduous, almost impossible in the beginning, because we don’t know any other way how to live. People ask me, ”If we drop competitiveness, if we drop ambitiousness, then how we will grow?” and trees are growing and animals are growing, and the whole existence is moving and growing – just you cannot grow without ambitiousness…
And with ambitiousness what has happened? Have you grown? Something wrong has grown in you; something like cancer in your being has grown. Yes, that cancer will not grow anymore. If you drop all ambition, then a totally new process sets in: your natural growth takes over. Then you are not competing with others; you are simply evolving each moment within yourself, not comparing.
If you are playing music and it is beautiful this moment, next moment it will be more beautiful, because out of this moment the next moment it will be more beautiful, because out of this moment the next moment is going to be born – from where else it will come? – next moment you will have a deeper music arising, and so on, so forth. You need not be competitive with other musicians; in fact, if you are competitive with other musicians your inner music will never grow. You may learn more tricks, strategies, techniques how to defeat them, how to go ahead of them by right or wrong means – because competitiveness is so blind it does not bother at all what is right and what is wrong.
Competitiveness believes that whatsoever succeeds is right and whatsoever fails is wrong. That is the only criterion for an ambitious mind: the end makes the means right. For a non-competitive mind there is no question of thinking of others; you simply go on growing on your own. Your roots go deeper into Tao, into nature. Not that other trees have reached deeper so you have to reach – you reach deeper for your own nourishment, you reach deeper for your own enrichment, you reach deeper because your branches can go higher. Only the deeper the roots go, higher the branches reach – but it has nothing to do with others; others are accepted as they are. Nobody takes any note of others.
Latifa, it is certainly starting a new life up from the very beginning. That’s why Christ says: Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of God. A rebirth is needed. A championship competition is held to see who has the largest prick in the world. The theater is filled with people and the gays are screaming with excitement. Up in front sit the judges. First a Russian comes on stage. He is enormous and the applause is loud. The judges measure him and there is more applause.
Next a black man comes on stage. He is huge and loud applause sounds through the theater. Then an Italian and a Japanese come forward. Both are measured and receive standing ovations. The excitement of the crowd is mounting when a dwarf suddenly appears on stage. Everyone whistles and yells for him to leave. But the dwarf raises one arm in the air and asks for silence. Then when all is quiet, he opens his fly and takes out a turtle, shouting, ”Just a minute folks… this is just a crab!”
Source – Osho Book “Tao: The Golden Gate, Vol 2″