FEAR OF THE ALONE Q: BELOVED OSHO, I AM ALWAYS AFRAID OF BEING ALONE, BECAUSE WHEN I AM ALONE I START TO WONDER WHO I AM. IT FEELS THAT IF I INQUIRE DEEPER, I WILL FIND OUT THAT I AM NOT THE PERSON WHO I HAVE BELIEVED I WAS FOR THE PAST TWENTY-SIX YEARS, BUT A BEING, PRESENT AT THE MOMENT OF BIRTH AND MAYBE ALSO THE MOMENT BEFORE. FOR SOME REASON, THIS SCARES ME COMPLETELY. IT FEELS LIKE A KIND OF INSANITY, AND MAKES ME LOSE MYSELF IN OUTSIDE THINGS IN ORDER TO FEEL SAFER. OSHO, WHO AM I, AND WHY THE FEAR? OSHO: //Surabhi, it is not only your fear, it is everybodys fear. Because nobody is what he was supposed to be by existence. The society, the culture, the religion, the education have all been conspiring against innocent children. They have all the powers -- the child is helpless and dependent. So whatsoever they want to make out of him, they manage to do it. They dont allow any child to grow to his natural destiny. Their every effort is to make human beings into utilities. Who knows, if a child is left on his own to grow, whether he will be of any use to the vested interests or not? The society is not prepared to take the risk. It grabs the child and starts molding him into something that is needed by the society. In a certain sense, it kills the soul of the child and gives him a false identity, so that he never misses his soul, his being. The false identity is a substitute. But that substitute is useful only in the same crowd which has given it to you. The moment you are alone, the false starts falling apart and the repressed real starts expressing itself. Hence the fear of being lonely. Nobody wants to be lonely. Everybody wants to belong to a crowd -- not only one crowd, but many crowds. A person belongs to a religious crowd, a political party, a rotary club... and there are many other small groups to belong to. One wants to be supported twenty-four hours a day because the false, without support, cannot stand. The moment one is alone, one starts feeling a strange craziness. Surabhi, thats what you have been asking about -- because for twenty-six years you believed yourself to be somebody, and then suddenly in a moment of loneliness you start feeling you are not that. It creates fear: then who are you? And twenty-six years of suppression... it will take some time for the real to express itself. The gap between the two has been called by the mystics the dark night of the soul -- a very appropriate expression. You are no more the false, and you are not yet the real. You are in a limbo, you dont know who you are. Particularly in the West -- and Surabhi comes from the West -- the problem is even more complicated. Because they have not developed any methodology to discover the real as soon as possible, so that the dark night of the soul can be shortened. The West knows nothing as far as meditation is concerned. And meditation is only a name for being alone, silent, waiting for the real to assert itself. It is not an act, it is a silent relaxation -- because whatever you do will come out of your false personality. All your doing for twenty-six years has come out of it; it is an old habit. Habits die hard. There was one great mystic in India, Eknath. He was going for a holy pilgrimage with all his disciples -- it was almost three to six months journey. One man came to him, fell at his feet and said, I know I am not worthy. You know it too, everybody knows me. But I know your compassion is greater than my unworthiness. Please accept me also as one of the members of the group that is going on the holy pilgrimage. Eknath said, You are a thief -- and not an ordinary thief, but a master thief. You have never been caught, and everybody knows that you are a thief. I certainly feel like taking you with me, but I also have to think about those fifty people who are going with me. You will have to give me a promise -- and I am not asking for more, just for these three to six months time while we are on the pilgrimage: you will not steal. After that, it is up to you. Once we are back home, you are free from the promise. The man said, I am absolutely ready to promise, and I am tremendously grateful for your compassion. The other fifty people were suspicious. To trust in a thief.... But they could not say anything to Eknath. He was the master. The pilgrimage started, and from the very first night there was trouble. The next morning there was chaos -- somebodys coat was missing, somebodys shirt was missing, somebodys money was gone. And everybody was shouting, Where is my money? and they were all telling Eknath, We were suspicious from the very beginning that you were taking this man with you. A lifelong habit.... But then they started looking, and they found that things were not stolen. Somebodys money was missing, but it was found in somebody elses bag. Somebody elses coat was missing, but it was found in somebody elses luggage. Everything was found, but it was an unnecessary trouble -- every morning! And nobody could conceive -- what can be the meaning of it? And now certainly it is not the thief, because nothing is stolen. The third night, Eknath remained awake to see what goes on. In the middle of the night, the thief -- just out of habit -- woke up, started taking things from one place to another place. Eknath stopped him and said, What are you doing? Have you forgotten your promise? He said, No, I have not forgotten my promise. I am not stealing anything, but I have not promised that I will not change things from one place to another place. After six months I have to be a thief again; this is just practice. And you must understand -- it is a lifelong habit, you cannot drop it just like that. Just give me time. You should understand my problem also. For three days I have not stolen a single thing -- it is just like fasting! This is just a substitute, I am keeping myself busy. This is my business time, in the middle of the night, so it is very hard for me just to lie down on the bed awake. And so many idiots are sleeping... and I am not doing any harm to anybody. In the morning they will find their things. Eknath said, You are a strange man. You see that every morning there is such chaos, and one or two hours unnecessarily are wasted in finding things -- where you have put them, whose thing has gone into whose luggage. Everybody has to open everything and ask everybody... `To whom does this belong? The thief said, This much concession you have to give to me. Surabhi, twenty-six years of a false personality imposed by people who you loved, who you respected... and they were not intentionally doing anything bad to you. Their intentions were good, just their awareness was nil. They were not conscious people -- your parents, your teachers, your priests, your politicians -- they were not conscious people, they were unconscious. And even a good intention in the hands of an unconscious person turns out to be poisonous. So whenever you are alone, a deep fear -- because suddenly the false starts disappearing. And the real will take a little time. You have lost it twenty-six years back. You will have to give some consideration to the fact that twenty-six years gap has to be bridged. In fear -- that I am losing myself, my senses, my sanity, my mind -- everything because the self that has been given to you by others consists of all these things -- it looks like you will go insane. You immediately start doing something just to keep yourself engaged. If there are no people, at least there is some action. So the false remains engaged and does not start disappearing. Hence people find it the most difficult on holidays. For five days they work, hoping that on the weekend they are going to relax. But the weekend is the worst time in the whole world -- more accidents happen on the weekend, more people commit suicide, more murders, more stealing, more rape. Strange... and these people were engaged for five days and there was no problem. But the weekend suddenly gives them a choice, either to be engaged in something or to relax -- but relaxing is fearsome; the false personality disappears. Keep engaged, do anything stupid. People are running towards the beaches, bumper to bumper, miles-long traffic. And if you ask them where they are going, they are getting away from the crowd -- and the whole crowd is going with them. They are going to find a solitary, silent space -- all of them. In fact, if they had remained home it would have been more solitary and silent -- because all the idiots have gone in search of a solitary place. And they are rushing like mad, because two days will be finished soon, they have to reach -- dont ask where! And on the beaches, you see... they are so crowded, not even marketplaces are so crowded. And strangely enough, people are feeling very much at ease, taking a sunbath. Ten thousand people on a small beach taking a sunbath, relaxing. The same person on the same beach alone will not be able to relax. But he knows thousands of other people are relaxing all around him. The same people were in the offices, the same people were in the streets, the same people were in the marketplace, now the same people are on the beach. The crowd is an essential for the false self to exist. The moment it is lonely, you start freaking out. This is where one should understand a little bit of meditation. Dont be worried, because that which can disappear is worth disappearing. It is meaningless to cling to it -- it is not yours, it is not you. You are the one when the false has gone and the fresh, the innocent, the unpolluted being will arise in its place. Nobody else can answer your question Who am I? -- you will know it. All meditative techniques are a help to destroy the false. They dont give you the real -- the real cannot be given. That which can be given cannot be real. The real you have got already; just the false has to be taken away. In a different way it can be said: the master takes away things from you which you dont really have, and he gives you that which you really have. Meditation is just a courage to be silent and alone. Slowly slowly, you start feeling a new quality to yourself, a new aliveness, a new beauty, a new intelligence -- which is not borrowed from anybody, which is growing within you. It has roots in your existence. And if you are not a coward, it will come to fruition, to flowering. Only the brave, the courageous, the people who have guts, can be religious. Not the churchgoers -- these are the cowards. Not the Hindus, not the Mohammedans, not the Christians -- they are against searching. The same crowd, they are trying to make their false identity more consolidated. You were born. You have come into the world with life, with consciousness, with tremendous sensitivity. Just look at a small child -- look at his eyes, the freshness. All that has been covered by a false personality. There is no need to be afraid. You can lose only that which has to be lost. And it is good to lose it soon -- because the longer it stays, the stronger it becomes. And one does not know anything about tomorrow. Dont die before realizing your authentic being. Only those few people are fortunate who have lived with authentic being and who have died with authentic being -- because they know that life is eternal, and death is a fiction.// (BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT)
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:41:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015