Question – OSHO, YOU SAID TODAY THAT THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A ‘GROUP SOUL’, BUT I HAVE BEEN STRONGLY FEELING SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN THE COMMUNE. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT THIS FEELING OF A COLLECTIVE SOUL IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE INTENSE AND ATTUNED DAY BY DAY. IT IS SOMETHING NEW FOR ME, AND VERY BEAUTIFUL, AND ACTUALLY L EXPERIENCE IT AS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING THAT IS HAPPENING FOR ME HERE. I KNOW THAT EACH OF US HAS TO AWAKEN ALONE, BUT I FEEL THAT THIS ‘COLLECTIVE SOUL’ IS A TREMENDOUS HELP, AT LEAST FOR US NOT TO CREATE OTHER DREAMS…. AM I DREAMING NOW OF A ‘COLLECTIVE SOUL’?
Osho – Sarjano,
NO, IT IS A FACT, you just don t know the right word for it. ‘Collective soul’ is not the right term; it is very misleading. Soul can only be individual. Then what is happening here in this commune? Anybody who enters the ashram for the first time immediately becomes aware of something. He can see it on people’s faces, he can see it in their walk, he can see it in the way they are working. He can see that it is no ordinary humanity. Some grace he can feel, some joy permeating the whole place, some playfulness, some sense of humor. And people are working seven days a week. Nobody is looking at the clock…except the Indians!
People are enjoying the work: it is play, it is creativity. They are not tired. In fact, the deeper they go into this creativity, the more nourished they feel he more energy is released in them. Anybody can see that something is there like an inner connection that connects all the sannyasins into one whole. It is not a collective soul, it is only falling into the same rhythm. I have a rhythm. The closer you come to me, the more you start falling into the same rhythm. Then my breath and your breath synchronize, then my heart and your heart synchronize.
And all the sannyasins are getting synchronized with me; hence they are also synchronized, as a consequence, with each other. It is a synchronicity. It is an orchestra. We are all playing different instruments, but in harmony, in accord.
That harmony, Sarjano, you are calling the ‘collective soul’. It is not a collective soul. An army has a collective mind, no soul at all, because soul can never be collective. Soul is always individual. It is found in your deepest aloneness; there is no other way to find it. But n a commune…this is the chemistry of a commune, that it helps you to become harmonious with others. And the more harmonious you are with others, the closer you come to your own soul, because harmony brings you closer to the soul. When a person is absolutely in harmony with the universe he becomes enlightened.
A paradox to be remembered: the Buddha is one who is absolutely in harmony with the universe, and yet a Buddha is one who is an absolutely unique individual. He plays his flute or his guitar, but he plays his flute or guitar in absolute accord with the whole. He does not go in his own egoistic way — he is not an idiot.
Remember: either you are a Buddha or you are an idiot! The word ‘idiot’ is beautiful; it simply means: doing something privately. Literally it means doing something privately; hence the words like ‘idiosyncrasy’. The idiot does not mean a fool; the idiot is far more potent a word than the fool. The idiot simply means one who is trying to live through his ego, who is playing his instrument AGAINST the whole and trying to succeed. He is an idiot: he is going to fail, he is doomed to fail. His life will never know any blessing, any benediction.
Sarjano, your feeling is right, you are just using a wrong word. Yes, a harmony IS being created. I am in tune with the universe. You don’t know what the tune of the universe is; it is invisible. Right now you cannot connect yourself with the universal rhythm directly. But am in tune with the universe — call it God, nirvana, enlightenment — I am utterly lost in it. I have no song of my own to sing; I am singing the song of the universe. YOU can fall in tune with me. That is how you become a disciple: when you find somebody with whom falling in love brings joy. Falling in love is falling in tune with somebody.
Your ordinary love affairs are ugly, because you are both in discord. Your love affair is superficial. Because you like the blonde hair of a girl, or the shape of the nose, or the color of the eyes, or the curves of the body…and you fall in love. Now curves of the body, color of the eyes, the blonde hair, are not going to last long. Sooner or later you will be fed up with them — the same curve, the same eyes, the same nose — sooner or later you will stop seeing them. This is not love! Hence conflict arises immediately. All so-called love affairs are nothing but conflicts disguised — jealousies, possessiveness, domination, ego trips.
But when you fall in love with a Master it is a totally different phenomenon. You feel the rhythm of the Master; and slowly slowly your heart feels the call and you enter into an adventure. Slowly slowly, more and more people enter into that adventure…a commune is created.
First the Buddha: BUDDHAM SHARNAM GACHCHHAMI — I go to the feet of the Buddha. Then the disciples arise, those who have gone to the feet of the Buddha: SANGHAM SHARNAM GACHCHHAMI. Then many many disciples gather, and they start feeling attuned not only with the Buddha but a certain attunement with each other also arises naturally: they are all attuned to one center, hence they start feeling an attunement with each other. A brotherhood, a sisterhood, arises; that is the SANGHA — the commune.
And when you have fallen in love with a Buddha and have fallen in love with a commune, the ultimate surrender arises: DHAMMAM SHARNAM GACHCHHAMI. Then you know that it is neither the Buddha nor the commune: behind the Buddha is the universal law, the ultimate law — DHAMMA. Buddha only represents the ultimate law in a visible form; his commune represents it in an even grosser way.
These are the three shelters. First you take shelter in the Buddha, then you take shelter in the commune, and then you take shelter in the ultimate law. This is what is happening here. Sarjano, you are moving in the right direction; your feeling is perfectly right. Intuitively you are right, just intellectually you are using a wrong word. Drop that word!
Source – from Osho Book “Be Still and Know”