[A sannyasin who came to Osho because he has cancer of the foot, has just discovered that it has now spread to the rest of his body. He says he feels strangely at peace. He is returning to the West.]
Osho – Mm mm, no, nothing to be worried about; just go. But this time don’t be scared of the operation: if they suggest any operation, go through it. If they want to remove anything, let them. Mm? don’t be worried, and accept it so totally that you come out of it very much benefitted and enriched.
Every pain can become a satori… satori, a samadhi, it can become a breakthrough, because it is really the points of pain which become breakthroughs. It is through pain that one transcends, never through pleasure, because in pleasure one indulges and one becomes more and more oblivious of one’s being. When everything is going well, who bothers? Then one is on a merry-go-round, lost. But when pain is there, suffering is there, one naturally becomes more alert, more aware – one has to be: the pain is a great challenge.
If you accept pain, if you don’t deny it, if you are not scared of it, if you accept it as part of life with no judgement, with no idea of whether it is good or bad – it is simply there, it is a fact, neither good nor bad…. Once you accept the facticity of it you start transcending, you become more alert, more a witness. The pain is there but you are no more identified with it.
The leg may be cut but you will remain intact. Nothing will be cut from you, your consciousness will not lose anything in it… and that is the real thing. The cutting of the leg is almost just as if you cut the sleeve of the shirt – mm? inside you remain intact: you are not your shirt, the sleeve is not your hand. In exactly the same way, the leg is not you, the body is not you. Even if the whole body disappears nothing disappears – one remains. So let this be a great experience.
My whole approach is to accept whatsoever life brings: accept it with gratefulness, with thankfulness. Don’t have a grudge. It is very natural to have a grudge but through having a grudge you miss the point.
You can be very very angry inside: ’Why has this to happen to me? Why not to others? What have I done – what karmas, what wrong have I done in my past lives? Why should it happen to me? I am so young and the whole life is there. The leg has to be cut or something else has to be removed – why am I suffering?’
Don’t ask that ’why’. Things are for no reason at all. That is the highest understanding: things are, for no cause at all. There is no karma, nothing… these are just explanations to console people! They bring consolation, nothing else; they don’t bring any understanding. Now, if you go to some old orthodox indian mind, he will say ’It is because you have done something wrong in your past life.’ It explains; an explanation helps you to be consoled a little because somehow the ’why’ is answered.
You may have murdered somebody so now you can see that there is no need to be angry: you did something wrong, now you suffer for it. You sow and you reap accordingly, so it is okay; it is just that one has to pay. Then it becomes rational but in fact nothing is explained. Why did you murder in the first place? The question remains the same: Why did you murder? – nobody else did. Then again go to another past life in which you were a criminal or you were aggressive or this and that, but it is just postponing the question; ’why’ remains the same. It simply goes one step back and stands there ’Why? Why was I aggressive and others were not?’
So if you look deeply it is simply foolish, the explanation is foolish, because it leads to no explanation. It only satisfies stupid people who can’t see far enough, who don’t have a vision to see the whole, so they just push it a little back, saying that in the past life you did something wrong. But why in the first life did you do wrong? There must have been a life which was the first – then how did it happen in the first life? Ultimately the total, the whole, remains responsible. Then the grudge is there, and with a grudge you cannot grow because you cannot relax. It creates anguish, tension, anxiety, and with all that anger, anxiety, anguish, how can you pray? How can you thank god?
He has given so many things but you will remain confined to the leg. He has given you beautiful eyes – you will never thank him for that but you will be angry about the leg. He has given you a thousand and one things which are functioning perfectly; you will never thank but curse him. The curse can go so deep that in a moment of deep anger one can say that there is no god: ’If there is god, it cannot happen to me because god must be compassion, love… at least just. He is not even just – it is better to drop the belief.’ Then everything is accidental: one suffers but there is no need to be angry with anybody because there is nobody.
That too happens to people: when they suffer they deny god or they find explanations somewhere so that the ’why’ can be pushed backwards. But neither denying god nor pushing away the ’why’ is going to help. The thing that is going to help is to accept that things exist for no reason at all; it is just as it is. It is a mystery – that’s what I mean when I say it exists for no reason at all. If there is a reason there is no mystery.
It is mysterious… it is unknown. And all those who claim that they know are just on ego-trips. Not a single thing is known and not a single thing can be known. All our knowledge remains superficial, just an acquaintance; it never solves the mystery. So this has to be understood – this I call understanding – that not a single thing is known and not a single thing can be known… that ignorance is utter and ultimate but it is innocent and very intimate.
Things are as they are, and we have to accept; what else is there to do? In that acceptance is transcendence. Then you don’t have any grudge; you are happy the way you are. And who knows? Life is so mysterious that one never knows.
Once it happened that a young blind man came to me. He travelled from Kashmir – a very poor boy, with no money, with dirty clothes. I was surprised; I asked him, ’You are blind, has somebody come with you?’ He said, ’No. I need not have anybody because I am blind so everybody helps me.’
He was so happy! He said, ’Because I am blind, everybody helps me. Somebody gives me food, somebody buys a ticket and this rickshaw-walla has brought me here and he is not ready to take money for it!’ He said, ’If I had eyes it would have been difficult for me to come to you – I am blind, so everybody just has compassion for me. I am never in any trouble: wherever I am, somehow somebody starts helping me!’
Now, this I call acceptance. This young man has the capacity to become spiritual. He has found something beautiful even in his blindness. He is thankful to god that he has made him blind. Just try to understand. Once you accept, doors start opening. So simply go. Not for a single moment be worried, there is no need to worry; there is nothing to worry about. The whole body is going to go one day, mm? – sometimes it goes as a whole, sometimes it goes in parts, that’s all! So nothing to be worried about.
Go and surrender to the doctors and tell them that whatsoever they want to do, you will let them, and enjoy this whole trip. Meditate in the hospital: Lying down in your bed, relax, accept and enjoy whatsoever is available. You will come out of it more whole, more healthy, more yourself. And I am with you!
source: osho book “far beyond the stars”