Osho – A miserable person is bound to infect people with his misery; he cannot do otherwise. He can INTEND to do otherwise but he cannot really do it. That is not in the very nature of things; it is impossible. It is against the law of existence. If you are stinking, how can you give fragrance to others? Whenever you are giving something to others you are giving yourself in some way or other; you are imparting your being, your existence, you are sharing. You are sharing your innermost space.
The so-called public servants have been the most mischievous people on the earth; they have created more misery than anybody else. If we can get rid of all public servants, humanity will be in a far better situation – but these do-gooders won’t leave humanity alone. And what are THEY gaining out of it? They are gaining only one thing: they are miserable and they want to forget all about it, and the best way is to start thinking of others’ miseries, that is an escape from your own miserable space. When you become too much concerned about others’ problems, naturally your own problems recede into darkness.
It is a well-known fact that the people who become interested in psychoanalysis, the people who become psychotherapists, are basically trying to avoid their own psychological problems. They are afraid to face them, and the easiest course is to become focused on others’ problems. And when you are surrounded by others’ problems – and they are so many and bigger than yours – naturally you start forgetting about your own problems. There is no time to think about yourself.
These so-called public servants, social reformers, are simply escapists. They are full of misery, tension, anguish, anxiety. I know these people – I know their innermost lives. They are carrying a thousand and one wounds, and still they are trying to help others. They can only contaminate others, they can only infect others.
The first thing is to create a blissful state in your own interiority. Your subjectivity should be full of fragrance. You should be a dance, a song, a festival of lights. Then out of that joy, compassion arises. I don’t call it’service’, I don’t call it’duty’ – I call it love. And then you are not obliging anybody, you are simply overflowing with joy. Then you are just like a cloud full of rain-water: it has to shower.
Then you are just like a lotus full of fragrance: it HAS to give its fragrance to the winds. It is not obliging the winds, neither is the cloud obliging the earth. In fact, the cloud feels obliged to the earth, because it allowed it to unburden. The lotus feels obliged to the wind, grateful, thankful, because the wind allowed it to release its splendor. It is infinitely grateful. There is no question of service and there is no question of helping others; it is a natural consequence of blissfulness.
Oscar Mann, you have to consider only one thing deeply: Are you blissful? Are you in a state of celebration? Are you a cloud full of rain-water? If you are not, then forget this great idea of helping others, of’helping brothers out of the molasses’. You will drag them more into the molasses! You will become a burden. You will sit on their heads – they will have to carry you. And, of course, being a public servant, being a great social worker, it is your birthright to sit on people’s heads! They have to worship you: you are great, your work is great. They have to feel your greatness, your superiority, your compassion. And all that is bullshit! Unless you are blissful it is not possible for you to help others.
A candle that is unlit cannot help other unlit candles; only a lit candle can help other candles to become lit. And the miracle is: when the flame goes from the lit candle to the unlit candle, the lit candle loses nothing, and from one lit candle millions of candles can be lit – still it loses nothing. Others gain, but you are not losing anything. In fact, just the opposite happens: the more you give, the more you have. And when you are ready to give all, you have all the joys of the world available to you. When you are ready to give totally, you become open to all God’s grace, you become a vehicle. But then there is no idea of service, duty; the question does not arise.
Hence there is no need to think about a synthesis. One is blissful – and out of bliss, just as the shadow follows you, compassion follows you. You are not even aware of your shadow following you; it does not make any noise, not even the footsteps can be heard. It simply comes following you, without any noise, not even a whisper. In the same way compassion comes: it follows the meditator.
Gautam the Buddha defines meditation as the source of compassion. He says unless you are a meditator you cannot have compassion.’Compassion’ is a beautiful word: it is passion transformed, it is passion gone through the alchemy of meditation. It is the same energy that was involved in your passions now passing through the alchemical process of meditation, silence, awareness. It is freed from all pollution, from all that is foreign to it; it becomes purer and purer. When your meditation reaches its ultimate height, your whole energy becomes overflowing love – it is compassion.
source: osho book “philosophia ultima”