[A visitor had previously written to Osho, confessing he was a con-man and hustler. He had asked Osho to help him put his abilities to positive ends.]
Osho – Hello,… come here. So you have come! Very good. This time don’t try to escape. Your whole life you have been escaping. There were many possibilities, many times…. But it is natural – one misses many times. But enough is enough! Now you have come home – don’t try to escape.
And let it be a total thing, because less than that won’t help. Less than that won’t go deep enough. Only something total can be helpful to you. Because you are clever and very intelligent – and there is a danger with intelligence; it can deceive itself.
Intelligence is a great gift, but with all gifts there is always a danger. That comes with the gift; that is part of it. That is the price we pay for it. No gift comes without danger. So nothing is wrong in it. Everybody who has a gift will misuse it – that’s a necessary training in life. You have misused it enough… and now you have understood it also. So now let it be a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn. Once you take the turn, the same intelligence can be used tremendously creatively.
And don’t feel guilty – because it had to be so. Now there is no point in feeling guilty. As far as I understand, in this life when we are not awake, there are only two possibilities: either you will cheat or you will be cheated… and both are wrong. These are the only two possibilities.
Unconscious people will either be cheated or will cheat. And if one has to choose, it is better to be the cheater rather than the cheated, because the cheater one day will understand and will be able to get out of it; the cheated will never understand. The cheated will never feel that he has done something wrong – because he has never done anything wrong! Others have done wrong to him. So he has grudges against others – but what can you do against others? He will never feel responsible for his own life.
The cheater one day or other will see something has gone wrong, and that is the day the turning comes, the conversion. So as I see it, whatsoever has happened, has happened… and it was good. In fact, it has brought you to me, otherwise you would not have been here.
This is another beauty of life – that even wrong things fit perfectly in the total. That’s why I never condemn anything – there is no point – because if you look at the total, everything fits so perfectly. So if you look at the total, nothing is wrong. Only the total result counts. If this conversion happens you will understand that all that happened before it was a necessary part, a preparation for it.
And now let it be total. Half hearted measures never help anybody. And I know it is going to happen…. This will be your name… and with this change of name you cut yourself from the past with one stroke of the sword, with one blow. There is no need to be gradual, and a gradual thing is not going to help you… only a sudden break. So dare the sudden, and with one blow of the sword simply die to the past… as if it has never existed.
Become absolutely new – whatsoever the risk and the cost; that’s not the point. Games you have enjoyed enough – now for this last part of life be real, and play the ultimate game of being real. Yes, being phoney pays – that’s why people are phoney – but being real pays tremendously. That’s why one day or other everybody has to come to the real. You can have the whole world, but if you don’t have your own reality you are a beggar. You may lose the whole world, but if you have got contact with your being you are an emperor. And by giving sannyas I don’t make beggars – I make emperors.
My whole effort here is not to create poor people, but to create infinitely rich people – rich in the soul, rich in creativity, rich in love, rich in awareness… rich in all the dimensions possible. This will be your name: Swami Prem Nirvana. Prem means love, nirvana means enlightenment. And these two things are going to happen…. Love is going to happen, nirvana is going to happen….
The word is buddhist and has a very particular meaning. It means’blowing out the candle’. It is a tremendously significant word. Buddha calls enlightenment ’blowing out the candle’ – the candle of the ego, the candle of ’I’. It is very small and gives a very yellow light and it is very smoky, but we become too much attached to it. Not much light comes out of it either but still we become attached to it. When one blows out this candle, the ego disappears.
For a moment there is immense darkness – that is because of the old habit. We miss the candle and our eyes are focused on it and on its small light, its tiny light, but by and by the darkness disappears; more and more light comes. But that light is not ours – that light is of god, of the whole. Then we live in light, but that light is not ours. Then we move, do things, but we are no more the doer. Then we have no will of our own – that has been blown out. Now whatsoever god wills, it happens.
That’s what Jesus says on the cross. For a moment he had wavered. Christians have not analysed it. In fact christianity has not been able to bring jesus in his real perfume to the world. On the cross he wavered for a single moment and he said in agony and with deep complaint,’Have you forsaken me, my lord? My god, have you forsaken me? What is this that you are doing to me?’
For a moment his ego takes hold of him and then he understands immediately that this is not right – what is he saying? Is this his own will against god’s? For one moment jesus said,’I don’t will this…. I don’t want this. What are you doing? Have you forsaken me?’ He understood it. He was a man of tremendous awareness. And in a single moment he blew out the candle and he said,’No, don’t listen to me. Who am I? Thy will be done, not mine.’
Just a moment before, he was jesus, son of joseph and mary. In a single moment, in a split moment, he is no more Jesus – he is Christ. The candle is blown out…. He has become a buddha. ’Thy will be done’ – that is the meaning of nirvana. So simply surrender. And don’t carry these ideas that you have done something wrong or you should not have done this or that; that’s pointless. In unawareness everybody is doing wrong. Either you do wrong or you allow somebody else to do it to you. Both are wrong.
To exploit people is wrong, to be exploited is as much wrong – both are wrong. But in unconsciousness, what can you do? An unconscious person is not really responsible – cannot be – but from now the first ray of consciousness has arisen in you; now you will be responsible. Only with consciousness does one become responsible… and to be responsible is to be religious. I call these the two r’s of religion: responsibility and relationship. Only a conscious person can have relationship. Others only pretend or others only think that they have relationships. They cannot have, because to relate you need tremendous awareness.
And only a conscious person can have responsibility. I don’t say to do good and not to do bad. I simply say to be responsible, and that’s enough! A responsible person has never done anything bad – cannot do, by his very nature. So that is not the point – good, bad; that is not the point.
Now I make you responsible. This is just a small ray – it will grow. It will become more and more and it will become a vast, tremendous light in your being. And I blow the candle out, so the old is completely gone – finished! Never think about it again – it is none of your business any more.
Source – Osho Book “The Buddha Disease”