Osho on Destiny and Free Will Continued......

Osho - Your actions are related to past actions. A created a situation for B to become possible; B creates a situation in which C flowers. Your acts are connected to past acts and this goes back to the beginningless beginning and on to the endless end. Not only do your own acts determine you, but your father’s and mother’s acts also have a continuity with yours. Your society, your history, all that has happened before, is somehow related to your present act. The whole history has come to flower in you.

Everything that has ever happened is connected with your act, so your act is obviously determined. It is such a minute part of the whole picture. History is such a vital living force and your individual act is such a small part of it. Marx said, ”It is not consciousness that determines the conditions of society. It is society and its conditions that determines consciousness. It is not that great men create great societies.

It is great societies that create great men.” And he is right in a way, because you are not the originator of your actions. The whole history has determined them. You are just carrying them out. The whole evolutionary process has gone into the making of your biological cells. These cells in you can then become part of another person. You may think that you are the father, but you have just been a stage on which the whole biological evolution has acted and has forced you to act. The act of procreation is so forceful because it is beyond you; it is the whole evolutionary process working through you.

This is one way in which acts happen in relation to other past acts. But when a person becomes enlightened, a new phenomenon begins to happen. Acts are no longer connected with past acts. Any act, now, is connected only with his consciousness. It comes from his consciousness not from the past. That is why an enlightened person cannot be predicted.

Skinner says that we can determine what you will do if your past acts are known. He says that the old proverb, ”You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink,” is wrong. You can force him to. You can create an atmosphere so that the horse will have to drink. The horse can be forced, and you also can be forced, because your actions are created by situations, by circumstances. But even though you can bring a buddha to the river, you cannot force him to drink. The more you force him, the more impossible it will be.

No heat will make him do it. Even if a thousand suns shine on him it will not help. A Buddha has a different origin of action. It is not concerned with other acts; it is connected with consciousness. That is why I emphasize that you act consciously. Then, every moment you act, it is not a question of a continuation of other acts. You are free. Now you begin to act, and no one can say how you will act.

Habits are mechanical; they repeat themselves. The more you repeat something, the more efficient you become. Efficiency means that now consciousness is no longer needed. If a person is an efficient typist it means that no effort is needed; typing can be done unconsciously. Even if he is thinking about something else the typing continues. The body is typing; the man is not needed. Efficiency means that the thing is so certain that no effort is possible.

With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious. So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, ”Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined.

If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous.

I am reminded of a Zen story.... A Zen master asked his disciple a particular question. The question was answered exactly as it should be answered. The next day the master asked exactly the same question. The disciple said, ”But I answered this question yesterday.”

The master said, ”Now I am asking you again.” The disciple repeated the same answer. The master said, ”You do not know!”
The disciple said, ”But yesterday I answered in the same way and you nodded your head. So I
interpreted that the answer was right. Why have you changed your mind now?”

The master said, ”Anything that can be repeated is not coming from you. The answer has come from your memory, not from your consciousness. If you had really known, the answer would be different because so much has changed. I am not the same man who asked you this question yesterday. The whole situation is different. You also are different, but the answer is the same. I had to ask the question again just to see if you would repeat the answer. Nothing can be repeated.”

The more alive you are, the less repetitive. Only a dead man can be consistent. Living is
inconsistency; life is freedom. Freedom cannot be consistent. Consistent with what? You can
be consistent only with the past. An enlightened person is consistent only in his consciousness; he is never consistent with his past. He is totally in the act. Nothing is left behind; nothing is left out. The next moment the act is finished and his consciousness is fresh again. Consciousness will be there whenever any situation arises, but each act will be made in complete freedom, as if it is the first time that this man has been in this particular situation.

That is why I answered both yes and no to your question. It depends on you, whether you are consciousness, or whether you are an accumulation, a bodily existence. Religion gives freedom because religion gives consciousness. The more science knows about matter, the more the world will be enslaved. The whole phenomenon of matter is of cause and effect: if you know that given this, that happens – then everything can be determined.

Before this century ends, we will see the whole course of humanity being determined in many ways. The greatest calamity that is possible is not nuclear warfare. It can only destroy. The real calamity will come from the psychological sciences. They will learn how a human being can be completely controlled. Because we are not conscious, we can be made to behave in predetermined ways.

As we are, everything about us is determined. Someone is Hindu; someone else is Mohammedan. This is predetermination, not freedom. Parents have decided; society is deciding. Someone is a doctor and someone else is an engineer. Now his behavior is determined. We are already being controlled constantly, and our methods are still very primitive. Newer techniques will be able to determine our behavior to such an extent that no one will be able to say that there is a soul.

If your every response is determined, then what is the meaning of the soul? Your responses can be determined through body chemistry. If alcohol is given to you, you behave differently. Your body chemistry is different so you behave differently. At one time, the ultimate tantra technique was to take intoxicants and remain conscious. If a person remained conscious when everything indicated that he should be unconscious, only then would tantra say the man was enlightened, otherwise not.

If body chemistry can change your consciousness, then what is the meaning of consciousness? If an injection can make you unconscious, then what is the meaning? Then the chemical drug in the injection is more powerful than your own consciousness. Tantra says it is possible to transcend every intoxicant and remain conscious. The stimulus has been given, but the response is not there.

Sex is a chemical phenomenon. A particular quantity of a particular hormone creates sexual desire. You become the desire. You may repent when your body chemistry has returned to its normal level, but the repentance is meaningless. When the hormones are there again, you will act in the same way. So tantra has also experimented with sex. If you feel no sexual desire in a situation that is totally sexual, then you are free. Your body chemistry has been left far behind. The body is there, but you are not in the body.

Anger is also just chemistry. Biochemists will soon be able to make you anger-proof, or sex-proof. But you will not be a buddha. Buddha was not incapable of anger. He was capable of it, but the effect of feeling anger was not there. If your body chemistry is controlled, you will be incapable of being angry. The chemical condition that makes you feel angry is not there, so the effect of anger is not there.

Or if your sex hormones are eliminated from your body, you will not be sexual. But the real thing is not whether you are sexual or not, or angry or not. The real thing is how to be aware in a situation that requires your unawareness, how to be conscious in a situation that happens only in unconsciousness.

Whenever such a situation is there, meditate on it. You have been given a great opportunity. If you feel jealous, meditate on it. This is the right moment. Your body chemistry is working within you. It will make you unconscious; it will make you behave as if you are mad. Now, be conscious. Let there be jealousy, do not suppress it, but be conscious; be a witness to it.

If there is anger, be a witness to it; if there is sex, be a witness to it. Let whatever is happening inside you happen, and begin to meditate on the whole situation. By and by, the more your awareness deepens, the less possibility there is of your behavior being determined for you. You become free. Moksha, freedom, doesn’t mean anything else. It only means a consciousness that is so free that now nothing can determine it.

Source : from Osho Book "The Psychology of the Esoteric"

Previous Osho Discourse :
Osho on Destiny and Free Will. Are Our Lives Predestined or Not?

Related Osho Discourses:
Osho - Why am I forcing situations according to my Will
Osho on Coincidence, Coincidence simply means that there is a possibility of freedom

^Top Back to Psychic World