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Osho on Rudolph Steiner
Question - Osho, I was brought up in the teachings of
Rudolph Steiner, but I could not yet break through my barriers towards
him. Although I believe him to be right in the way he shows that for the
west, the possibility to free ourselves from 'Maya' is to learn to think
in the right way. By doing this and by meditating, he says we are able
to lose our egos and find our 'i'. The central figure for him is Christ,
whom he differentiates from Jesus as a totally different being. Your way
seems different to me. Can you please advise me? I am somehow torn
between you and the way Steiner shows.
Osho - RUDOLPH STEINER WAS A GREAT MIND, but mind you, I say 'a great
mind', and mind as such has nothing to do with religion. He was
tremendously talented. In fact, it is very rare to find another mind to
compare with Rudolph Steiner. He was so talented in so many directions
and dimensions; it looks almost super-human: a great logical thinker, a
great philosopher, a great architect, a great educator, and so on and so
forth. And whatsoever he touched, he brought very novel ideas to that
subject. Wherever he moved his eyes, he created new patterns of thought.
He was a great man, a great mind, but mind as such, small or great, has
nothing to do with religion.
Religion comes out of no-mind. Religion is not a talent, it is your
nature. If you want to be a great painter, you have to be talented; if
you want to be a great poet, you have to be talented; if you want to be
a scientist, of course, you have to be talented; but if you want to be
religious, no special talent is needed. Anybody, small or great, who is
willing to drop his mind, enters into the dimension of the divine. And
of course, great talented men find it very difficult to drop their
minds; their investment is bigger. For an ordinary man who has no
talent, it is very easy to drop the mind. Even then it seems so
difficult. He has nothing to lose; still he goes on clinging. Of course,
the difficulty is multiplied when you have a talented mind, when you are
a genius. Then your whole ego is invested in your mind. You cannot drop
it.
Rudolph Steiner founded a new movement called
anthroposophy, against theosophy. He was a theosophist in the beginning,
then his ego started fighting other egos in the movement. He wanted to
become the very head, the supreme-most of the theosophical movement in
the world, the world head. That was not possible; there were many other
egos. And the greatest problem was coming from J. Krishnamurti, who is
not an ego at all. And of course, theosophists were thinking more and
more towards Krishnamurti. He was becoming, by and by, the messiah. That
created trouble in Rudolph Steiner's mind. He broke off from the
movement. The whole German section of theosophy broke with him. He was
really a very, very convincing orator, a convincing writer; he convinced
people. He destroyed theosophy very badly, he divided it. And since then
theosophy could never become whole and healthy.
Rudolph Steiner has an appeal for the Western mind, and that is the
danger -- because the Western mind is basically logic-oriented: reason,
thinking, logos. He talks about it, and he says, "This is the way for
the Western mind." No, Eastern or Western, mind is mind; and the way is
no-mind. If you are Eastern, you will have to drop the Eastern mind. If
you are Western, you will have to drop the Western mind. To move into
meditation, mind, as such, has to be dropped. If you are a Christian you
will have to drop a Christian mind. If you are a Hindu, you will have to
drop the Hindu mind. Meditation is not concerned with Christian, Hindu,
Eastern, Western, Indian or German, no.
What is mind? Mind is a conditioning given to you by the society. It is
an over-imposition on the original mind, which we call no-mind. Just so
that you don't get confused, all mind, as such, has to be dropped. The
passage has to be completely empty for the divine to enter into you.
Thinking is not meditation. Even right thinking is not meditation. Wrong
or right, thinking has to be dropped. When there is no thought in you,
no clouds of thinking in you, the ego disappears. And remember, when the
ego disappears the 'I' is not found. The questioner says that Rudolf
Steiner says, "When the ego disappears, the 'I' is found." No, when the
ego disappears I is not found. Nothing is found. Yes, exactly;
nothing... is found.
Just the other night I was telling a story of a great Zen master,
To-san. He became empty, he became enlightened, he became a non-being;
what Buddhists call anatta, no-mind. The rumor reached to the gods that
somebody had again become enlightened. And of course, when somebody
becomes enlightened, gods want to see his face -- the beauty of it, the
beauty of the original, the virginity of it. Gods came down to the
monastery To-san lived in.
They looked and looked, and they tried, and they would
enter into him from one side, and get out from another side, and nobody
was found inside To-san. They were very frustrated. They wanted to see
the face, the original face, and there was nobody. They tried many
devices, and then one very cunning god, clever, said, "Do one thing": he
ran into the kitchen of the monastery, brought handfuls of rice and
wheat. To-san was coming from his morning walk and he threw it on his
path.
In a Zen monastery, everything has to be respected absolutely; even rice
and wheat, stones, everything has to be respected. One has to be
continuously careful and aware. Not even a grain of rice can you find in
a Zen monastery Lying here and there. You have to be respectful. And
remember, that respect has nothing to do with Gandhian economics. It is
not a question of economy, because Gandhian economy is nothing but
rationalized miserliness. It has nothing to do with miserliness. It is a
simple respect for everything, absolute respect.
This was disrespectful. This is the original idea of the
Upanishads where seers have said, "ANAMBRAHMA" -- food is God -- because
food gives you life, food is your energy. God comes into your body
through food, becomes your blood, your bones, so a god should be treated
as a god. When those gods threw rice and wheat on the path where To-san
came, he could not believe: "Who has done this? Who has been so
careless?" A thought arose in his mind, and the story is that gods could
see his face for a single moment, because for a single moment the 'I'
arose in a very subtle way: "Who has done this? Something has gone
wrong."
And whenever you decide what is wrong and what is right,
you are there, immediately. Between the right and the wrong exists the
ego. Between one thought and another thought exists the ego. Each
thought brings its own ego. For a moment, a cloud arose in To-san's
consciousness -- "Who has done this?" -- a tension. Each thought is a
tension. Even very ordinary, very innocent-looking thoughts are
tensions.
You see the garden is beautiful, and the sun is rising, and the birds
are singing, and an idea arises, "How beautiful!" Even that, that is a
tension. That's why if somebody is walking by your side, you will
immediately say to him, "Look, what a beautiful morning!" What are you
doing? You are simply releasing the tension that has come through the
thought. Beautiful morning... a thought has come; it has created a
tension around it. Your being is no more non-tense.
It has to be released, so you speak to the other. It is
meaningless because he is also standing just where you are standing. He
is also listening to the birds, he is also seeing the sun rise, he is
also looking at the flowers, so what is the point of saying something
like "this is beautiful"? Is he blind? But that is not the point. You
are not communicating any message to him. The message is as clear to him
as to you. In fact, you are relieving yourself of a tension. By saying
it, the thought is dispersed into the atmosphere; you are relieved of
the burden.
A thought arose in To-san's mind, a cloud gathered, and
through that cloud the gods were able to see his face, just a glimpse.
Again the cloud disappeared, again there was no longer any To-san.
Remember, this is what meditation
is all about. to destroy you so utterly that even if gods come
they cannot seek you, they cannot find you. You yourself have found when
such a situation arises, that not even gods can find you. There is
nobody inside to be found. That 'somebodiness' is a sort of tension.
That's why people who think they are somebodies are more tense. People
who think that they are nobodies are less tense. People who have
completely forgotten that they are, are tensionless. So remember, when
the ego is lost, the 'I' is not found. When the ego is lost nothing is
found. That nothingness, that purity of nothingness is your being, your
innermost core, your very nature, your Buddha-nature, your awareness --
like a vast sky with no clouds gathered in it.
Now, listen to the question again. "I was brought up in
the teachings of Rudolph Steiner." Yes, they are teachings, and what I
am doing here is not teaching you anything. Rather, on the contrary, I
am taking all teachings away from you. I am not a teacher. I am not
imparting knowledge to you. My whole effort is to destroy all that you
think you know. My whole effort is to take all knowledge from you. I'm
here to help you to unlearn.
"I was brought up in the teachings of Rudolph Steiner, but I could not
yet break through my barriers towards him."
Nobody is able to break his barriers towards a person who is himself
ego-oriented. It is difficult to break your barriers towards a person
who is no more. Even then, it is so difficult to break your barriers
because your ego resists. But when you are around a teacher who has his
own ego-trip still alive, who is still, who is still trying to be
somebody, who is still tense, it is impossible to drop down your ego.
"Although I believe him to be right in the way he shows that for the
West, the possibility to free ourselves from maya is to learn to think
in the right way."
No, the way for the East or for the West is: how to unlearn thinking,
how not to think, and just be. And it is needed more for the West than
for the East, because in the West the whole two millennia since
Aristotle have been of conditioning you for thinking, thinking,
thinking. Thinking has been the goal. The thinking mind has been the
goal in the West: how to become more and more accurate, scientific in
your thinking. The whole scientific world arose out of this effort,
because when you are working as a scientist you have to think. You have
to work out in the objective world, and you have to find more accurate,
exact, valid ways of thinking. And it has paid off too much. Science has
been a great success, so of course people think that the same
methodology will be helpful when you go inwards. That is the fallacy of
Rudolph Steiner.
He thinks that in the same way as we have been able to penetrate into
matter, the same method will help to go in. It cannot help, because to
go in one has to move in just the opposite direction, diametrically
opposite. If thinking helps to know matter, nothinking will help to know
yourself. If logic helps to know matter, something like a Zen koan,
something absurd, illogical, will help you to go in: faith, trust, love,
maybe; but logic, never. Whatsoever has helped you to know the world
better is going to be a barrier inside. And the same is true about the
outer world also: whatsoever helps you to know yourself will not
necessarily help you to know matter. That's why the East could not
develop science. The first glimpses of science had come to the East, but
the East could not develop it. The East did not move in that direction.
The basic rudimentary knowledge was developed in the East.
For example: mathematical symbols, figures from one to ten, were
developed in India. That made mathematics possible. It was a great
discovery, but there it stopped. The beginning happened, but the East
could not go very far in that direction. Because of that, in all the
languages of the world, the numerals, mathematical numerals, carry
Sanskrit roots. For example: two is Sanskrit dwa -- it became twa, and
then two. Three is Sanskrit tri -- it became three. Six is Sanskrit
sasth -- it became six. Seven is Sanskrit sapt -- it became seven. Eight
is Sanskrit ast -- it became eight. Nine is Sanskrit nawa -- it became
nine. The basic discovery is Indian, but then it stopped there.
In China they developed ammunition for the first time,
almost five thousand years back, but they never made any bombs out of
it. They made only fireworks. They enjoyed, they loved it, they played
with it, but it was a toy. They never killed anybody through it. They
never went too far into it.
The East has discovered many basic things, but has not gone deep into
it. It cannot go, because the whole effort is to go within. Science is a
Western effort; religion is an Eastern effort. In the West even religion
tries to be scientific. That was what Rudolph Steiner was doing: trying
to make the religious approach more and more scientific -- because in
the West, science is valuable. If you can prove that religion is also
scientific, then religion also becomes valuable in a vicarious way,
indirectly. So in the West, every religious person goes on trying to
prove that science is not the only science, religion is also a science.
In the East we have not bothered. It is just the other way round: if
there was some scientific discovery, the people who had discovered it
had to prove that it had some religious significance. Otherwise, it was
meaningless.
"By doing this and by meditating, he says we are able to lose our ego
and find our 'I'."
Rudolph Steiner does not know what meditation is, and what he calls
meditation is concentration. He's completely confused: he calls
concentration meditation. Concentration is not meditation. Concentration
is again a very, very useful means for scientific thinking. It is to
concentrate the mind, narrow the mind, focus the mind on a certain
thing. But the mind remains, becomes more focused, becomes more
integrated.
Meditation is not concentrating on anything. In fact, it is a relaxing,
not narrowing. In concentration there is an object. In meditation there
is no object at all. You are simply lost in an objectless consciousness,
a diffusion of consciousness. Concentration is exclusive to something,
and everything else is excluded from it. It includes only one thing; it
excludes everything else.
For example: if you are listening to me you can listen in two ways: you
can listen through concentration; then you are tense, and you are
focused on what I am saying. Then the birds will be singing, but you
will not listen to them. You will think that is a distraction.
Distraction arises out of your-effort to concentrate. Distraction is a
by-product of concentration. You can listen to me in a meditative way;
then you are simply open, available -- you listen tome, and you listen
to the birds also, and the wind passes through the trees and creates a
sound; you listen to that also -- then you are simultaneously here. Then
whatsoever is happening here, you are available to it without any mind
of your own, without any choice of your own.
You don't say, "I will listen to this and I will
not listen. to that." No, you listen to the whole existence. Then birds
and me and the wind are not three separate things. They are not. They
are happening simultaneously, together, all together, and you listen to
the whole. Of course, then your understanding will be tremendously
enriched because the birds are also saying the same thing in their way,
and the wind is also carrying the same message in its way, and I am also
saying the same thing in a linguistic way, so that you can understand it
more. Otherwise, the message is the same. Mediums differ, but the
message is the same, because God is the message.
When a cuckoo goes crazy, it is God going crazy. Don't
exclude, don't exclude him; you will be excluding God. Don't exclude
anything; be inclusive. Concentration is a narrowing of consciousness;
meditation is expansion: all doors are open, all windows are open, and
you are not choosing. Then of course, when you don't choose you cannot
be distracted. This is the beauty of meditation: a meditator cannot be
distracted. And let that be the criterion: if you are distracted, know
that you are doing concentration, not meditation. A dog starts barking
-- a meditator is not distracted. He absorbs that too, he enjoys that
too.
So he says, "Look... so God is barking in the dog.
Perfectly good. Thank you for barking while I'm meditating. So you take
care of me in so many ways," but no tension arises. He does not say,
"This dog is antagonistic. He is trying to destroy my concentration. I
am such a religious, serious man, and this foolish dog... what is he
doing here?" Then enmity arises, anger arises. And you think this is
meditation? -- no, this is not of worth if you become angry at the dog,
poor dog who is doing his own thing. He is not destroying your
meditation or concentration or anything. He is not worried about your
religion at all, nor about you. He may not even be aware of what
nonsense you are doing. He's simply enjoying his way, his life. No, he
is not your enemy.
Watch... if one person becomes religious in a house, the whole house
becomes disturbed because that person is continuously on the verge of
being distracted. He's praying; nobody should make any sound. He's
meditating; children should remain silent, nobody should play. You are
imposing unnecessary conditions on existence. And then if you are
distracted and you feel disturbed, only you are responsible. Only you
are to be blamed, nobody else.
What Rudolph Steiner calls meditation is nothing but concentration. And
through concentration you can lose the ego and you will gain the 'I',
and the 'I' will be nothing but a very, very subtle ego. You will become
a pious egoist. Your ego will now be decorated in religious language,
but it will be there.
"The central figure for him is Christ, whom he differentiates from Jesus
as a totally different being." Now, for a meditator there cannot be any
central figure. There need not be. But for one who concentrates,
something is needed to concentrate upon. Rudolph Steiner says Christ is
the central figure. Why not Buddha? Why not Patanjali? Why not Mahavir?
Why Christ? For Buddhists, Buddha is the central figure, not Christ.
They all need some object to concentrate upon, something on which to
focus their minds. For a religious man there is no central figure. If
your own central ego has disappeared, or is disappearing, you need not
have any other ego outside to support it. That Christ or Buddha is again
an ego somewhere. You are creating a polarity of I-thou. You say,
"Christ, thou art my master," but who will say this? An 'I' is needed to
assert. Look, listen to Zen Buddhists. They say, "If you meet Buddha on
the way, kill him immediately." If you meet Buddha on the way, kill him
immediately, otherwise he will kill you. Don't allow him a single
chance, otherwise he will possess you and he will become a central
figure. Your mind will arise around him again. You will become a
Buddhist mind. You will become a Christian mind. For a certain mind, a
certain central object is needed.
And of course, he is more in favor of Christ than Jesus.
That too has to be understood. That's how the pious ego arises. Jesus is
just like us: a human being with a body, with ordinary life; very human.
Now, for a very great egoist this won't do. He needs a very, very
purified figure. Christ is nothing but Jesus purified. It is just like
if you make curd out of your milk, then take cream out of it, and then
you make ghee out of the cream. Then ghee is the purest part, the most
essential. Now you cannot make anything out of ghee. Ghee is the last
refinement, the white petrol. From kerosene, petrol; from petrol, white
petrol. Now, no more; it is finished. Christ is just the purified Jesus.
It is difficult for Rudolph Steiner to accept Jesus, and it is difficult
for all egoists. They try to reject in many ways.
For example: Christians say that he was born out of a virgin. The basic
problem is that Christians cannot accept that he was born just like we
ordinary human beings. Then he will also look ordinary. He has to be
special, and we have to be followers of a special Master. Not like
Buddha, born out of ordinary human love, ordinary human sexual
copulation, no -- Jesus is special. Special people need a special
Master, out of a virgin. And he's the only begotten Son of God, the
only. Because if there are other sons, then he is no longer special. He
is the only Christ, the only one who has been crowned by God. All
others, at the most, can be messengers, but cannot be of the same level
and plane as Christ. Christians have done it in their own way, but I
would like you to understand Jesus more than Christ -- because Jesus
will be more blissful to understand, peaceful to understand, and will be
of great help on the path. Because you are in the situation of being a
Jesus; Christ is just a dream.
First you have to pass through being a Jesus, and only then someday will
Christ arise within you. Christ is just a state of being, just as Buddha
is a state of being. Gautama became Buddha; Jesus became Christ. You can
also become Christ, but right now Christ is too far. You can think about
it and create philosophies and theologies about it, but that is not
going to help. Right now it is better to understand Jesus, because that
is where you are. That is from where the journey has to start. Love
Jesus, because through loving Jesus you will love your humanity. Try to
understand Jesus, and the paradox, and through that paradox you will be
able to feel less guilty. Through understanding Jesus you will be able
to love yourself more.
Now, Christians go on trying somehow to drop the paradox of Jesus
through bringing the concept of Christ. For example: there are moments
when Jesus is angry, and it is a problem; what to do? It is very
difficult to avoid the fact because many times he is angry, and that
goes against his very teaching. He continually talks about love, and is
angry. And he talks about forgiving your enemies -- not only that, but
loving your enemies -- but he himself lashes out his anger. In the
temple of Jerusalem he took a whip, started beating the money changers,
and threw them out of the temple singlehanded. He must have been in a
real fury, in a rage, almost mad.
Now this... how to reconcile this? The way that
Christians have found to reconcile -- and Rudolph Steiner bases his own
ideology on it -- is to create a Christ, which is completely reconciled.
Forget all about Jesus; bring a pure concept of Christ. You can say in
that moment, "He was Jesus when he was angry." And when he said on the
cross, "God my Father, forgive these people, because they don't know
what they are doing," he was Christ. Now the paradox can be managed.
When he was moving with women he was Jesus; when he told Magdalene not
to touch him he was Christ. Two concepts help to figure things out --
but you destroy the beauty of Jesus, because the whole beauty is in
paradox.
There is no need to reconcile, because deep in Jesus' being they are
reconciled. In fact, he could become angry because he loved so much. He
loved so tremendously, that's why he could become angry. His anger was
not part of hatred, it was part of his love. Have you not sometimes
known anger out of love? Then where is the problem? You love your child:
sometimes you spank the child, you beat the child, sometimes you are
almost in a fury, but it is because of love. It is not because you hate.
He loved so much -- that's my understanding of Jesus -- he loved so much
that he forgot all about anger and he became angry. His love was so
much. He was not just a dead saint, he was an alive person; and his love
was not just philosophy, it was a reality. When love is a reality,
sometimes love becomes anger also.
He was as human as you are. Yes, he was not finished there. He was more
than human also, but first and basically he was human, human plus.
Christians have been trying to prove that he was super-human and the
humanity was just accidental, a necessary evil because he had to come
into a body. That's why he was angry. Otherwise, he was just purity.
That purity will be dead.
If purity is real and authentic, it is not afraid of impurity. If love
is true it is not afraid of anger; if love is true it is not afraid of
fighting. It shows that even fight will not destroy it; it will survive.
There are saints who talk about loving humanity, but cannot love a
single human being. It is very easy to love humanity. Always remember:
if you cannot love, you love humanity. It is very easy, because you can
never come across humanity, and humanity is not going to create any
trouble. A single human being will create many troubles, many more. And
you can feel very, very good that you love humanity. How can you love
human beings? -- you love humanity. You are vast, your love is great.
But I will tell you: love a human being; that is the basic preparation
for loving humanity. It is going to be difficult, and it is going to be
a great crisis, a continuous crisis and challenge. If you can transcend
it, and you don't destroy love because of the difficulties but you go on
strengthening your love so that it can face all difficulties --
possible, impossible -- you will become integrated. Christ loved human
beings, and loved so much, and his love was so great that it transcended
human beings and became the love for humanity. Then it transcended
humanity and became love for existence. That is love for God.
"Your way seems different to me."
Not only different; it is diametrically opposite. In the first place, it
is not a way at all. It is not a path, or if you love the word then call
it a pathless path, a gateless gate. But it is not a path, because a
path or way is needed if your reality is far away from you. Then it has
to be joined by a path. But my whole insistence is that your reality is
available to you right now. It is just within you. A path is not needed
to reach to it. In fact, if you drop all paths, you will suddenly find
yourself standing in it. The more you follow paths, the farther away you
go from yourself. Paths misguide, mislead, because you are already that
which you are seeking. So paths are not needed, but if you are trained
to think in those terms, then I will say that my way is diametrically
opposite. Steiner says right-thinking; and I say, right or wrong, all
thinking is wrong. Thinking as such is wrong; no-thinking is right.
"Can you please advise me? because I am somehow torn between you and the
way Steiner shows."
No, you will have to remain in that state of tension for a few days. I
will not advise and I will not help. Because if I advise and I help you,
you can come and lean towards me; that may be immature. You will have to
have a good fight with Steiner before you can come to me, and he will
certainly give you a good fight. He is not going to leave you so easily.
And I'm not going to give you any help, so that you come on your own.
Only then do you come, when you come on your own. When a fruit is ripe
it falls on its own accord. No, I will not throw even a small stone at
it, because the fruit may not be ripe and the stone may bring it down...
and that will be a calamity. You would remain in your torn state of
mind.
You will have to decide, because nobody can remain in a torn state of
mind for long. There is a point where one has to decide. And it will not
be just towards Rudolph Steiner if I help you. He's dead; he cannot
fight with me. It is easier for me to pull you towards me than it will
be for him. So to also be just to him it is better that I leave it to
you. You just go on fighting. Either you will drop me... that will also
be a gain, because then you will follow Rudolph Steiner more totally.
But I don't think that is possible now... the poison has entered you.
Now it is only a question of time.
Source: from Osho Book "Yoga Vol 10"
Osho on -
Carlos Castaneda,
Gopi Krishna,
Nirmala Srivastava,
Nisargadatta Maharaj,
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
Muktanand & Franklin Jones
Ramtha Messages,
Satya Sai Baba,
Scientology,
Sri Aurobindo,
Transcendental meditation,
U.G. Krishnamurti,
Yogi Bhajan
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