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Osho -
Repentance means retrospective awareness, repentance means looking
backwards. You have done something. If you were aware then no wrong can
happen, but you were not aware at the time you did it. Somebody insulted
-- you became angry, you hit him on the head. You were not aware what
you were doing. Now things have cooled down, the situation has gone, you
are no more in anger; you can look backwards more easily. You missed
awareness at that time. The best thing was to have awareness at that
time, but you missed it, and now there is no point in crying and weeping
over the spilt milk. But you can look, you can bring awareness to that
which has already happened. That is what Mahavir calls pratycraman, looking back; what Patanjali calls pratyahar, looking in. That's what Jesus calls repentance. That's what Buddha calls pashchattap. It is not feeling sorry, it is not just feeling bad about it, because that is not going to help. It is becoming aware, it is reliving the experience as it should have been. You have to move into it again. You missed awareness in that moment; you were overflooded by unconsciousness. Now things have cooled, you'll take your awareness, the light of awareness, back. You move in that incident again, you look into it again as you should have really done; that is gone, but you can do it retrospectively in your mind. And Buddha says this cleanses the heart of the evil. This looking back, continuously looking back, will make you more and more aware. There are three stages. You have done something, then you become aware -- first stage. Second stage: you are doing something, and you become aware. And third stage: you are going to do something, and you become aware. Only in the third stage will your life be transformed. But the first two are necessary for the third, they are necessary steps. Whenever you can become aware, become aware. You have been angry -- now sit down, meditate, become aware what has happened. Ordinarily we do it, but we do for wrong reasons. We do it to put our image back in its right place. You always think you are a very loving person, compassionate, and then you suddenly become angry. Now your image is distorted in your own eyes. You do a sort of repentance. You go to the person and you say, 'I am sorry.' What are you doing? You are repainting your image. Your ego is trying to repaint the image, because you
have fallen in your own eyes, you have fallen in others' eyes. Now you
are trying to rationalize. At least you can go and say, 'I am sorry. I
did it in spite of myself. I don't know how it happened, I don't know
what evil force took possession of me, but I am sorry. Forgive me.' Buddha says real repentance is remembering it, going into the details fully aware of what happened; going backwards, reliving the experience. Reliving the experience is like unwinding; it erases. And not only that -- it makes you capable of more awareness, because awareness is practised when you are remembering it, when you are becoming again aware about the past incident. You are getting a discipline in awareness, in mindfulness. Next time you will become aware a little earlier. This time you were angry; after two hours you could cool dawn. Next time after one hour you will cool down. Next time after a few minutes. Next time, just as it has happened you will cool down and you will be able to see. By and by, by slow progression, one day while you are angry you will catch hold of yourself red-handed. And that is a beautiful experience -- to catch yourself red-handed committing an error. Then suddenly the whole quality changes, because whenever awareness penetrates you, reactions stop. This anger is a childish reaction, it is the child in you. It is coming from the C. And later on, when you feel sorry, that is coming from the P, from the parent. The parent forces you to feel sorry and go and ask forgiveness. You have not been good to your mother or to your uncle -- go and put things right. Or it can come from A, from your adult mind. You have been angry and later on you recognize that this is going to be too much; there is a financial loss in it. You have been angry with your boss, now you become afraid. Now you start thinking he may throw you out, or he may carry the anger within him. Your salary was going to be raised; he may not raise it -- a thousand and one things... you would like to put things right. When Buddha says repent, he's not telling you to function from C or P or A. He is saying when you become aware, sit down, close your eyes, meditate upon the whole thing -- become a watcher. You missed the situation, but still something can be done about it: you can watch it. You can watch it as it should have been watched. You can practise, this will be a rehearsal, and by the time you have watched the whole situation you will feel completely okay. If then you feel like going and asking forgiveness, for no other reasons -- neither the parent, nor the adult, nor the child -- but out of sheer understanding, out of sheer meditation that it was wrong.... It was not wrong for any other reason; it was wrong because you behaved in an unconscious way. Let me repeat it. You go and you ask for forgiveness not for any other reason -- financial, social, political, cultural; no -- you simply go there because you meditated on it and you recognized and you realized the fact that you acted in unawareness; you have hurt somebody in unawareness. You have to go and console the person at least. You have to go and help the person to understand your helplessness -- that you are an unconscious person, that you are a human being with all the limitations, that you are sorry. It is not putting your ego back, it is simply doing something which your meditation has showed you. It is totally a different dimension. Source - Osho Book "The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1"
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