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Osho -
Gospels provide no techniques for
developing a loving heart Question - The Gospels provide no techniques for developing a loving heart. The gospels are also too difficult for ordinary people. Perhaps this is why the Christian message has always seemed less practical than, say, buddha's. Osho - The question is from Prem Nirvan. First, love is not based on any techniques. The path of love knows no techniques, that's why in the Gospels no techniques are given for developing your love. The path of intelligence, gyana yoga, the path of knowing, of course has many techniques. Meditation is a technique. Intelligence moves though techniques. Intelligence always creates technology. If intelligence goes into science, then it creates technology. If it goes into spirituality, it creates Yoga, Tantra -- they are also technologies for the inner being. Intelligence is technological. It always finds out ways, shortcuts and how to do things more efficiently. Wherever you apply intelligence you will find better ways to reach the goal -- faster, speedier, with less inconvenience, with less cost -- that's what intelligence is. But the path of love, bhakti yoga -- and Jesus is a
BHAKTA, a devotee -- knows no techniques. Love is not a technique.
Please remember it: Love is not a technique and cannot be a technique,
and if you bring technique into it, you will destroy love. That's what
is happening in the West. There are many love techniques available in
the West. Everybody is learning from books how to make love, and how to
make love more efficiently, more skillfully, and how to have greater
orgasms, and all that. Now, all these things available -- many books are
available -- are making people incapable of being in love.
Love needs no technique. Can't you see? Animals love, birds love, trees love, and if you have eyes to see, the whole existence is love energy. But there is no technique. It is natural, it is spontaneous. Technique is against spontaneity. Love is not a technique but spontaneity. It needs only that you drop your being into the heart. Through the head there is no way towards love, it is through the heart. And remember that the heart is capable of moving into love from the very beginning. It is just like a rose flower opening. You need not open it, it has the capacity to open. That capacity is built-in, it is intrinsic. Of its own accord the rose flower opens -- so opens the heart. The heart needs no training. If you give training to it you will destroy it, because through training you will destroy the spontaneity. That's why in the Gospels, Nirvan, no techniques are given. Techniques cannot exist on that path. Buddha appeals to you. Every day Buddha is gaining more and more followers in the West, because the West has become very very mind-oriented. Intelligence has become predominant in the West. The West has become technological about everything. So when you read about Buddha or Patanjali or Vatsayana, it has immense appeal; it simply fits with you. Your whole being says 'Yes! It must be so!' You are ready to accept Buddha, Patanjali, Mahavir. The grip of Christ is lessening on the West. The reason is that the West no longer goes through the heart; it bypasses the heart. People are Christian because they are born Christians, but the appeal of Christ is every day becoming less and less and less. Buddha will fit better. Patanjali even more. Immediate appeal will be there because there is logic, there is intelligence, and there is a clearcut path -- what has to be done. Love is not a doing. It is a happening, it is a trust, not a technique. Jesus says: Love God. If you can love, then there is no problem. If you cannot love, then Jesus is not the way for you. Then you will have to search for Buddha. On the path of Buddha, love is non-existent; emotion, sentiment, love -- these are non-existent. Buddha says: Those who are very very emotional and loving have to find other ways. My way is not their way. Do you know that for many years Buddha was very resistant to initiating women? He rejected it again and again. Many times appeals were made to him, 'Why don't you initiate women?' And he would say 'No. My path is the path of intelligence, not of love, and if women are allowed to enter it, they will destroy my whole thing.' When too much pressure was put on him -- he was a very very democratic man and he understood that it was not right to deprive women -- he finally, but very reluctantly, agreed. The day he initiated women he declared 'My path was going to remain pure for at least five thousand years. But now I can only hope for five hundred years, not more than that.' And that's exactly how it happened. Through the entry of the woman, Buddhism started changing its character, because the woman brings love. Once Buddha was gone, the whole quality of Buddhism changed; it became absolutely the opposite. If Buddha comes back he will not be able to recognise the Buddhism that is prevalent in China, Burma, Thailand. He will not be able to recognise it, because its whole quality has changed. Now Buddha is thought to be the God, and people are praying to him -- and his whole life he was saying that prayer is nonsense, only meditation will do. He was utterly on the path of intelligence; prayer was meaningless. And he was saying 'There is no God, so to whom are you praying? It is crazy.' And he was saying that 'Nobody can help you except yourself.' The last message on his deathbed was... Ananda, his chief disciple asked 'Bhagwan, give us your last message.' And he said 'Ananda, APPA DIPO BHAVA: become a light unto yourself. There is no other light, so don't look into the sky, don't look at me. There is no other light. Be a light unto yourself. Your own intelligence has to become your light, depend utterly upon yourself -- no other dependence, no shelter anywhere, no refuge.' He was one of the most intelligent persons born on the earth, but soon, once he was gone, the quality started changing. And it is a surprise of history that Buddhism became the source of Tantra, the source of love techniques. Buddhism became the source of love techniques. It is utterly against Buddha. There is no relationship between them, but it had to be so. Once women entered -- they came in great crowds, and they have a very loving heart so they can fall into anything very easily -- soon the proportion between men and women was one to four. One man to four women -- they predominated. And with them came love, tenderness, softness, femininity, receptivity. With them came everything that Buddha was holding out against. The quality changed: Buddha became a God, was worshipped and prayed to. Temples were erected, images were built, and all that which Buddha was saying was not possible on his path entered and bloomed. I am not saying that something went wrong. Nothing went wrong, because
so many people attain through love. But Buddha's purity was lost. His
absolute grip on intelligence was lost. The path became more and more
the meeting of the opposites. The problem is arising... Nirvan wants to love and cannot love, so he wants to find some techniques. But love never happens through techniques so you are asking for the impossible. Nirvan, follow the path of intelligence. If Buddha appeals to you, there is no problem . Forget about Jesus! Buddha will do. THE GOSPELS PROVIDE NO TECHNIQUES FOR DEVELOPING A LOVING HEART --
because there are none. There, Nirvan, you are absolutely wrong. The Gospels are difficult only for intellectuals, not for ordinary people. Jesus moved with ordinary people; he was very against intellectuals. He was all for the ordinary people. His whole disciplehood came from the very ordinary people, because the ordinary people have more pure a heart, naturally. The intellectuals lose their heart, they become hung-up in the head. They THINK about love, but they cannot love. Even sometimes when they say that they are in love, they only THINK that they are in love. Love is not possible through the head. It is as impossible as somebody trying to see through the ears, or to listen through the eyes. You cannot listen through the eyes, and you cannot see through the ears, because they are not meant for it. Intelligence is not meant for love. For that a different faculty exists in you -- the heart. The intellectual is trained for the head; the school, the college, the university -- they all train for the head. The more and more clever, intelligent, calculating you become, the more and more difficult it becomes to love. That's why Jesus moved with ordinary people, because ordinary people are extraordinarily loving people. The so-called extraordinary intellectuals are very ordinary lovers.
So how can it be that you say THE GOSPELS ARE ALSO TOO DIFFICULT FOR
ORDINARY PEOPLE...? They are very simple phenomena -- like flowers, like rivers. Jesus lived with ordinary peoPle. He is the past Master of how to relate to ordinary people. Buddha lived with extraordinary people -- great scholars, great intelligent people, poets, philoso-phers; his atmosphere was that of intelligence. Jesus walked with the fisherman, with the woodcutter, with the shoemaker. These Gospels are those dialogues. They were between Jesus and very ordinary people. In fact, he himself was very ordinary. He was not the son of a king... a carpenter's son. He cannot speak anything that cannot be understood by ordinary people. But I understand your problem. It is difficult for you. Then it is not for you. Don't be unnecessarily worried about it. Then look for something that is for you. There are a thousand and one doors; the door is irrelevant. The real question is to get into God; by what door you enter will not make any difference. Enter -- that is significant. So let Buddha be your door. PERHAPS THIS IS WHY THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE HAS ALWAYS SEEMED LESS PRACTICAL THAN, SAY, BUDDHA'S. It depends. If you are a very very intellectual person, Buddha's approach will look very practical and Jesus' approach will look impractical. If you are a loving person, Buddha's will look impractical and Jesus' will look very practical. It depends. It depends more on you how it looks. If something suits you, it is practical for you. If something does not suit you, it is impractical. And there is no need to remain hooked with the impractical.
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