Osho on Judging People

Question - How to drop Judging People?

Osho - There is no need to stop or drop judging people; you have to understand why you judge and how you judge. You can judge only the behaviour because only the behaviour is available. You cannot judge the person because the person is hiding behind, the person is a mystery. You can judge the act but you cannot judge the being.

And the act is irrelevant. It will not be right to judge a being through the act. Sometimes it happens that a man is smiling. The act is there on the surface and deep inside he may be sad In fact, he may be smiling because he is sad. He does not want to show his sadness to anybody – why bring one’s wounds to everybody? Why? That seems embarrassing. Maybe he is smiling just because he is crying deep down.

Nietzsche has said, ’I go on smiling. People think I am a very jolly person and that is absolutely wrong. I go on laughing because I am afraid that if I don’t laugh, I may start crying. So I have to convert my energy somewhere otherwise it will become tears. Before it becomes tears it has to become laughter.’

The insight is perfectly true. Nietzsche is one of the most perceptive men ever born on the earth. Tears and smiles are very close. In Indian villages women say to their children, ’Don’t laugh too much otherwise you will start crying.’ And that happens. If a child laughs too much he starts crying. Tears and smiles are very close. If you want to hide your tears the best way is to smile – that’s why people are smiling.

Just by seeing a smiling face you cannot judge what is happening inside. The inside is not available to you. The inside is private; it is not available to anybody. So the first thing to understand is that you can look only at the behaviour and the behaviour does not mean much. All that is really significant is the person behind. And you don’t know. Your judgements are going to be wrong. And you know it – because when people judge you by your acts, you always feel that they have judged you wrongly.

You don’t judge yourself by your acts, you judge yourself by your being. So everybody feels that all judgements are unjust. You feel that judgements are unjust because to you your being is available – and the being is such a big phenomenon and the act is so tiny and small. It does not define anything. It may be just a momentary thing.

You said something to somebody and he became angry, but don’t judge him by his anger because it may be just a momentary flash. He may be a very loving person. If you judge him by his anger you misjudge him. And then your behaviour will depend on your judgement. And you will always wait for the man to be angry and you will always think that he is an angry man. You will avoid the person. You have missed an opportunity.

Never judge anybody by their action – but that is the only thing available to you. So what to do? Judge ye not. By and by become more and more aware of the privacy of being. Every being inside his own soul is so private there is no way to penetrate it. Even when you love, something at the deepest core remains private. That is man’s dignity. That is the meaning when we say man has a soul. Soul means that which can never become public.

Something of it will always remain deep, lost in some mystery. I have heard.... Two men were called to a home and asked to haul some trash to a garbage heap. After they had loaded the truck the back of the truck was overflowing with all the trash. One man said, ’You may get into trouble with the police if we drive through town and the trash blows onto the street.’

The other man said, ’Don’t worry, I have an idea. You drive and I will spread my body over the trash and that will keep it from blowing about.’ On the way to the garbage heap they passed under a bridge. As they drove under it, two men standing on top of the bridge happened to look down and saw the man lying on top of the garbage, arms and legs spread wide.

One of the men said, ’Will you look at that! Someone is throwing away perfectly good men!’ From the outside that’s what we can judge. From the outside it is always wrong. Seeing it again and again, understanding it again and again, penetrating it again and again, you will not need to drop judgements, they drop of their own accord. Just watch. Whenever you judge, you are doing something foolish. It does not apply to the person at all, it can apply only to the act. And that act too is taken out of context because you don’t know his whole life.

It is as if you tear a page from a novel and you read it and you judge the novel by it. It is not right; it is out of context. The whole novel may be a totally different thing. You may have taken a negative part, an ugly part. But you don’t know anybody’s life in its totality. A man has lived for forty years before you come to meet him. Those forty years of context are there. The man is going to live forty years more when you have left him.

Those forty years of context are going to be there. And you saw the man, just a single instance of him, and you judged him. That is not right. That is just stupid. It will not have any relevance to the man himself. Your judgement will show something more about you than about the man. ’Judge ye not so that ye may not be judged’ – that’s what Jesus says.

Your judgement shows something about you, nothing about the person you have judged – because his history remains unavailable to you, his being remains unavailable to you. All contexts are lost, there is just a momentary flash – and your interpretation will be your interpretation. It will show something about you. Seeing this, judging disappears.

Source : from Osho Book "Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 2"

Osho discourse on Love

What is Love?

Osho : It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to superconsciousness. There are many many layers, many planes of love. It all depends on you. If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung. Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.

At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political. And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics -- the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political: you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination. And love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitter pill sugar-coated.

You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously. People are falling in love with horses, dogs, animals, machines, things. Why? Because to be in love with human beings has become an utter hell, a continuous conflict -- nagging, always at each other's throats. This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a steppingstone , if you can use it as a meditation.

If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards. Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released -- but only at the highest peak. At its lowest, love is just a political relationship. At its highest, love is a religious state of consciousness. I love you too, Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return.

Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a bargain. Hence the radiant beauty of it, hence the transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all the joys that you have known. When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don't love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of
partaking, can partake.

Whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available -- you are available unconditionally. That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative. `Medicine' and `meditation' come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.

Nancy was having coffee with Helen.
Nancy asked, "How do you know your husband loves you?"
"He takes out the garbage every morning."
"That's not love. That's good housekeeping."
"My husband gives me all the spending money I need."
"That's not love. That's generosity."
"My husband never looks at other women."
"That's not love. That's poor vision."
"John always opens the door for me."
"That's not love. That's good manners."
"John kisses me even when I've eaten garlic and I have curlers in my hair."
"Now, that's love."

Everybody has their own idea of love. And only when you come to the state where all ideas about love have disappeared, where love is no more an idea but simply your being, then only will you know its freedom. Then love is God. Then love is the ultimate truth. Let your love move through the process of meditation. Watch it: watch the cunning ways of your mind, watch your power-politics. And nothing else except continuous watching and observing is going to help.

When you say something to your woman or your man, look at it: what is the unconscious motive? Why are you saying it? Is there some motive? Then what is it? Be conscious of that motive, bring it to consciousness -- because this is one of the secret keys for transforming your life: anything that becomes conscious disappears. Your motives remain unconscious, that's why you remain in their grip. Make them conscious, bring them to light, and they will disappear.

It is as if you pull up a tree and bring the roots to the sunlight: they will die, they can exist only in the darkness of the soil. Your motives also exist only in the darkness of your unconsciousness. So the only way to transform your love is to bring all the motivations from the unconscious into the conscious. Slowly slowly, those motives will die. And when love is unmotivated, then love is the greatest thing that can ever happen to anybody. Then love is something of the ultimate, of the beyond.

That is the meaning when Jesus says, "God is love." I say to you: Love is God. God can be forgotten, but don't forget love -- because it is the purification of love that will bring you to God. If you forget about God completely, nothing is lost. But don't forget love, because love is the bridge. Love is the process of alchemical change in your consciousness.

Source: http://www.messagefrommasters.com

You are already a Buddha

An old Zen story tells of a pilgrim who mounted his horse and crossed formidable mountains and swift rivers seeking a famous wise man in order to ask him how to find true enlightenment. After months of searching, the pilgrim located the teacher in a cave.
The Master listened to the question and said nothing. The seeker waited. Finally, after hours of silence, the Master looked at the steed on which the pilgrim had arrived, and asked the pilgrim why he was not looking for a horse instead of enlightenment.

The pilgrim responded that obviously he already had a horse. The Master smiled, and retreated into his cave. Very indicative! The Master said, ”Why don’t you search for a horse? Why do you bother about Buddhahood?”

And the man said, ”What nonsense are you talking about? The horse is already with me. I have got the horse!Why should I seek it?”

And the Master didn’t say anything – he simply smiled and retreated into his cave. Finished! He had given the answer.

You are a Buddha. You cannot search for it. That is the great declaration of all the great religions – that you are gods and goddesses in disguise, incognito.

You have forgotten your own identity, you don’t know who you are. Hence all seeking. And sometimes you start seeking that which you are already. Then it is impossible to find... then frustration.

Don’t start seeking, just start looking at what is the case. Looking into the reality as it is, is enough. That is the meaning of Zen people when they say ”Be herenow” – look into reality.

Nothing is missing, all is already here. Listening to it, please avoid creating an ideal; otherwise your ideal will mislead you.

Source: " Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3 " - Osho