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Nasruddin said, "Those people have never known what I have come to know. The clock stopped;certainly I thought it was dead. I looked at it, opened it, and found its soul dead. This is the soul"-- he was holding the fly in his hand; he said, "This is the soul."The wife said, "You are simply an idiot, and you will always remain an idiot! Bring that clock out.Perhaps it needs oiling, some repair work -- it is an old clock. And clocks don't die, because todie first one has to live: clocks don't live!"But that's what Karl Marx has preached to the communists, that man is also just like a clock. Andnow almost half the world believes in Karl Marx. Strange -- these same people had believed inGod. Russians, Chinese, Indians, Mohammedans -- all kinds of people change their yes to no. Tochange yes into no is so easy because they are not different. Basically they give you aconsolation without the arduous journey to truth.I have asked many communists, very old communists. In India, S.A.Dange was a member ofthe international communist party along with Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin. He was an eyewitness of theRussian revolution. I asked him, "Have you ever meditated?"He said, "Meditated -- for what? Why should I meditate?"I said, "If you have never meditated, then you don't have the authority to say that there is nosoul, no God, no consciousness. Without going inside yourself, how can you say that there isnobody? And see the absurdity of it: who is saying that there is nobody? Even to deny you willhave to accept that there is somebody. Even to say that there is nobody, somebody has to beassumed."The same is the situation of religions.Nobody has encountered God -- no Christian, no Hindu, no Mohammedan -- but they have allsaid yes because the crowd in which they were born was the crowd of theists.To say no amongst that crowd would have created difficulties for them. Yes was simply theaccepted rule of the game. They have worshipped, they have prayed, not knowing why theywere doing it. But everybody else is doing it so it must be right.When the crowd changed -- for example in Russia, the same people who were so certain of Godbecame uncertain. It took ten years to change from one certainty to another certainty. aninterval of uncertainty, but uncertainty is not doubt. Doubt is simply a question, and doubt says,"I want to KNOW." It has no ideology.Doubt is absolutely pure quest.You have asked, "What is the difference between doubt and negativity?"

Negativity and positivity are both the same. Doubt is different from both. It does not make you atheist, it does not make you an atheist. Positivity makes you a religiousbeliever, a theist; negativity makes you an unbeliever, irreligious, an atheist. Doubt does notmake you anything. It simply makes you an inquirer. And that is the dignity of man.I teach you doubt because I know if you can doubt to the very end you will realize the truth ofyour own being, and simultaneously the truth of the whole existence. And that will beliberation, that will be freedom.Doubt is neither Christian nor Hindu, nor American nor German. Yes may be Hindu, yes may beMohammedan, yes may be Christian; no may be communist, no may be fascist -- but doubt issimply a quest, an individual quest.Yes and no both belong to the crowd. Doubt makes you assert your individuality. You startfinding your path on your own. You don't accept the maps given you by others.It is cheap to believe, it is cheap to disbelieve. But it is really a dangerous journey to know.I would like my sannyasins neither to be negative nor to be positive, but open, available, with aquest, a question mark, and to go on searching.Many times your mind will say it is good to believe -- because the journey is arduous, and onenever knows where one is going, whether one is going to find anything or not.But don't listen to the mind.Mind has created all these "yes" philosophies, "no" philosophies.Doubt has never created any philosophy; doubt has created science. And doubt is going tocreate religion.They are exactly the same -- the same application of doubt in different fields.About objects, the outside world that spreads to millions of stars, doubt has given tremendousinsight just within three hundred years. You are carrying another world within yourself, which isin no way smaller than the world you see outside; perhaps it is bigger. Why do I say that perhapsit is bigger? I am including the word perhaps' so that you should not believe. I know it is bigger,for the simple reason that you know the stars, you know the sun, you know the moon -- but themoon does not know you, the sun does not know you. The stars are great, the universe is vast,but you are the only knower. You have something more than the whole universe.That's why I say inside you are carrying something bigger than the universe, more than theuniverse. Just inquire.One of the most beautiful men of this century was Maharishi Raman. He was a simple man,uneducated, but he did not accept the ideology, the religion in which he was born. When he wasonly seventeen years of age he left his home in search of truth. He meditated for many years in

the hills of Arunachal in south India, and finally realized himself.After that his whole teachingconsisted only of three words, because those three words had revealed to him the wholemystery of existence. His philosophy is the shortest. What are those three words? Whoevercame to him -- because as he became slowly slowly known, people started coming to him fromall over the world -- his whole teaching was to sit silently and ask only one question: "Who amI?" and go on asking that question.One day the question will disappear, and only you will be there. That is the answer. Not that youwill find the answer written somewhere; you will find yourself. You just go on digging with thisquestion -- this question is like digging -- but do you see the question? It is a doubt: Who am I? Itdoes not accept the spiritualist who says you are a soul.It does not accept the materialist who says there is nobody, don't waste time; eat, drink and bemerry. He doubts. Those three words are followed by a question mark: Who am I?And he says this is enough. If you can go on and on and on patiently, one day the questionsuddenly disappears and what is left is your reality. That is the answer.And the moment you know yourself you have known everything that is worth knowing.Are you against God and Jesus Both?I have been searching and seeking Him everywhere.And this is my finding -- that He is notanywhere.I have looked in, I have looked out; I have done everything that ispossible to be done. There is no God. This is a simple statement of fact, with no anger, with noenmity. What can I do if He does not exist? It is not my fault.But man's mind wants some extreme position. It is worth understanding.Why does man's mindwant some extreme position?Either you have to be theist or atheist; either you have to be for or against. It does not allow youa third alternative. The reason is simple: the third alternative becomes the death of the mind.Mind lives on extremism; that is its very nourishment.

Exactly in the middle, where two polarities dissolve and contradictions meet, mind simply goesout of function. The mind cannot conceive how contradictions can meet, howpolarities can be one. But in existence they are meeting, they are one. Have you seen life anddeath separate? It is your mind that makes the categories and words separate. But look intoexistence -- it is life turning into death death turning into life. There is no division, they are partof one whole. It is the mind that has created the idea of beauty and ugliness. But in existence.do you think that if all human minds for a moment disappeared from the earth -- would there bebeauty in anything, ugliness in anything?Would the rose still be beautiful? No, as the mind is not there, there is nobody to judge andbeauty and ugliness are mental judgments.The rose will be there, just as the thorn will be there, but there will be no evaluation becausethe evaluator is not there. They will both exist without any hierarchy. The rose will not be higherthan the thorn. The flower of the marigold will not be a poor flower and the rose, a rich flower;they will be on the same plane.All hierarchy is created by the mind: the lower, the higher, for and against.Think in another way: for a moment, let the mind be there but drop judgment -- which is a littlemore difficult. You can visualize a state where all minds have disappeared and certainly you cansee there is no possibility of anything being ugly, beautiful. Things will be there, just themselves,with no comparison, no judgment, no labeling.Now try the other, which is a little more difficult. Let the mind be there -- so all the minds arethere but nobody is judging -- for one hour, no judgment. Can beauty be there, can ugliness bethere? Can something be moral and something immoral? Can there be a sinner and a saint?For that one hour, all these categories will disappear and you will have, for the first time, a realcontact with reality as it is, not as projected by you, manufactured by your mind. Your mind iscontinuously manufacturing reality; otherwise, who is a saint and who is a sinner?Man's mind is easily ready for any extreme because the extreme is its life-force. When twoextremes meet, they cancel each other and they leave a vacuum. That's the meaning of themiddle way: let the extremes come to a point where they cancel each other and suddenly youare left neither atheist nor theist. Those questions become irrelevant. But the mind is not readyto drop either in religion, in philosophy, or even in science.Recently i watcheda documentary film on the history of mathematics. The whole history ofmathematics can be said to be the whole problem of the human mind. For two

thousand years or more in the West and for five to ten thousand years in the East,mathematicians have been trying to find the ultimate science.One thing is certain in their eyes, that only mathematics can become the ultimate science, forthe simple reason that there are no mathematical things around you. It is a pure science. Youdon't see mathematical objects: this is a mathematical chair and that is a mathematicalhouse.Mathematics is just a pure ideological game. It consists not of things but ideas. Andbecause ideas are properties of your mind, you can refine them to their ultimate purity.So it has been an accepted thing that mathematics can become the purest science possible. Butthere have been problems. Those mathematicians were not aware that your mind itself is theproblem, and the mind is going to create a science which will have no problems, nocontradictions, no paradoxes.You can play the game. You can make a great edifice but whenever you look at the base, you willknow that at the very base the ultimate problem remains unsolved. For example, Euclid'sgeometry. I could not go much into it for the simple reason that I could not agree with thebasic hypotheses.My teacher of geometry simply told me, "Your problem has nothing to do with me. Find Euclid -get out of the class. Find Euclid and settle things with him. I am a poor teacher, I just get mysalary; I have nothing to do with his fundamental axioms. Whatever is written in the book, Iteach. I am not interested at all whether his fundamental hypotheses are right or wrong. You getout.He wouldn't allow me in the class. I said, "But how can you go on teaching year after yearknowing that the basic points are absurd?"He said, "I never knew; it is you who is hammering on my mind that they are absurd. I havenever bothered; I am not a scientist nor a mathematician, just a poor teacher.And I never wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to be an inspector, but they didn't choose me. Itried to be an inspector, but they didn't choose me. I tried other jobs; everywhere no vacancy. Itis just out of compulsion that I am a teacher here."Don't torture me. Your problem is with Euclid -- don't bring me in. If you want to read what iswritten in the book, I am ready. But if you tell me that the fundamentals are wrong."I said, "I cannot go on unless I am certain about the base, because this is dangerous: thefoundation of the house is missing and you tell me to go on up in a skyscraper. I cannot move asingle inch. First I have to be certain about the foundation, whether the foundation is there

which can support this skyscraper. You are going to fall -- that is your business -- but I am notgoing to fall with you. If you want to commit suicide, do it."He said, "This is strange! With Euclid, nobody commits suicide. What are you talking about?"I said, "I am talking about exactly what I said. It is suicide. Not a single hypothesis of Euclid's isexplainable."And still for two thousand years Euclid has been the foundation, not only of geometry but of allother sciences, because he has to be used in other sciences too. He says about a line, itsdefinition, that it has only length -- only length.I asked my teacher, "Draw a line which has only length. The moment you draw it, it will alsohave some breadth, howsoever tiny." And a point, according to Euclid, has no length, nobreadth. I said, "Make a point which has no length and no breadth. And the same Euclid says aline consists of points -- one point after another point, in a row.Now, a line has only length the point has no length, no breadth -- then how can the line havelength? because it has only points standing in a queue. From where does the length appear?"He just folded his hands to me and said, "Simply go from here. I have told you that I am just apoor teacher and you are beyond me."I said, "This is not the answer. You can simply accept that these axioms are not explainable."But the mind has some difficulty in accepting the idea that something is there which is notexplainable. Mind has a very mad urge for everything to be explained. if not explained, then atleast explained away. Anything that remains a puzzle, a paradox, goes on troubling your mind.The whole history of philosophy, religion, science, mathematics, has the same root, the samemind -- the same itch. You may scratch yourself one way, somebody else may do it differently,but the itch has to be understood.The itch is the belief that existence is not a mystery: mind can only feel at home if somehowexistence is demystified.Religion has done it by creating God, the Holy Ghost, the only begotten son; different religionshave created different things. These are their ways to cover up a hole which is uncoverable;whatever you do the hole is there. In fact the more you cover it, the more emphatically it isthere. Your very effort to cover it shows your fear that somebody is going to see the hole.It used to happen in my childhood every day because I love to climb the trees: the higher thetree, the greater the joy. And naturally I fell many times from the trees; I still carry on my legsand knees and everywhere, scratches. Because I was continually climbing the trees and falling,every day my clothes were torn, and my mother would say, "Don't go out with that hole in yourclothes. Let me do a little patchwork."

I said, "No, no patchwork."She said, "But people will see that you are the son of the best cloth merchant in the town, thatyou are always roaming around the whole town with torn clothes; and nobody takes care."I said, "If you patch it then it becomes ugly. Right now anybody can see it is fresh. I did not comeout of the house with this hole. This is fresh, I have just fallen from a tree.But with your patchwork. this is an old thing that I have been hiding. "Your patchwork willmake me look poor, my torn shirt simply makes me look courageous. Don't be worried about it.But the whole history of mind, in different branches, has been doing this patchwork -particularly in mathematics because mathematics is purely a mind game. There aremathematicians who think it is not, just as there are theologians who think God is a reality. Godis only an idea. And if horses have ideas their God will be a horse. You can be absolutely certainit will not be man, because man has been so cruel to horses that man can only be conceived as adevil not as God. But then every animal will have its own idea of God, just as every human racehas its own idea of God.Ideas are substitutes for where life is mysterious and you find gaps which cannot be filled byreality. You fill those gaps by ideas; and at least you start feeling satisfied that life is understood.Have you ever thought about this word "understand? It means standing under you. It is strangethat this word has by and by taken a meaning which is far fetched from the original idea:anything that you can make stand under you, that is under your thumb, under your power,under your shoe, you are the master of.People have been trying to understand life in that same way, so that they could put life alsounderneath their feet and declare, "we are the masters. Now there is nothing which is notunderstood by us."But it is not possible. Whatever you do life is a mystery and is going to remain a mystery. Even ifyou I mean man someday comes to understand the whole of life, a new problem will arise:"Who is this man, this mind, this consciousness which has understood everything? From wheredoes it come?"In that documentary film one thing will be helpful to you. One of the mathematicians in thebeginning part of the century -- a very famous mathematician, one of the greatest in the wholehistory of mathematics -- Freger, was doing the same work. His whole life he had devoted tocreating a mathematical system which dissolves all paradoxes, all mysteries, all puzzles, andsolves everything -- the ultimate solution.

And he was just going to publish it -- it is published now and it is a tremendous task that he hasdone. But Bertrand Russell -- a young man at that time, and not very famous, just a little bitknown as a philosopher in philosophical circles -- was also interested in mathematics. Later onRussell wrote one of the monumental books on mathematics, PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA, inwhich three hundred and sixty-two pages are devoted only to proving a simple problem: oneplus one is equal to two.The book is just impossible -- to go on trying to read it is enough to drive anybody crazy! EvenBertrand Russell accepted that "after writing that book I have never been so sharp again; mywhole sharpness got lost." Certainly he put too much energy into it, and a strange kind ofenergy; nobody reads that book.Bertrand Russell was interested in mathematics. Knowing that Freger was going to publish abook which was going to solve all paradoxes, mysteries, and mathematical problems, he sent aparadox to this great mathematician who was trying to solve all gr

OSHO The God Conspiracy The path from superstition to superconsciousness . Preface The skeptical mind is one of the most beautiful things in the world. . others, from books, from masters.