Understanding Is Needed

We will have a few questions from Yoga Sutra 47.

Question to Osho – WHILE TALKING ABOUT WISDOM, INSIGHTS, AND ENLIGHTENMENT, YOU OFTEN SAY ‘WE IN THE EAST’. PLEASE EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THIS PHRASE.

THE EAST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EAST. The East is just symbolic of the inner space, of the inner world of consciousness. East is symbolic of religion, West is symbolic of science. So even if in the East a person attains a scientific attitude, he becomes Western. He may live in the East, he may be born in the East – that doesn’t matter. Or, whenever a person attains religious consciousness – he may be born in the West, it makes no difference – he begins to be a part of the East. Jesus, Francis, Eckhart, Boehme, Wittgenstein, even Henry Thoreau, Emerson, Swedenborg – they are all Eastern. Always remember, The East is symbolic. I am not concerned with geography.

So whenever I say ‘we in the East’, I mean all who have come to know the inner reality. And whenever I say ‘you in the West’, I simply mean the scientific mind, the technological mind, the Aristotelian mind: rational, mathematical, scientific, but not intuitive; objective but not subjective.

Once you understand it, then there will be no problem. All the great religions were born in the East.

The West has not yet produced a great religion. Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Tao: they were all produced in the East. It is something like a feminine mind, and it has to be so because on every level there is a meeting of yin and yang, the male and the female. The circle has to be divided. The East functions as a feminine part, the West functions as a male part.

The male mind is aggressive; science is aggressive. The feminine mind is receptive; religion is receptive. Science tries hard. It forces nature to reveal its secrets. Religion simply waits, prays and waits, invokes but does not force; calls, cries, weeps, persuades, almost seduces nature to reveal its mysteries and secrets, but the effort is feminine. Hence, meditation. When the effort is male, aggressive, it is like the laboratory: all sorts of instruments to torture nature, to force nature to reveal its secrets, to hand over the key. The male mind is an attack. The male mind is a rapist mind, and science is a rape. Religion is the mind of a lover; it can wait. It can wait infinitely.

So whenever I say ‘we in the East’, I mean all, wherever they were born, wherever they were brought up. They are spread all over the world. The East is spread all over the world, just as the West is spread all over the world. When somebody from India gets a Nobel prize for his scientific discoveries, he is a Western mind. He’s no more part of the East, he’s no more part of the Eastern tradition. He has changed his home, he has changed his address. Now he has fallen in line, in the queue with Aristotle.

The East is within you, and we call it ‘East’ because East is nothing but the rising sun: awareness, consciousness, alertness.

So never be confused whenever I say ‘we in the East’. I don’t mean the countries that are in the East, no. I mean the consciousness that is Eastern. I don’t mean India when I use the word ‘India’.

It is a bigger thing for me. It is not just on the map as other countries. It is simply symbolic of the tremendous energy that India has put into the inner search. So wherever you are born, if you start moving towards God, you become Indian. Suddenly, your pilgrimage towards India starts. You may come to India or you may not come; that is not the point. But you have started your pilgrimage.

And the day you realize, suddenly you will become part of Gautam Buddha, Mahavir the Jaina, the Upanishadic seers, the rishis of the Vedas, Krishna, Patanjali. Suddenly, you are no more part of the technological mind, the logical mind; you have become supra-logical.

Question to Osho – I AM OFTEN ONE OF THE CROCODILES OF WHICH YOU SPEAK, AND SURE ENOUGH, BODHI SHOWS EVERY SIGN OF BECOMING ONE OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS. THAT’S FINE, BUT WHAT OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE WRETCHED CROCODILE?

It is from Prem Madhuri.

The woman has suffered long because the feminine mind has suffered long. The woman has been oppressed for a long time because the feminine mind has been oppressed for a long time. Centuries upon centuries of oppression, exploitation, suppression; much violence has been done against women. Naturally, she has become cunning. Naturally, she has become very clever in devising subtle methods to torture men. That is natural. That is the way of the weak. Nagging, bitching – that is the way of the weak.

Unless you understand it, you will not be able to drop it.

Why do women go on continuously nagging men, continuously finding ways and means to torture them? It is unconscious. It is centuries of repression that have poisoned their being, and of course, they cannot attack directly. That is not possible for many reasons. One: they are more fragile than man. They may learn karate, aikido, judo, but that will not make much difference. They are fragile; that is their beauty. If they learn too much karate and judo and ju-jitsu and aikido and become very muscular and strong, they will lose something – they will not gain. They will lose their femininity, they will lose their flower-like fragility, delicacy. That is not worth the effort.

A woman is fragile. She’s meant to be that way. She has a deeper harmony than man. She’s more musical, more rhythmic than man, more rounded. One thing: because of her fragileness she could not be as aggressive as man. Another thing: man has been training her in a certain way; man has been giving her a certain mind which does not allow her to move out of her bondage. It has been so long that it has reached to her very bones. She has accepted it. But freedom is such a thing that whatsoever happens, you remain freedom-oriented. You can never lose the desire to be free, because that is the desire to be religious, that is the desire to be divine. Freedom remains the goal, whatsoever happens.

So, what to do when there is no way to revolt and the whole society is that of man? How to fight it? How to protect a little dignity? So a woman has become cunning and diplomatic. She starts doing things which are not directly an attack, but indirect. She fights with a man in subtle ways. That has made her almost a crocodile. She waits continuously for her opportunity to take revenge. She may not be aware of anything in particular that she is fighting against, but she is just a woman, and she represents all womanhood. Centuries and centuries of indignities and humiliation are there. Your man may not have done anything wrong to you, but he is the representative of all men. You cannot forget it. You love the man, this man, but you cannot love the organization that men have created.

You can love this man, but you cannot forgive man as such. And whenever you look into this man, you find the male mind there, and you start.

This is very unconscious. This creates a certain neurosis in women. More women are neurotic than men. It is natural, because they live in a man-made society, tailored for men, and they have to fit into it. It is tailored by men for men, and they have to live in it, they have to fit into it. They have to cut many of their parts, their limbs – alive limbs – to fit into the mechanical role that is given to them by man. They resist, they fight, and a certain neurosis arises out of this continuous fight. This is what bitching is.

I have heard: A sweet old lady went to a pet shop. Just in the shop window was a very beautiful dog, and she said to the shop owner, “That nice, sweet dog you have in the shop window?”

He said, “Yes lady, a very beautiful bitch. Isn’t she beautiful?”

The woman was enraged. She said, “What! Watch your tongue! Don’t use such words. This is a respectable part of the town. Be a little more cultured!”

Even the shop owner was a little puzzled, embarrassed. He said, “Sorry, but have you never heard the word used before?”

The lady said, “I have heard it used before, but never for a sweetie, sweet doggie!”

It is always used for women.

Just the other day I was reading a book called BITCHING, written of course by a woman.

Something has gone very, very wrong. It is not a question of one woman, it is a question of womanhood. But by bitching and nagging and constant quarrelling, it cannot be remedied. That is not a remedy for it. Understanding is needed.

The question is certainly right. Madhuri is a crocodile and she does much nagging and quarrelling with Bodhi. Of course, Bodhi is growing out of it. He has changed a lot. The whole credit goes to Madhuri. When you have to live with a woman continuously fighting and nagging, either you escape or you become a philosopher, that is certain. Only two ways are available: either you escape, or you start thinking that this is just maya, dream, illusion: “This Madhuri is nothing but a dream….”

You become detached. That is also a way of escaping. You remain there physically, but spiritually you go far away. You create a distance. You hear the sounds Madhuri is making, but as if on some other planet. Let her do; by and by, you become detached; by and by, you become indifferent. For Bodhi it has been good.

Now, Madhuri is asking, “That’s fine for Bodhi, but what of the consciousness of the wretched crocodile?” Do the same as Bodhi is doing. What is he doing? He’s becoming more and more of a watcher. He is not offended at what you are saying and doing. Even if you are hitting him, he will watch it, as if something natural is happening: old leaves are falling from the trees – what to do? A dog is barking – what to do? It is night and it is dark – what to do? One accepts, and in that acceptance one watches whatsoever is happening. Do the same. Just as Bodhi is watching you, you also watch yourself. Because that crocodile is not your inner essence. No, it is nobody’s inner essence. That crocodile is just out of the wounds that you are carrying in your mind, and those wounds have nothing to do with Bodhi. Those wounds may have been done by somebody else or may not have been done by anybody in particular, but just by society.

Watch when you start behaving in a neurotic way, in a neurotic style. Watch it!

Just as Bodhi is watching you, you also watch yourself.

And a distance will arise, and you will be able to see your own mind creating unnecessary trouble.

You will gather awareness. Continuously watching things, one gets out of the mind, because the watcher is beyond the mind.

If you don’t do that, the possibility is that as Bodhi grows more and more philosophical and understanding, you will become more and more of a bitch – because you will think that he is becoming cold, you will think he is getting far away, and you will start hitting him harder, you will start fighting harder. Seeing that he is going somewhere else, leaving you, you will take more and more revenge. Before it happens, become alert.