Don’t Seek Outside

… and very serious, Please don’t take it as a joke. Chitananda asked Osho.

BY THE WAY, YOU ARE THE ONLY NON-NEUROTIC PERSON AROUND. WHY DON’T YOU HAVE CHILDREN? DO ENLIGHTENED PERSONS HAVE CHILDREN SOMETIMES?

I never thought about it.

You may not learn anything from my answers, but I go on learning from your questions: a very good idea. I will remember it. But there is a practical problem: it is very difficult to find a non-neurotic woman.

First, it is difficult to find a non-neurotic person, and then a woman? – Almost impossible. The difficulty is multiplied.

Let me tell you one anecdote.

A very wealthy city financier was a wizard on the stock exchange but was very lousy on the golf course. He was in the habit of taking out his bad temper on his caddy, and one morning, after a particularly bad round, he shouted, “You must be just about the worst caddy in the world!” “Oh, no sir,” replied the caddy, “that would be too much of a coincidence!”

The worst golfer and the worst caddy in the world? – That would be too much of a coincidence.

To find a non-neurotic woman would be too much of a coincidence. It has not happened before, and I don’t think it can happen. Never has it been known that any enlightened man had any children.

Yes, you may have heard that Buddha had a son, but that happened before he became enlightened.

Mahavir had a daughter, but that too happened before he became enlightened. Gurdjieff had many children from many women, but that too happened before he became enlightened. And you must be well aware that those children, even Buddha’s son Rahul, did not prove much of a Buddha’s son.

Mahavir’s daughter has not proved in any way a Mahavir’s daughter; she proved ordinary. She was so ordinary that one of the sects of Jainism believes that this is just a myth: Mahavir never got married and he never had any children. The daughter was so ordinary, almost as if she was not. Have you ever heard of any enlightened person’s son or daughter becoming enlightened? The coincidence is too much of a coincidence.

And there is something else involved. First, a non-neurotic person finding a non-neurotic woman, and then both together finding a non-neurotic soul to be born. The problem is very complicated because you seek a woman only because you are neurotic. Because you have not met with your inner woman yet, you seek a woman. You seek a man because you have not met with your inner man yet. Because you are not a complete whole inside, you go out.

First, the moment you become a whole inside – that’s the meaning of being a holy person, a person who is whole – then you don’t seek outside. There is no need. You also don’t escape. If a woman comes along, you don’t run away and you don’t report to the police that a woman is coming along.

That too is good. If a woman comes along, perfectly good. If she goes away, that too is perfectly good.

And you give birth to children; that too out of neurosis – because you always want occupation, somewhere to be occupied. Your basic occupation is with the future, and children make the future available to you. Through them, your ambitions will be able to move. When you are gone, your children will be here. When you were trying to become a prime minister and you could not, your children will become. You will prepare them and the continuity will be there.

When one dies, and if one does not leave any children behind, one feels at a dead-end, a cul-de-sac.

But when you leave children behind you feel a sort of immortality through them: “That’s okay; I am dying, nothing to worry about. But a part of me will be living through my child.” People are much too interested in children because they are much too afraid of death. Children give you a false notion of immortality, a continuity of some sort. A non-neurotic person is not interested in children, is not interested in any sort of continuity. He has found the eternal, and he is not worried about death.

A few anecdotes about why it is so impossible to find a non-neurotic woman… I will not comment; I will simply read a few anecdotes.

Mrs. Cohen had come into some money and asked an interior decorator to re-do her house. Mr. Jones asked, “Certainly Mrs. Cohen, I will be glad to help. Can you give me some idea of your taste? Do you like modern decor?”

“No.”

“Swedish style?”

“No.”

“Italian provincial?”

“No.”

“Moorish? Spanish?”

“No.”

“Well you know, Mrs. Cohen, you really must give me some idea of your taste, otherwise I will not even be able to get started. What is it exactly that you have in mind?”

“Decor, schmecor. What I want is that when my friends come to visit, they will take one look and drop dead!”

The second: The young couple was engaged in a most affectionate embrace when there came the sound of a key in the front door. The young lady broke away at once, eyes wide with alarm.

“Heavens!” she cried, “it is my husband. Quick, jump out of the window!”

The young man, equally alarmed, made a step toward the window, then demurred. “I can’t! We are on the thirteenth floor!”

“For heaven’s sake!” cried the young lady in exasperation. “Is this a time to be superstitious?”

Third: The wife came home wearing a new hat. “Where did you get that hat?” her husband asked.

“At a clearance sale.”

“No wonder they wanted to clear it out,” he said. “It makes you look like an idiot.”

“I know it.”

“Then why in the world did you buy it?” he demanded.

“I will tell you,” she said. “When I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror, I looked too stupid to argue with the clerk.”

The fourth: Mulla Nasrudin was telling me that marriage is the process of finding out what kind of man your wife would have preferred. “My wife said to me this morning, ‘If you really loved me, you would have married someone else.’ I assured her that I was very happy being married to her, and said, ‘If I could change places with Richard Burton, I would not do it.’ She said, ‘I know you wouldn’t. You never do anything to please me.’”

This is it!