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Beloved Master, You Want Us To Be Individuals, But During Work In The Ashram We Have To Be Very Disciplined. Discipline And Individualism - Are They Not Diametrically Opposite?*

Part 2

And you have remained a multiplicity for so long, for so many lives, that unless concentrated effort is made, unless you are attacked from every nook and corner, unless your sleep is broken in every possible way, you are shaken and shocked, the individual is not going to be born. The work that is happening in the commune is not really what it appears from the surface. It is something else – it is a device! We have to use devices.

Somebody comes to me and wants to become part of the commune, and I say to him, "Go to Deeksha." Deeksha is my device! I have given her total power – and I have given her total power because she is so loving, so soft, so caring. She wounds people, but she heals also. By one hand she hammers, by the other she consoles. She is a device. And when I say to you, "Go and work with Deeksha," and she shouts at you and in every possible way she provokes you, it is discipline to watch – not to act in your old ways, as you have always acted. And she is so motherly that it is very simple to react to her as you have been reacting to your own parents. It is very simple that she will create a reaction in you that your mother creates in you. Mothers are intolerable creatures – and Deeksha is a perfect mother!

I know, Sudarshan, it is difficult – but growth is difficult. Many more devices are going to be created. You will be sent to many dimensions. No corner of your being has to be left undeveloped, otherwise you will become lopsided. And the first principle of discipline is surrender. Apparently it looks contradictory, because that's what you have been told: that if you surrender, then you are no longer an individual. And I say to you, if you cannot surrender you are not an individual.

Only an individual can surrender. Surrender is such a great phenomenon, only a man of great will can surrender. It is the ultimate in will. To drop your will is bound to be ultimate in will. To put yourself aside, absolutely aside, and to say to something such a total yes – which your mind resists, your old habits resist.... And sometimes you are right – and that's where the whole beauty lies. You are right, and still you have to surrender to something which does not appear at all right logically.

Deeksha is crazy! You may be far more intellectual, far more rational – but you have to surrender to Deeksha. Her craziness is her quality – that's why I have chosen her. I have got many more rational people: I could have chosen a Ph.D. who would have convinced you that he is right. But when you are convinced and you follow, it is not surrender. When you are not convinced at all, you see the apparent stupidity of a certain thing, and still you surrender, that is a great step, a great step of getting out of your past.

This commune is a lab, this commune is an alchemical process. You come here as a crowd and I have to weld you into unity. Much hammering is going to happen, and you will come out of this whole process as pure individuals. Discipline is the way to create individuality. But remember: to be an individual is not to be an individualist. Individualism is an ego trip. And the people who believe in individualism are not individuals, remember – remember well. Deep down they know they are not individuals, hence they create a facade of philosophy, of logic, of argument, because deep down they don't feel they are individuals. They pretend on the outside that they are individuals – they believe in individualism.

  

Believing in individualism is not becoming an individual. Belief is always false. When you are an individual you need not believe in individualism. When it is a truth of your being, belief is not needed. Belief is needed only to cover things: you don't know about God and you believe in God. The believer is an atheist. He may be a Christian, a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, it doesn't matter: a believer is an atheist. He does not know about God, and still he believes. That means he is even trying to deceive God! He is a hypocrite, he is a parrot. Parrotlike he goes on repeating what the scriptures say, what others say. And parrots can repeat beautifully, without understanding a thing, without knowing a thing, mechanically.

The believer is a parrot. The believer knows nothing. The believer is an atheist in disguise. He is trying to befool himself, the world and even God. The man who believes in individualism is not an individual. The man who is really an individual need not believe – he knows it, so what is the point of believing?

Belief is always needed in ignorance, and individualism is a belief. To be an individual is an experience! Individualism is very cheap, but to be an individual needs arduous discipline. It needs great perseverance, work, watchfulness. It comes only out of years of effort in awareness, in meditation.

And whatsoever is happening here in this commune, Sudarshan, is nothing but different ways to introduce you to meditation. In the kitchen, in the carpentry shop, in the soap workshop, in the boutique – whatsoever is happening, apparently it looks as if it is the same ordinary thing as happens everywhere else. It is not. If you go and see the carpenters working, of course they go on working like any other carpenters anywhere else – but with a different quality. That quality cannot be seen. You will have to become a participant, only then will you slowly feel it. That quality is of trust, love.

My sannyasins are here because they love me, for no other reason. They are simply here with me to be here with me. For the sake of being here with me they are ready to do anything. But whatsoever they are doing is only the outer part. You will see the body of the work but you will not be able to see the spirit of the work. For that you will have to become a participant.

And, Sudarshan, it seems that you are still a spectator. Maybe you are working in the commune, but still you have not become a participant – otherwise such a question would have been impossible.

 

* Osho The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 Chapter #6; Chapter title: Through a glass darkly; 26 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall; Question 2

Updated on 22-12-2019







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