BELOVED OSHO,
I AM ALSO GETTING OLD. WOULD YOU TELL
ME A FEW LAWS FOR MIDDLE AGE ALSO?
Everybody is getting old. Since the
day you were born, you have been getting old - each moment, each day.
Childhood is a flux, so is youth - just old age never ends, because it
terminates! That is the unique quality of old age, that it brings you to
ultimate rest. But you want a few laws for middle age... You are a man of
medicine, you should know better.
As far as I am concerned, I have
never been a child, never a youth, and never become old and never will die. I
know only one thing in me that is absolutely unchanging and eternal. But just
for your sake...
There are many laws about middle age,
because all over the world people become old. And many thinkers have been
thinking: What is this old age? The first law is The Never's Lost Law;
obviously about old age, the law can be the last: Never speculate on that
which can be known for certain.
You know perfectly well you are
getting old, now don't speculate on that, that will make you more miserable.
The law is beautiful, never speculate
on that which can be known for certain. In fact, in life, except death nothing
is certain; everything can be speculated upon, but not death. And old age is
just the door to death.
Middle age is when you begin to
exchange your emotions for symptoms.
Lendel's Law: You know you are
getting old when a girl calls "No," and all you feel is relief.
Old age is when you start to turn out the lights for economical rather than
romantic reasons!
Old age is that period of life when your idea of getting ahead is staying
even.
Old age is when you can do just as much as ever, but would rather not.
Old age is a mysterious experience,
but all these laws have been found by the Western mind. I have not been able
to discover anybody in the whole literature of the East talking about old age.
On the contrary, old age has been praised immensely, because in the East it
has been thought that you are not old. If your life has simply moved on the
horizontal line, you are only aged. But if your life, your consciousness, has
moved vertically, upwards, then you have attained the beauty, the glory of old
age. Old age in the East has been synonymous with wisdom.
These are the two paths: one is
horizontal, from childhood to youth, to old age and to death; another is
vertical, from childhood to youth, to old age, and to immortality. The
difference in quality of both the dimensions is immense, incalculable. The man
who simply becomes young, and old, and dead, has remained identified with his
body. He has not known anything about his being, because being is never born
and never dies; it is always, it has been always, it will be always, it is the
whole of eternity.
On the vertical line the child
becomes young, but the youth on the vertical line will be different from the
youth on the horizontal line. Childhood is innocent, but that is the point
from where these two different dimensions open up. The youth on the horizontal
line is nothing but sensuality, sexuality and all kinds of other stupidities.
The youth on the vertical line is a search for truth, is a search for life - it is a longing to know oneself.
A man on the vertical line cannot be
called young if he is not meditative, and the same is true about old age. On
the horizontal line, old age is simply trembling, afraid of death; It cannot
think of anything except a graveyard, and darkness which goes on becoming
darker and darker. It cannot conceive of himself except as a skeleton.
On the vertical line, old age is a
celebration; it is as beautiful as man has ever been. Youth is a little
foolish - is bound to be; it is inexperienced, but old age has passed through
all the experiences - good and bad, right and wrong - and has come to a
state where it is no longer affected by anything concerned with body or mind.
It is a welcome! Old age on the
vertical line is keeping its door open for the ultimate guest to come in. It
is not an end, it is a beginning of a real life, of an authentic being.
Hence, I continuously make the
distinction between growing old and growing up. Very few people have been
fortunate to grow up; the remainder of humanity has only been growing old. And
naturally they are all moving towards death. Only on the vertical line does
death not exist; that is the way to immortality, to divinity. And naturally,
when one becomes old on that dimension, he has a grace and a beauty and a
compassion and love.
On the vertical line there is
love, no law; there is the growing experience of becoming more and more
spiritual and less and less physical, more and more meditative and less and
less mind, more and more divine and less and less of this trivial material
world in which we are so much enmeshed.
On the vertical line, slowly you feel
desires disappearing, sensuality disappearing, sexuality disappearing,
ambitions disappearing, will to power disappearing... your slavery in all its
aspects disappearing - religious, political, national. You become more of an
individual. And with your individuality growing clear and luminous, the whole
humanity is becoming one in your eyes - you cannot discriminate.
There are great experiences on the
vertical line; on the horizontal line there is only decline. On the horizontal
line the old man lives in the past. He thinks of those beautiful days, those
Arabian nights when he was young; he thinks also of those beautiful days when
there was no responsibility and he was a child running after butterflies. In
fact, for his whole life he has been running after butterflies - even in old
age.
Mulla Nasruddin was passing along a
street...
And he saw a beautiful young woman so
he gave her a good nudge. The woman was shocked, because Mulla was old; all
his hairs were pure silver white. The woman said: "You should be ashamed -
all your hairs are pure white. You are the age of my grandfather - you
should have been dead by now. You are showing your ugliness...
Mulla said: "Listen, my hairs are white, that's true, but my heart is
still black - dark black."
On the horizontal line, that's what
happens - your hairs will become white, but you don't become white. In fact,
on the contrary: as you grow old, you become more and more infatuated by
desires, because now you know that ahead there is only death. So you enjoy as
much as possible, although enjoying becomes difficult, physically you have
lost the energy. So the old man on the horizontal line becomes cerebrally
sexual; he is continuously thinking of sex.
Psychologists have been watching
thousands of people, and they have concluded that every man thinks of a woman
at least once in three minutes. Just check it! That will show you on what line
you are - horizontal or vertical. And each woman thinks of a man one time in
seven minutes. That is the difference that creates conflict. The moment the
husband comes and asks: "Dear, what about it?" and she says: "I
have a headache, don't torture me any more..." The difference is that she
thinks of it only one time in seven minutes, that means one day in seven
days...!
The man thinks of the woman one time
in three minutes, that is average. In old age those three minutes shrink into
one minute. The old man has nothing else to do but to think - and what else
is there to think about? He imagines beautiful women.
One day Mulla Nasruddin was sitting
on his balcony watching the beautiful sunset...
And suddenly he shouted to his servant: "Bring my glasses, bring my
glasses quickly!"
The servant said: "What calamity has happened?" He brought his
glasses.
Mulla said: "You idiot, when I say quick it mean quick. We missed the
opportunity."
The servant said: "I don't understand, what opportunity?"
He said: "Such a beautiful woman was going by, but my eyes can't figure
out whether she is a woman or a man, whether she is really beautiful or I am
imagining. Glasses were needed, but by the time you brought the glasses she
was gone."
The servant said: "You are under the wrong impression; she was not a
woman! He is my brother who has come to see me. Nobody else has passed."
So rather than being worried about
the laws of old age, think about which line your train is moving on. There is
still time to change trains; there is always time to change trains because
from every moment that bifurcation is available. You can shift, shift from the
horizontal to the vertical; only that is important.
Just as disease can be contagious,
health can also be. Just as misery can be contagious, blissfulness can also
be.
One lighted being is bound to create
an urgent, instant longing in others to have the same light. One person
dancing and singing with abandon, is bound to affect people, because they are
also carrying the same song hidden, the same dance. They have been crippled by
their society. They also have the same eyes for beauty, but they had been
blinded by the society. They have also the energy to celebrate, but this
society does not believe in celebration.
This society is absolutely insane. It
believes in money, it believes in power, it believes in violence, it believes
in rapes, it believes in murder, it believes in all kinds of crimes, and it
believes in all kinds of fictions, but it does not understand even a little
bit about itself.
The moment a small window opens into
you, you are a transformed being. The new man is born in you.
Enjoy this celebration as much as
possible, because whatever remaining falsities, personalities, parts here and
there may have remained, they will be thrown away by your dance. Enjoy... this
existence is for your enjoyment. It is our existence, it is our home.
Nobody is a sinner except those who
don't celebrate.
To me, celebration is the only
virtue.....
A man was visiting his friend George,
who was in hospital dying. The friend said: "Well, anyway George, you
have lived a good life. For sure you will be going to heaven."
George replied: "Yes, I have
lived a good life, but there is something I never told you."
"What is that?" asked his
friend.
"Remember that time I went to
Chicago on business last year? Well, I made love with a beautiful woman
there."
Shocked, his friend replied: "I
can't believe it. I mean, your wife, your kids - did you not think about
them?"
"Yes, I did," replied George: "and then I thought I might as well see what heaven is like,
since I already knew what hell was like."
You have known hell; now you are
entering into heaven. Everybody has suffered for many lives in hell. Hell is
nowhere in the geography of the world, of the universe; it is in your
distorted mind. It is another name for a distorted mind, and heaven is another
name for a mind which has transcended itself and reached into a space of
no-mind. Hence my insistence continuously for silence.
Blessed are those who allow
themselves to be contagious to festivity, to love, to peace, to silence, to
celebration.
A
LIMITLESS SKY
