CHAPTER 14. TUG OF WAR
guilt. Yes, man has limitations. Sometimes you may not be able to fulfil my advice. It’s okay. But it is only for the exceptional cases when you cannot fulfil my advice, it is just to help you so that you don’t become burdened with guilt. Otherwise there is nothing.... You have to feel that you have not been able to fulfil, that something has been missed, but it is not a question of guilt. You have missed something, that is enough punishment. So if it happens sometimes, it’s okay, but it should not be the rule, it is just the exception. But whenever something feels good to your ego, you immediately jump upon it; otherwise you go on listening – completely deaf! You don’t listen to what I am saying, you only listen to that which you want to hear. And then you are very clever at twisting it. From your very childhood you have been a twister. You have learned how to deceive, how to be pseudo; you have learned how to interpret things in such a way that they are always according to you. From the very childhood, somewhere near the age of three, a child starts learning to twist. He becomes a follower of Saint Twistopher. Twistopher – you may not have heard the name of the saint – is the patron saint of go-go girls and all kinds of twisters! Twisting is one of the deep-rooted things in you – diplomacy, politics, cunningness. And once a child has learned twisting, he goes on twisting. And by and by it becomes his whole which he wants to hear; he does not see that which he does not want to see; he becomes a chooser. Scientists say that out of a hundred things, you listen to only two per cent. And out of a hundred things, you see only two per cent. But remember, then you live only two per cent. To live two per cent is almost not to live at all. What kind of life is this? And this happens every day. I say something. You are sitting there with all your prejudices intact, all your cunningness intact, all your stupidity intact. Something enters you – immediately the twisting starts. Your mechanism starts functioning, clicking. By the time it reaches to your consciousness it is no longer what was said, it is absolutely something else. This is why it is difficult for you to receive help. Help is given all the time, it is showering on you, but you will have to become better receptors. You change, you try to change, but the change remains very superficial. When I give sannyas to people, sometimes they ask, ’Why should one change one’s name, why should one change one’s dress? Is not the change of heart enough?’ I know that the change of heart is enough, but I cannot expect that from you right now. Even to expect the change of dress is more than enough. Even in that you will find cunning ways. You will find tricks. Just a few days ago an Indian sannyasin came and I asked him, ’What happened to your dress?’ He said, ’But this is orange. ’ Then I had to look again because it looked white. Yes, it was orange, but so faint – my eyes are perfectly okay – that I had to look very, very carefully. Then I recognised that yes, a little tinge of orange was there. If a man of my sensitivity and vision cannot see it, then nobody will be able to see it! I was surprised. I asked him, ’How do you manage to see it? You are so dense, I don’t think you can see it. You are so thick.’ I know that by changing the name or by changing the dress, nothing essential is happening, but you live in the non-essential. What can I do? I have to start from where you are. Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1
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Osho