Awareness Stories from Osho
A forgetful professor suddenly decided one day that he was neglecting his family, so he went home that evening, kissed his wife and children, shaved, took a shower, changed before dinner, and even told a few funny stories during dinner. After dinner she cleared the table with delight and insisted on washing and rinsing the dishes by herself.
When he went to the living room after putting everything in its place, he found his wife in tears. “Everything went wrong today,” she cried. “The vacuum cleaner broke, the boy broke the glass while playing ball, the girl fell and smashed her best dress, and now you come home so drunk you don't know what you're doing.”
Nobody knows what they're doing. No need to drink. You're just forgetful. You are unconscious – as if you are creating your own unconsciousness. It's like he's always mixed with something alcoholic in his blood. You produce some drugs within yourself. And that's exactly how it happens. If you don't try to be aware, if you don't get rid of your drunkenness, you won't be able to see exactly what's going on.
Normally you do everything like a robot. You drive a car; You don't have to be aware. You use the car like a mechanism. Somehow you got the case. You sing, you smoke, you think about a thousand and one things, while your body drives the car. You are eating: just like a robot. You walk: just like a robot. The body got the job; continues its performance. You don't need to pay attention.
But you need to be careful when there is an accident. When something goes wrong, that's when you pay close attention. Otherwise, you are free to go wherever you want while continuing to think as you wish. You don't have to commit yourself to what you do; you don't need to be there.
For example, if there is a noise from the engine then you are immediately aware of it. But if the car is running well, you keep driving. If all goes well, keep writing. The brain is like a computer: once set up, it operates on its own.
The more efficient you become in life, the more unconscious you become.
Çocuklar daha bilinçlidir. Öyle olmaları gerek, çünkü hiçbir şey bilmiyorlar. Yazı yazmaya ilk başladığın zamanları hatırlıyor musun? Her kelimeyle uğraşıyordun, ve çok dikkatli yazman gerekiyordu. Yazı yazan bir çocuğa bak. Tüm bedeni ve beyni ile kendini işine verir. Bir çift göze dönüşür. Üstelik hiç önemli olmayabilir; yazdığı belki tek bir kelimedir.
***
You may be writing in the name of “love”; it's just an old habit. You are not aware of what you are saying. What exactly do you mean? Because pronouncing the word “love” is of great importance and sacred value. So how do you use or write…I wonder?
“I love my car. I know people who say, “I love my home.” Or, “I love ice cream.” These people are defiling a sacred word. When they say "I love you" to a woman, it doesn't mean much. They say the same for ice cream. They don't involve their hearts, their awareness, their existence.
Children are more aware. Watch a child – full of energy, fresh, open, alert. But we are teaching him something else. Society does not want awareness. Awareness is inconvenient for this so-called society, because society is sick and this society profits from unconsciousness.
What will happen to the cigarette industry then if people become aware of it? What about alcohol producers? What will happen to industries that exploit people's sexuality and sexual desires? What about politicians? What will happen to the clergy? They all owe their existence to your unconsciousness. They can exploit you because you are unconscious.
If a society is more vigilant, that society will rebel; undergoes a revolution. Not that it will make a revolution, because the idea of making a revolution is absurd. Revolution is not something to be done and finished. Revolution is a way of life; is a process. You can't make a revolution and then close the issue. You live so aware that you are always in rebellion. Awareness is not good for this society. The order of this society is based on unawareness.
I heard a story like this:
A small germ cell, a cancerous cell, encounters another cancerous cell in the blood of the body in which they circulate. The first said to the other, “You don't look well. Are you sick or something?" he asks.
He says, "I think I caught penicillin." You can't catch penicillin. You get the flu, you get other diseases. But think of germ cells – they get penicillin.
This society is sick. Awareness kills it. This society cannot survive if most of the people are awake and aware. They create danger. Society immediately grabs children and shuts their minds, blocks their awareness, numbs them – this drug this society calls school, education.
***
I read a story:
“Jones stopped his big, expensive car on an out-of-town road and looked around in amazement. The farmer, who was leaning against a fence near him, called out to his patch, 'Hey, you! How far do I have to go to New York?'
'I don't know,' said the farmer's apprentice after thinking for a while.
‘Well then, which way do I get there the quickest?’
Yamak thought again and said, 'I don't know.
'Well look, where is the nearest gas station where I can find a map?'
Yamak thought for a while, then said again, 'I don't know.
'You don't know much either,' said the man in the car, sneering at him.
Çiftçi yamağı, ‘Ben kaybolmadım ki,’ dedi.”
Children are not lost, but we teach them lessons. And all that we teach creates barriers to life, because life demands open, broad minds in every way. But these lessons require narrow-mindedness – not concentration, attention, awareness.
Awareness is a mind flowing in all directions at once. You are listening to me. At the same time, you listen to the sound of the truck passing by on the street. You are listening to the birds. Nothing is excluded and nothing distracts. Everything coexists. I keep talking; Birds are not disturbed. The birds continue to sing; Why should I be bothered by this?
And if you can listen, if you can be aware, they both become part of the same harmony.
But the teaching system relies entirely on concentration. Concentration is equivalent to poisoning the child. Concentration is narrowing his self. Only one small hole will open, and all other doors will be closed. A tiny hole, you call it concentration, it's open will remain, and this vast sky will be closed…all doors and windows will be closed.
will remain, and this vast sky will be closed…all doors and windows will be closed.
***
What's happening? By the time he gets out of college, he's almost paralyzed. Being forced to concentrate continuously for twenty years… And society attaches great importance to this concentration. Then there are the exams. If it fails, it's damned. If successful, it is appreciated. Now we are playing the ego game. We teach him to be egotistical. We put him in an ugly race - we teach him to be hostile to others. And we teach him that the only value in this society is efficiency, not awareness.
Now we come to the point that needs to be understood. Less awareness is good if you want to be more efficient, because a mechanism is more efficient than a human. The mechanism repeats. It never fails, it never breaks. So the brain must become a machine; Press the button and you will get the answer. Efficiency shoots out at the push of a button.
The whole effort of society is to turn you into efficient mechanisms. Huge sums of money are spent to maim, destroy, paralyze you. Then one day you suddenly realize that you missed everything. You haven't even tasted life yet.
You lived, but you cannot say that you are alive. You loved but you still cannot say that you are in love, you are alive, but you cannot express what the taste and smell of being alive looks like.
The thing called education is the greatest disaster that has ever happened to humanity. And when all this education system is abandoned and a brand new education system is established that is not based on efficiency... Because what difference does it make if people are a little inefficient? What if they were a little more lively, but less efficient? Nothing changes.
If we build education on awareness, then people will not be so efficient in killing and war; as civil servants, politicians, they won't be that efficient - but that's fine. Because if people are inept at killing, that's great! – fewer people die.
***
The problem is not less efficiency. More awareness is needed. And when I say less efficient, I don't necessarily mean it will be like that. When you try anything…for example, walking. If you are alert and aware, you will feel that you cannot walk as fast as before. If you are aware while driving, you will find that you cannot drive as efficiently as before. But this is only in the beginning. You'll see in a few days – productivity returns, without wasting awareness. When efficiency and awareness go together, it's great, you have to embrace it. Otherwise you live your life almost as if you were dead.
Something like this once happened:
A man had been going to a psychiatrist for months because he thought he was a dog. One day, a friend asked him how his treatment was going.
"Well," said the patient, "I can't say I'm fully recovered. But I've come a long way. Thanks to my psychiatrist, I no longer chase after cars.”
If you continue to live unconscious and like a robot, you can only change that much. You remain a dog; at best you stop chasing cars.
The whole mechanism of society keeps trying to keep you unconscious. If unconsciousness disrupts society's function, then society becomes a wall of anxiety. Then he tries to help you. If you're not chasing cars - it's going to mess up traffic - it's okay if you're not chasing cars but you're still dreaming of yourself as a dog; society is not worried.
Society doesn't care about you and your brain. But if you create a problem for the community then it gets worried. Otherwise, it is acceptable, quite innocent to think of yourself as a dog. It's not a sin - just don't chase cars. If you bring your fantasies to life, you commit a crime. But it's okay if they remain fantasy; society is not worried.
This is the difference between sin and crime. If you think you're a dog but you're not a dog, that's a sin. It's a sin because you miss being human. If you chase cars it's a crime because you're upsetting the traffic and the traffic cop is getting angry. Then you need to be treated.
People are almost insane, but society doesn't worry about them… unless someone crazy is causing trouble. There is no difference in quality between you and the madmen in the asylums; There is only a quantitative difference. They are one hundred and one degrees and you are ninety-nine degrees. They're there, and you're here, but the difference isn't big – one or two more steps and you can go crazy. But society tolerates you. If it's confined to private life, your insanity is accepted. If you display it in public then there will be trouble.
Bilinçli olmadığın takdirde deli olarak kalırsın. Deli olduğunu düşünmeyebilirsin, kimse sana delirdiğini söylemeyecektir, ama delisindir işte. Sadece bir Buda deli değildir. Sadece aydınlanmış bilinçler deli değildir. Buna ulaşılmadığı sürece her şey yitiriliyor – ve fırsat her an daha uzağa kaçıyor.
Many times people decide to change themselves, but this decision is also part of their unconsciousness; it doesn't work very well. Here is the importance of trusting a master, a master. You are in a deep sleep; You cannot wake yourself up. At most, you can see that you are awake in your dreams. You need a reliable alarm clock. But an alarm clock is an alarm clock after all. It will interrupt your sleep, but you can be cunning. You may dream that you are sitting in a temple and the bells are ringing. Then the alarm clock will not work; can't help.
You need a live alarm clock – a master will do – it won't fool you, it will keep shaking you; it will shake you from your sleep. Your decisions are not worth much because they are your decisions. You cannot trust them.
The next day, on his way to work, the man ran into his friend. “So,” said his friend expectantly, “did he forgive you?”
“No,” she said, “but she gave me three good ideas.”
An unconscious mind thinks this way. He cannot be trusted. A man was saying to his friend, “I have made my decision; It's time for me to change. Never another I will no longer look at the woman. Tonight I will confess to my wife and ask her to forgive me.”
His friend said, “I'm glad to hear that. The time has come for that.”
That evening his wife was very hurt by the man's confession and wanted to know who the woman who had entered his heart was. Was that the blonde at the post office?
"No," said the man in a gentlemanly manner. "I can not say."
His wife continued. "It's definitely that model sitting on the side street." The man remained silent. “I found out who it is – the brunette at the Chinese restaurant.”
"Sorry, I can't tell."
“All right,” his wife said angrily. "I won't forgive you if you don't tell me who you are."
The next day, on his way to work, the man ran into his friend. “So,” said his friend expectantly, “did he forgive you?”
“No,” she said, “but she gave me three good ideas.”
An unconscious mind thinks this way. He cannot be trusted.
Osho – “The Man Who Loved Seagulls”
