Worth
On the Virtues of Uselessness
These two osho discourses are related to this card;
especially the talk which starts from one star “＊”.
Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1 : chapter 2 question 5
The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2 : chapter 8 question 3
＊ ＊ ＊
Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1
chapter 2
Ordinariness
question 5
The last question
Question 5
LAO TZU MAY BE SUPERB,
HE MAY BE THE VERY PEAK OF TRUTH,
BUT HIS VERY HEIGHT RENDERS HIM USELESS FOR ORDINARY PEOPLE LIKE US.
CAN’T IT BE SAID, ON THE OTHER HAND,
THAT MAHAVIR AND MOSES AND MOHAMMED ARE MUCH MORE PRACTICAL AND HELPFUL?
THEY ARE.
They are much more practical, much more helpful.
But they are helpful
because they don’t change you completely;
they compromise,
they don’t transform you totally.
They look helpful;
they are practical,
that’s certain – Mohammed or Moses –
absolutely practical
because with your mind they fit.
That’s why they look practical.
Whatsoever you think is practical they also think is practical.
Lao Tzu is totally different from your mind
and that is the possibility of transformation.
With Mohammed you will not be transformed.
You may become a Mohammedan,
you may become a good man,
you may become virtuous even,
but you will remain on the same track
– the dimension will not change.
With Mahavir you will remain the same
– better but the same,
modified but the same, refined, painted, renovated
– but the same.
With Lao Tzu you will be destroyed completely and will be reborn.
He is death and resurrection.
Try to understand why it is so.
You can understand Mahavir;
his calculation is of your mind
– his logic is not beyond you.
That’s why he looks practical.
And it is not coincidence that all his followers became businessmen
– calculating, mathematical, practical people.
It is not coincidence that all Jains became businessmen:
they are more mathematical, more clever, calculating.
And it is not coincidence that Jews are the most calculating men on the earth, the most calculating community – clever.
Jains and Jews are almost the same;
Jains are the Jews of India.
Why is it so?
Moses is practical,
Mahavir is also practical.
I am reminded of an anecdote;
it belongs to the very beginning of the world.
God was in search of a community that would take his ten commandments.
The world was going a little chaotic,
and morality and ethics were needed.
So he approached many communities,
but nobody accepted.
He reached the Hindus and said,
”I have ten commandments to offer to you.
This is a whole philosophy of life.”
And the Hindus asked:
”For instance?
Just tell us about one commandment...”
And God said,
”Be true. Be honest.”
The Hindus said,
”It will be difficult in the world of maya.
In this illusion, one needs untruth also.
Sometimes, in this world of dreams...
how can one be always true?
It will be difficult, and
why create unnecessary difficulties?”
He asked other races.
Some people said that it would be too much not to be adulterous,
because life would lose all interest.
Adultery gives life interest, a fantasy.
It would be too much, then life wouldn’t be worth living.
And God became frustrated.
From everywhere he was rejected.
And it is said then he approached Moses, and he said:
”I have got ten commandments for you.”
Now he was afraid because this was the last race.
”Would you like to have them?”
He was expecting that Moses would ask,
”What are these commandments?”
But he never asked. He asked:
”What is the price? How much does it cost?”
And God said,
”They are free of charge.”
And Moses said,
”Then I will have two sets of them.”
Calculating, mathematical, clever, intelligent
– Jews are only two per cent of the people in the world
but they get eighteen per cent of the Nobel prizes.
Two per cent of the people and eighteen per cent of the Nobel prizes!
It is a very very difficult phenomenon.
Two per cent of the people
but they run almost the whole world,
and everywhere they are rejected,
everywhere condemned.
But they are so practical and so clever.
The three persons who have ruled this whole century are all Jews:
Marx,
Einstein.
Three persons who have ruled the whole world
– they are all Jews.
Why does it happen so?
Simple.
They are not impractical.
Lao Tzu is impractical.
Lao Tzu in fact praises impracticalness.
＊
There is a story:
Lao Tzu was passing with his disciples and they came to a forest where hundreds of carpenters were cutting trees, because a great palace was being built.
So the whole forest had been almost cut,
but only one tree was standing there,
a big tree with thousands of branches
– so big that ten thousand persons could sit under its shade.
Lao Tzu asked his disciples to go and inquire why this tree had not been cut yet when the whole forest had been cut and was deserted.
The disciples went and they asked the carpenters,
”Why have you not cut this tree?”
The carpenters said,
”This tree is absolutely useless.
You cannot make anything out of it because every branch has so many knots in it.
Nothing is straight.
You cannot make pillars out of it.
You cannot make furniture out of it.
You cannot use it as fuel because the smoke is so dangerous to the eyes
– you almost go blind.
This tree is absolutely useless.
That’s why.”
They came back.
Lao Tzu laughed and he said,
”Be like this tree.
If you want to survive in this world be like this tree
– absolutely useless.
Then nobody will harm you.
If you are straight you will be cut, you will become furniture in somebody’s house.
If you are beautiful you will be sold in the market, you will become a commodity.
Be like this tree, absolutely useless.
Then nobody can harm you.
And you will grow big and vast,
and thousands of people can find shade under you.”
Lao Tzu was passing through a town.
All the young men of the town were forced to be enlisted in the military.
They came across a hunchback.
Lao Tzu said,
”Go and inquire why this man has been left and not enlisted into the military.”
The hunchback said,
”How can I be enlisted?
You see, I am a hunchback. I am of no use.”
The disciples came and Lao Tzu said,
”Remember. Be like this hunchback.
Then you will not be enlisted to murder or to be murdered.
Be useless.”
Lao Tzu has a logic altogether different from your mind.
He says:
Be the last.
Move in the world as if you are not.
Remain unknown.
Don’t try to be the first,
otherwise you will be thrown.
Don’t be competitive,
don’t try to prove your worth.
There is no need.
Remain useless and enjoy.
Of course he is impractical.
But if you understand him you will find that he is the most practical on a deeper layer, in the depth
– because life is to enjoy and celebrate,
life is not to become a utility.
Life is more like poetry than like a commodity in the market;
it should be like poetry, a song, a dance,
a flower by the side of the road,
flowering for nobody in particular,
sending its fragrance to the winds,
without any address,
being nobody in particular,
just enjoying itself,
being itself.
Lao Tzu says:
If you try to be very clever,
if you try to be very useful,
you will be used.
If you try to be very practical,
somewhere or other you will be harnessed,
because the world cannot leave the practical man alone.
Lao Tzu says:
Drop all these ideas.
If you want to be a poem, an ecstasy,
then forget about utility.
You remain true to yourself.
Be yourself.
Hippies have a saying:
Do your thing.
Lao Tzu is the first hippie in the world.
He says:
Be yourself and
do your thing and
don’t bother about anything else.
You are not here to be sold.
So don’t think of utility,
just think of your bliss.
Be blissful, and if something flows out of your bliss it is okay – share it.
But don’t force yourself just to be a utility
because that is how suicide happens.
One kills oneself.
Don’t be suicidal.
All the teachers of the world will be more practical than Lao Tzu,
that’s why they have much appeal.
That’s why they have great organizations:
Christians
– almost half the world has become Christian –
Mohammedans,
Hindus,
Jains,
Sikhs
– they are all utilitarians.
Lao Tzu stands alone, aloof.
Lao Tzu stands in a solo existence.
But Lao Tzu is rare and unique.
If you can understand him you can also become rare and unique.
And the way is to be ordinary
– then you become extraordinary;
the way is to be just the last,
and then suddenly you find you are the first;
the way is not to claim, not to claim the credit,
and then nobody can take it from you;
the way is to exist as a non-being, as a nobody,
and then, in a subtle and mysterious way,
you and only you become somebody
– somebody the whole existence feels blessed with, feels blessed by, somebody with whom the whole existence celebrates.
from osho talks
from osho transformation tarot
Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1
Talks on Fragments from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching .
Originally the ”Three Treasures” series was published as two volumes, later republished as four volumes.
Talks given from 11/06/75 am to 20/06/75 am
English Discourse series
Chapter 2
Chapter title: Ordinariness
12 June 1975 am in Buddha Hall
The free downloading of all chapters of this osho discourse, please click here.
＊ ＊ ＊
The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2
chapter 8
Easy is the Flow
question 3
The third question
Question 3
YOU FILL ME OVERFLOWING WITH YOUR LOVE.
I WISH I COULD GIVE YOU EVERYTHING
BUT I HAVE NOTHING.
THESE DAYS SO MANY TALENTED, SKILFUL PEOPLE HAVE COME I HAVE NO SKILLS, NO TALENTS... I FEEL USELESS.
Sucheta, you don’t know the usefulness of the useless.
In fact, the useful is only useful insofar as it has a certain utility.
But the useless has no limitation to it.
What is the use of a roseflower?
No use,
but life would be very empty without roseflowers.
What is the use of laughter?
It is not a commodity,
it does not feed people.
If you are hungry it will not help.
If you are ill it will not help, it is not medicine.
If you are fighting with somebody it will not help, it is not an atom bomb.
Of what use is laughter?
That’s why the people who look at life with the eyes of a utilitarian don’t laugh.
They don’t love, because what use is love?
To them it is wastage,
a wastage of energy, time, life.
To them it is stupid
because it is useless.
They earn money rather than falling in love,
because money is useful.
Love has no utility,
but love has grandeur and splendor.
And without love what is life?
Of what utility is meditation?
Sometimes people come to me and they ask,
”What will we get out of meditation?”
They are thinking of getting some profit,
they want some result.
They want to be very certain,
because they will be putting so much energy into it
– what are they going to get out of it?
And I say to them,
”You are not going to get anything out of it.”
Meditation is not a means to some end,
it is an end unto itself
– that’s why it has no utility.
What utility is there in poetry?
That’s why in the countries where people become too money-minded poetry starts disappearing.
Have you watched it happening in America?
Politicians, rich people, businessmen
– they live long;
poets die very soon.
It is a strange statistic:
poets, novelists, painters, peter out very soon.
By the time they are forty they start petering out.
Politicians remain young and vital long enough.
It was not so in ancient Greece.
In ancient Greece poets, philosophers, mystics lived very long.
In India, in the past, yogis and meditators lived very long,
but now that is not the case any more.
Politicians and actors in India live long.
And actors retain their youth more than anybody else, and politicians go on remaining healthy very long.
You can see Morarji Desai.
What could be the reason behind it?
It is not what he says.
He says that he drinks his own urine;
that’s why he is so healthy and young.
That is all nonsense!
It is politics.
Politics is respected now.
Whatsoever is respected,
whatsoever people pay attention to,
becomes so important, so ego-fulfilling,
that one can live just out of that ego-fulfillment.
One can remain vital.
Now this is a known fact:
that when people retire, they die soon.
What happens?
They start feeling useless.
Somebody was going perfectly well, and now he is sixty and he retires.
And he was healthy and he was never ill, and everything was good.
He was a commissioner or a collector
and people were respectful towards him, and he was honored and respected,
and he was doing some useful work.
Now suddenly he is retired, all his utility is gone.
He is no longer a commodity.
He suddenly feels he is useless.
He suddenly finds that he has no excuse to live any more.
For what?
Nobody thinks about him any more.
Even his own family people simply neglect him, ignore him.
He becomes part of the junk.
Slowly, slowly he starts shrinking.
He starts feeling,
”Now only death can relieve me of this uselessness.”
That’s why in America poets and novelists die young.
Poetry is not respected.
Where money is respected, poetry can’t be respected.
Money is useful; of what use is poetry?
When somebody becomes a poet his family feels very sad.
A man was saying to me....
After many years he had come to see me,
and I asked him how things were going:
”How is your eldest son?”
He said, with such sadness,
”He has become a poet.”
As if he had died!
”And what about the second?”
He said,
”He does not earn anything either.”
The first has become a poet and
the second does not earn anything either;
both are useless.
＊
We measure people by their utility.
We reduce people into commodities.
And I’m not saying don’t do anything useful.
I’m saying do useful things,
but remember the real and the greatest experience of life and ecstasy comes out of doing something useless.
It comes through poetry,
it comes through painting,
it comes through love,
it comes through meditation.
The greatest joy floods you only when you are capable of doing something useless,
useless in worldly eyes.
Because it can’t be reduced into a commodity,
that’s why they call it useless.
Now if you invent something, a gadget, you can patent it and you can earn money out of it.
But if you write a beautiful poem you can’t earn any money out of it;
it is just wastage.
People say,
”What are you doing?
Why are you wasting your life?”
But writing poetry
– if you really have been into it –
is a great joy in itself;
nothing else is needed,
you are already rewarded.
No other extrinsic reward is going to make any difference to you.
The reward is inward, intrinsic;
it arises out of the activity.
Writing poetry, painting, or playing on the flute
– they are not utilities.
Now this is a sad phenomenon
– that even in India politicians and actors live long.
In the past, meditators used to live long,
because people knew the use of uselessness.
Now politicians live long.
Why?
– because politicians seem to be useful people.
If a politician comes into town the whole crowd gathers.
If a poet comes, nobody goes.
Who bothers about a poet?
Who thinks that he is special?
Who cares?
And naturally the poet also starts thinking deep down in himself,
”I am useless, I am doing something which is not right.
I am guilty, I am a burden on the earth.”
Morarji Desai is healthy at the age of eighty-two, eighty-three, not because he drinks his urine but because in India this calamity has happened:
that only the politician is respected.
The mystic is no longer respected,
the meditator is no longer respected.
In fact, a strange phenomenon is happening:
it is very difficult to find an American who does not meditate.
It is as difficult as it is difficult to find an Indian who meditates.
Meditation is useless activity.
But people are very clever in finding rationalizations.
Now Morarji says that he is healthy because he drinks his urine.
It reminds me of a story....
A man became one hundred years old, he completed a century.
Newspaper reporters came, and the TV people and the radio people came to have an interview.
And they asked him,
”What is the secret?
How could you live so long?
And you are still so healthy and so young looking.
You don’t look more than fifty.”
The man was very happy and he said,
”There is a secret
– I never ate meat in my life,
I never drank any intoxicating beverages in my life,
I never smoked,
and I never befooled with women.
That’s my secret.”
And they were all impressed.
They were just writing the interview,
and then suddenly by the side of the room somebody fell and laughed loudly and screamed.
So they asked,
”What is the matter? What happened?”
And the man said,
”Don’t be worried about it.
That is my dad.
He is drunk again and befooling with the maid.”
And they asked,
”How old is he?”
And he said,
”He is one hundred and twenty.”
You can always find why you have lived long,
how you have lived long:
you ate this, you did that yoga exercise.
But the real phenomenon is simply different.
If you are enjoying what you do,
if you are respecting what you do
– useful, useless –
if you see that your life has a meaning,
you will live long,
because it is through the feeling of being meaningful that one lives long.
In different societies different kinds of people live long.
In a primitive society the magician lives long,
because he is the most respected person.
And I call that society the highest and the most civilized
– that is my criterion of calling a society civilized –
where a poet, a painter, a musician, a meditator, a lover, lives long.
That is the highest kind of society.
Why?
– because the uselessness is respected.
There is a story about Lao Tzu.
He went into the mountains with his disciples.
They went into a forest where all the trees were being cut.
Thousands of people were cutting the trees, the whole forest was being destroyed.
But there was one big tree,
so big that one thousand people could have sat underneath it, in its shade.
Its foliage was great, it was a huge tree!
They had never come across such a tree, and nobody was cutting it!
So Lao Tzu said to his disciples,
”Go and inquire.
They have destroyed the whole forest.
Why have they not cut this tree?”
And the disciples went and inquired of people, and the people said,
”That tree is useless!
First, its wood is such that you can’t make anything out of it
– no furniture can be made out of it.
Secondly, its wood is such that you cannot use it even as a fuel
– it creates so much smoke, and such a bitter smoke, that people start weeping and crying, tears start rolling down their cheeks.
Its leaves are so bitter that no animal is ready to eat them.
It is a useless tree!
That’s why it has not been cut.”
When they came back Lao Tzu laughed and he said,
＊
”Look! I have been teaching you always the use of uselessness!
Now see the beauty of this tree
– it is saved because it is useless.”
Lao Tzu said to his disciples,
”If you want to be saved, be useless.
Otherwise you will be cut sooner or later.
Never become useful,
otherwise you will be in trouble.
Be useless like this tree and
you will live long and your foliage will be great.”
Lao Tzu has something immensely important in that message.
That’s my own experience too:
remain in your deepest core.
Use is only on the surface.
Yes, one has to do something for a livelihood, to have a shelter, to have food.
One has to do something, that’s okay;
but don’t think that is your life.
Livelihood is not your life.
And the standard of living is not the standard of life.
A standard of living comes from usefulness,
through useful activities, and a standard of life arises out of USELESS activities
– music, poetry, painting, meditation, love.
So Sucheta, don’t be worried.
I will need all kinds of people around here
– useful, useless.
I will need all kinds of people here.
I would like to make this commune the richest commune.
And utility can never make a commune very rich
– materially, of course, but not spiritually.
So, if you feel useless don’t be worried.
I will use your uselessness too.
I will make you a huge tree with great foliage.
And the people who are engaged in useful activities,
they will also need sometimes to rest under the tree, in the shade.
We will need poets and painters and musicians.
We will need all kinds of crazy people here,
so Sucheta, don’t be worried.
from osho talks
from osho transformation tarot
The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2
Discourses on Sufism
Talks given from 02/03/78 am to 10/03/78 am
English Discourse series
Chapter 8
Chapter title: Easy is the Flow
9 March 1978 am in Buddha Hall
The free downloading of all chapters of this osho discourse, please click here.
＊ ＊ ＊
beloved osho
”The last word of Buddha was, sammasati.
Remember that you are a buddha – sammasati.”
sammasati
It means right remembrance.
meditation & love
osho samadhi
