The Materialist and the Spiritualist

Individual Talk

From:Sat Chit Anand: Truth Consciousness Bliss

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"Enjoying life is in itself a beautiful experience, but it is not enough. All the religions of the world have condemned it. Their condemnation has created a guilt feeling. So even though people are enjoying..."
"Enjoying life is in itself a beautiful experience, but it is not enough. All the religions of the world have condemned it. Their condemnation has created a guilt feeling. So even though people are enjoying..."

Osho continues:
"One consists of those who are life-negative, life condemners, life poisoners. They have been in the majority, because most people love the negative. To condemn anything is very easy. To criticize anything is very easy. But to appreciate anything needs intelligence.

"There is a beautiful story by Turgenev, The Fool. A sage came to a village where the village idiot was condemned by everybody; the moment he opened his mouth people would start laughing, expecting him to say something stupid. The poor man came to the sage and told his misery, that he is the laughingstock of the whole village. As far as possible he keeps completely quiet, but even his quietness is condemned: 'Look at that idiot. He thinks that we are all fools who are talking and he is something spiritual; being silent, meditative!' 'If I talk, I am condemned; if I don't talk, I am condemned. Show me the way to get out of this miserable state.'

"The sage said, 'I will give you the secret. And after one month I will be coming back; then you can tell me what happened in this month.'

"The secret was very simple. The secret was: 'Do not say anything on your own account, but whenever somebody says something, immediately criticize. If somebody says, 'Look, how beautiful is the full moon,' don't miss the opportunity. Immediately say, 'What is beautiful in it? Prove what is beautiful in it. Do you know what beauty is?'

"'It is very difficult to define it. Everybody knows that the full moon is beautiful. But perhaps you have never asked yourself, 'Do you know what beauty is?' And if you don't know what beauty is, how can you say anything is beautiful? The statement that something is beautiful implies that you know the definition of beauty. So immediately jump in and ask, 'What is the definition of beauty?''

"Not even the greatest philosophers who have been thinking all their lives about beauty and nothing else, like Croce who has written volumes upon beauty, end up with anything definable. The whole effort, hundreds of pages, and the conclusion is that it is indefinable.

"'Just go on this way. If somebody says, 'That man is very virtuous,' immediately ask, 'What is virtue? How do you know, on what grounds, what authority?'

"'Never make any statement of your own, so nobody can criticize you."
More Information
Publisher Osho International
Duration of Talk 111 mins
File Size 20.21 MB
Type Individual Talks