The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE FOURTH STATE
cause, for the root cause can be changed. If you consider the reason to be something other than
the root cause, no change can be made. As you become aware of life, you will begin to see the root
cause to all your actions and reactions. Then you will realize that you are not angry with the child
because he made a mistake, but because you get pleasure out of being angry. The mistake was
only a excuse.
The boss fires you from the job. You would have loved to retaliate, but that was not possible. You
come home and want to take out your anger on somebody – on anybody. The wife is there and you
could take it out on her, but that is not a very good bargain, for she will make an issue out of it for
days, so the child becomes the target. He is a child. He is bound to tear his shirts. He is bound to
tear his books. After all, he is not an old man. He bound to play with the wrong types of boys, for
except for your son all boys are the ”wrong type”.
Once I asked a small boy, ”Tell me, son, are you a good boy? Everyone says that you are.”
The child replied, ”If I had to tell the truth, I am just the kind of child that I am not allowed to play
with.”
All children except yours are ”bad”, so this child must have played with some of those wrong children
and torn his clothes as well as his books. He may even have hurt himself. You will grab hold of him.
He is not very strong. You will take out your anger on him, but you will insist that you are correcting
and guiding him.
Only if and when you begin to become aware, will you begin to recognize the real reason. When
once the real cause is known it is not very difficult to drop it. In fact, it is not difficult at all. When
you see the kind of life that you have built around yourself you will laugh. You will see that you had
become such a phony, and with this phoniness you wanted to reach truth. You wanted to reach
God? Impossible!
To me sannyas means to know the web of deception you have woven within yourself and to eradicate
it and live authentically and realistically. Whatever you are, if you are bad, be bad; if you are illtempered,
know it! Don’t cover your defects with a gold coating. If you try to cover your wounds
with flowers they will get worse. Just say, ”This is how I am” – whether good or bad. Offer no
rationalization or excuse why you are like that. Do not seek good reasons for evil deeds, for then the
evil cannot be eradicated.
When you are angry you always justify your anger by finding some cause; then how will the anger
go away? This way you feed your anger and make it look good. You have decorated your prison
with flowers so that it looks like home. Now you are satisfied. You look upon illness as health, then
how can you ever get rid of it?
As a man begins to awaken he begins to realize that his wakefulness is false, that his dreams are
the outcome of a twisted mind, that his very sleep is filled with restlessness. In all three states
there is a restlessness, an uneasiness, a feeling of being harassed. As his perception sharpens
he is able to recognize the lies he has been carrying and drop them. More light penetrates and his
consciousness grows in strength and intensity.
The state you are in at present is something like this.
The Great Path 152 Osho