The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE FOURTH STATE
One night there was an earthquake. There was thunder and lightning and the house shook. The
wife awakened her husband who had remained fast asleep. She said, ”Wake up, it’s an earthquake.
I think the house is going to fall down.”
”Don’t worry,” said the husband. ”Go back to sleep. It isn’t our house, we have only rented it.”
You don’t understand that even if the house is not yours, when it falls it is you who will die. The
pseudo-truths you have built around yourself may not necessarily be your own creation, for some
you have learned from the gurus, some you have picked up from the scriptures, and others you have
gotten from your religion; but when they fall it is you who will be the loser. It is you who will die.
You have surrounded yourself with lies that seem useful; they help you to keep up a good front so
you always appear poised and charming. Inside there is suffering and pain, but there is always a
smile on your face. The suffering is authentic, the smile is false. It is better that you cry. Let the
tears fall and wash the paint off your face. Let your genuine face be laid bare, for only the authentic
and genuine lead to the truth.
As you wash your consciousness with wakefulness all the paint runs off; this is what is known as
sannyas. As you become more and more authentic with yourself, you will find it is not so hard to be
rid of your troubles. A genuine illness is curable, a pseudo-illness can never be cured.
Suppose you have a cancer but are too frightened to accept the fact. Instead you insist that you are
suffering from a chronic cold and keep on treating yourself for the cold. How is this going to cure
your cancer? How long will you be able to fool yourself?
Gurdjieff would always tell his disciples that it is imperative for a seeker to know at the very outset
what his trouble really is. All seekers try to hid them. The one who hides the real disease cannot
be diagnosed, and until that time you keep on trying to cure the pseudo-disease. You die during the
cure because that was not the real disease.
People come to me and say that they are seeking God, that they are seeking their soul. Their faces
give no indication of their search. Their search is misnamed; they seek something very different
under the cover of God and soul.
A friend approached me – he was an old man – and said he has been seeking God for the last thirty
years. ”That is a long time!” I exclaimed. ”You should have found him by now. It seems that God is
avoiding you. If that is so, then even thirty births will not be sufficient. Or it could be that you are not
seeking in the right direction, you have not taken the path to his house. Either he is avoiding you or
you are avoiding him. Tell me exactly what it is that you seek.”
”I told you. I am seeking God,” he said. ”I do my practices and my meditation regularly, but I have no
results to show.”
”What results are you trying to achieve?” I asked.
”I want to attain some occult powers.”
The Great Path 153 Osho