The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 8. THE FOURTH STATE
Now this man is not seeking God; he is seeking power in the name of God. It is not only in the bazaar
that we find one name on the label and something quite different inside the package. It happens in
the temples too.
A husband was looking for salt in the kitchen. When his wife thought it was taking him too long she
called out, ”What has happened? Can’t you find the salt?”
”No, I can’t.”
”It’s right in front of your eyes in the tin labeled ‘Tumeric’,” she said.
Such is all seeking. You are not sure what you are seeking, nor why. As the water of wakefulness
comes into your life, your life will gain a direction. The useless will fall away and only the useful will
remain. The day that only the meaningful is left, the goal is not far off.
As your delight in the fourth state increases, as this intoxication spreads into your life... but the
intoxication is something totally different. We have to use words to describe it; hence we call it
intoxication, but it is not the intoxication of a drunkard – just the opposite! When a man is drunk he
staggers and lurches about without direction; he loses contact with his senses, he cannot see what
he is doing and he commits all kinds of excesses. In the intoxication of turiya it is just the opposite.
Here you don’t stagger! Your feet are firmly placed. Here he is filled with self-remembering. He is in
total command of his senses. In the intoxication of the drunkard he can commit all sort of mistakes
and go astray! In the intoxication of turiya it is impossible for a person to do wrong.
Akbar set out one day on his elephant to take a ride around his capital. As he was passing through
the streets, a man standing on a roof began abusing him. He was immediately caught and brought
before Akbar the next morning.
Akbar asked the man, ”What made you behave so badly last night, you fool?”
”Your majesty, I was drunk. I was not there. It was the wine that abused you, not me! I was so
repentant when I came to my senses. I pray you to forgive me, for I was not there at all!”
Akbar understood, for he himself was in search of the fourth state. He was a wise king. He realized
that it was useless punishing a man who was not in his right senses. It is true that he had behaved
badly, but if he had got anything right in that state it would have been a miracle.
When you do something right it is a miracle; you always do the wrong thing. That is only natural,
for you are not conscious. Gurdjieff would say, ”God will not punish you for your sins for they were
committed in unconsciousness.” Even a court of law forgives a man who is not in his right senses. If
a man commits murder under the influence of drink he is let off with a lighter sentence. God will not
punish you for your sins. He is at least as wise as the courts.
Your sins were committed in unconsciousness, your good deeds also! Therefore there is hardly any
difference between your good deeds and your bad deeds; the quality is the same. Whether you are
a householder or a sannyasin is all the same, for you are unconscious. You are unconscious in your
shop; you are unconscious in your temple; you are unconscious in your office; you are unconscious
The Great Path 154 Osho