The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE STARS MIRRORED
is dedicated. Perhaps the mode of dedication is different, the method is different, the way is different
– but the destination is the same. And yet we find a Hindu mob setting fire to a mosque. If you are
one of them you do not wait to think. You become one with the crowd and help burn the mosque. If
you are questioned later, you yourself wonder how you could have brought yourself to do this. Alone
you never would do it but in a crowd you will. Why? Because in a crowd you tend to lose yourself; it
is an old habit.
No Muslim is as bad and ruthless alone as he is when he is in a mob. No Hindu alone is as bad
and evil as he is in a mob. No one man has ever committed such sins as have been committed by
crowds. Why? Because a crowd colors you. If the mob is angry you feel anger arising within you.
If the crowd is weeping and wailing you begin to weep and scream also. If the crowd is happy you
forget all your woes and become happy with the crowd.
Now observe: you go to a household where someone has died. Many people are crying. Suddenly
you find that you also feel like crying. Perhaps you might think you are a very compassionate person,
filled with love and pity, or perhaps you might think the tears come because of sympathy. You are
wrong. Reflect: you were at home when the news came that this man had died. When you were
alone you felt no love or compassion for the bereaved family. It is more likely you were annoyed:
so he has died – what’s so special about that? Life and death happen all the time. But now I’ll be
expected to go to his house and show my sympathy, as if I had nothing better to do! And why did he
have to die today, when I’m so busy?
That is the way you would have thought. But when you get to his house and find yourself amongst
the mourning crowd, you find that your feelings have changed. You too will feel as the crowd does.
But this feeling is not worth a penny; in fact, it is dangerous. It is the crowd that is affecting you.
Beware of this feeling of sympathy that does not come from your heart.
You must have seen that people who are normally unhappy and weighed down with sorrow dance
with joy at holi, the festival of colors. They dance, they sing, they throw colored powders at each
other. What happens to these people who don’t know what joy is in their ordinary lives? These
same people normally move about like zombies, and they have started dancing. What has come
over them? Once again, it is the color of the crowd.
The seeker should beware of the crowd. Search for your own voice, your own tune. The crowd has
always been pushing and prodding you along. It can mould you into whatever form it wishes to.
Why does this happen? It happens because you do not feel your separateness, and whenever you
get the opportunity you promptly lose your separateness. You are forever ready to lose it. If sleep
comes you lose yourself in sleep; if awake you lose yourself in wakefulness; if dreams come you
lose yourself in dreams. If those around you are happy you are happy; if they are sad you are sad.
Do you exist as a separate entity or are you just a center that gets lost in its surroundings? Do you
have an existence, a center? Truly you have – and that is the soul.
Awaken your being! Save yourself from drowning! This is why all religions are against alcohol –
which in itself is not bad – for the simple reason that it is a device of losing oneself. All religions are
in favor of awakening. He who is drinking alcohol is drowning. Religion is against all those things
that drag you into oblivion, that make you unconscious. As it is, you are almost unconscious. You
have a little ray of awakening, and you are eager to lose even that on the slightest pretext.
The Great Path 35 Osho