From Ignorance to Innocence - Osho - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 23. CONSCIENCE: A COFFIN FOR CONSCIOUSNESS
But you have not been allowed to remain one and whole. You have been divided, cut into several
parts. A few parts have been completely closed – so much so that you don’t know even that they
belong to you. Much of you has been thrown in the basement. Much of you has been so condemned
that although you know it is there, you cannot dare to accept it, that it is part of you – you go on
denying it; you go on repressing it.
You know only a very small fragment in you, which they call conscience, which is a social product, not
a natural thing, which society creates inside you to control you from inside. The constable is outside,
the court is outside controlling you. And the conscience is inside, which is far more powerful.
That’s why even in a court, first they will give you the Bible. You take the oath on the Bible because
the court also knows that if you are a Christian, putting your hand on the Bible and saying, ”I swear
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” your conscience will force you to speak
the truth, because now you have taken the oath in the name of God, and you have touched the
Bible. If you speak a lie you will be thrown into hell.
Before, at the most, if you were caught you would be thrown into imprisonment for a few months,
a few years. But now you will be thrown in hell for eternity. Even the court accepts that the Bible
is more powerful, the Gita is more powerful, the Koran is more powerful than the court, than the
military, than the army.
Conscience is one of the meanest inventions of humanity.
And from the very first day the child is born we start creating a conscience in him; a small part which
goes on condemning anything that the society does not want in you, and goes on appreciating
anything that the society wants in you. You are no more whole.
The conscience continuously goes on forcing you, so that you have to always look out – god is
watching. Every act, every thought, God is watching, so beware!
Even in thoughts you are not allowed freedom: God is watching. What kind of peeping Tom is this
God? In every bathroom He is looking through the keyhole; He won’t leave you alone – even in your
bathroom?
There are tribes in the world where even in your dream if you do something wrong, in the morning
you have to go to the person.... For example you have insulted somebody in the dream – in the
morning you have to go to apologize: ”Forgive me, last night I insulted you in a dream; I am so
sorry.” Even dreams are controlled by the society. You are not allowed even in dream to be yourself
They go on talking about freedom of thought – that’s all nonsense because from the very beginning
they put the base in every child for unfreedom of thought.
They want to control your thoughts.
They want to control your dreams.
They want to control everything in you. It’s through a very clever device – conscience.
From Ignorance to Innocence 330 Osho