Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho's Haikus - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 6. THE DISCIPLE IS THE SEEDHe himself was a very simple man and would not have become world famous except for Al HillajMansoor, his disciple who was crucified. He used to say, the question of right and wrong is thequestion concerning your consciousness. If you are conscious, then whatever you do, is boundto be right. If you are unconscious, then whatever you do is wrong. The world may appreciate itdifferently.For example, a man may donate, give to charities and everybody will say, ”How nice, how great,how righteous, how virtuous is this man.” If you look into his mind, he is giving to all these charitiesin order to make a special place in God’s bank, so when he reaches the pearly gates, he should bewelcomed with angels, and he will have all the comforts. What he is giving, is nothing compared towhat he is exploiting. Perhaps one percent... and he becomes a great virtuous man – and ninetynine percent he is exploiting the same people.Unless one is conscious, absolutely a pillar of consciousness, it is very difficult to do right. Becauseyou are not right, how can the flowers of right arise out of you? So the question to the authenticmaster changes the whole area. It is not your activity, it is your consciousness. What you do isirrelevant – from where comes the doing? Consciousness or unconsciousness – that is the decisivefactor.Zen has brought a totally different outlook. It is not a morality. It does not emphasize your actions.The emphasis is on you. You are doing right things for wrong reasons. That will not make themright. Somebody is afraid of hell, and out of fear, he goes to church every Sunday. It is a bother...listening to the priest, the same Old Testament and the same old garbage which he has listened toso many times. So most of the church goers simply have a good morning sleep in the churches. Itis a very religious sleep.A man used to snore in a church....The bishop was worried, he took the man aside and told him, ”I am not against sleeping, andsleeping is not an irreligious activity, but snoring is a little too much.”The man asked, ”Is snoring irreligious?”He said, ”No, I am not saying that snoring is irreligious. I am simply saying that because of yoursnoring the whole congregation cannot sleep, and that creates many difficult problems. I have onlythree sermons which I have been giving my whole life. Nobody listens – what is the point? Tobe original and to find new material... And nobody has ever objected – that is absolute proof thatnobody has ever listened. They were all fast asleep. And it is good for me too... unnecessarytrouble. And in fact, those three sermons are also not written by me. Those are the three sermonsof the previous preacher who has retired. He gave them to me and told me, ‘These are enough.Don’t bother to take much trouble. The whole congregation comes to the church to have a goodmorning sleep. Just don’t let anybody snore.’”You are the most prominent member of the church. Snoring is killing me. If people start listening, itwill not be long... it will be only three weeks, before they will come to know that ‘this fellow has beenrepeating the same record.’ So please, just for God’s sake, sleep as deep as you can, but don’tsnore.”Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen, with Basho’s Haikus 93 Osho