The unconscious man is basically a follower in every dimension of life

HE IS LIKE A DRAGON SUPPORTED BY DEEP WATERS OR LIKE A TIGER THAT  COMMANDS ITS MOUNTAIN RETREAT. THE MAN WHO IS NOT ENLIGHTENED DRIFTS ABOUT IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD.

Just watch yourself. What have you been doing in the world? Just drifting like deadwood, no direction, no dimension, no clarity, no vision. Just following a crowd -- not even knowing where you are going, just trusting that the crowd must know: if so many people are going, then we must be right because so many people cannot be wrong. And the reality is, so many people cannot be right! To be right is a very unique experience; to be right is to be enlightened. Beware of this unconscious calculation that because the whole world is doing something, it must be right; so many people cannot be wrong. This is the arithmetic we have been living. So we stumble, we grope in the darkness; we follow this man, we follow that man, and we never think, "If we are alive, then there must be a source within us -- has to be --  otherwise from where does our life come?" Without knowing this source, even if you are following a buddha you are going to go astray. Because every individual is so unique, you can never follow anybody.  

THE MAN WHO IS NOT ENLIGHTENED DRIFTS ABOUT IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD.

Your life, if it is not enlightened, is nothing but a drifting. A strange incident happened.... 

I had gone to enroll in a college, and they gave me a form to fill out. One young man of my age was also holding a form in his hand. He looked at my form and he said, "What subjects are you filling in?" I said, "That is none of your business. You fill in your subjects." He said, "I don't know what subjects to fill in." So he looked at my form, and because I had filled in philosophy, psychology and politics, he filled in the same. I said, "This is very strange." He said, "No, because I don't know what to do with my life." We graduated from the same college, and then I changed to the university. And it was such a surprise: when I entered the office that same fellow was waiting there with his form! He said, "You have come! I have been wondering what to do; it has been such a joy to fill in the form according to you. Now what are you going to study for your postgraduation?" I said, "This is very stupid." He said, "No, it has been a great relief that at least somebody knows where he is going, and I am following."

So he looked at my form, and filled in his accordingly: philosophy, religion, psychology. I said, "This is not a right way of living. It is becoming a carbon copy." But he said, "I am perfectly at ease. If you are taking these subjects, they must be the best subjects available in the university." I said, "I have no objection..."

In one of my post-graduate classes, the professor was a very orthodox brahmin from Bengal -- so orthodox that I have never come across anybody else like him. He would not teach with open eyes because there were two girls in the class: girls he cannot look at, he is a celibate. It was a good opportunity, so I slept all the time. And he thought that perhaps I was also a great celibate! So there were those two girls, and this boy who had been following me. The professor was very inquisitive. One day he got hold of me in the library and said, "It is very rare to find people these days who are committed to celibacy." I said, "You are under a wrong impression." He said, "Wrong impression?" I said, "Why are you closing your eyes?" He said, "I am a celibate and I don't want to see any female face." I said, "That is true, that is also my reason -- because both those girls are not worth seeing! But it is not celibacy. Day after day, those same two girls; I simply keep my eyes closed."

He said, "My god! We are doing the same action but our reasons are so different." And that boy was the only other person in the class. He was such a great follower, but he was at a loss for what to do -- to close his eyes because I was closing mine, the professor was closing his and just those two girls... But he was very much interested in those girls, although the girls were not showing any sign of interest in him. He was very disappointed. He told me, "You will have to help me. You have always helped -- since I entered college you have been of great help; now you have to help." I said, "What is the problem?" He said, "The problem is that I try in every way to talk to those girls but they don't take any interest in me; they don't even care about me. They pass by me as if I am not there -- it hurts." I said, "You have to do something rightly." So I wrote a love letter for him, and I said, "Tomorrow you deliver it yourself." He said, "This is very dangerous; you have made me sign it. You have written all these things and if I am caught, if the girl freaks out, or anything..." I said, "You don't be worried; I will prepare the girl, because I have taken the responsibility. That's why I am saying tomorrow you deliver it. Just give me one day's chance to prepare the girl." I told the girl, "This boy is very poor -- spiritually poor -- he needs compassion." The girl said, "What can I do?" I said, "You don't have to do anything. He will deliver a love letter to you tomorrow; you accept it with a smiling face." She said, "You are creating trouble. I don't like that fellow." I said, "There is no question of liking or not liking; you can even hate that fellow. But receiving the letter, just like a nice lady... it is not against any manners, any etiquette." She said, "If you say, I will accept the letter." Then I said, "It is not the end. You have to write a letter too." She said, "My god! You are creating trouble for me. If my father comes to know" -- and her father was the collector of that city -- "if he comes to know... He is a dangerous fellow, he can even shoot. He goes on shining his gun every day, and he has told me, `Don't get involved in any love affair; otherwise somebody is going to be shot!'" I said, "I will prepare your father, you don't be worried. If anybody is going to be shot, I am the fellow who is ready because I have nothing to lose. It is perfectly good, he can shoot me. But you will have to write a letter, because this fellow just needs a hope. Don't write too many sweet things, just..." She said, "Okay, I will try. But I don't know, I have never written a love letter." I said, "My god... I will write it." So I wrote a love letter and she signed it. A few love letters were exchanged and finally the girl came to me to say that, "My father seems to be getting suspicious. You have put me into trouble, because now that boy has at least seven letters signed by me." I said, "That boy is not a real person, he is a carbon copy. Don't be worried about him. I will take back all your letters." I told the boy, "Listen, the father of the girl is very dangerous and he keeps polishing his gun." He said, "My god! And you never told me before? Where does he live?" I said, "He is a collector and he lives in the city, three or four miles away from the university. But now your life is in danger." He said, "You wrote those letters..." I said, "It does not matter who wrote them. What matters is who signed!" He said, "Now save me somehow, I don't want to get into trouble. If I had known that love means trouble, I would not have fallen in love." So I said, "You give all those letters back to me." He said, "Then what will happen to my letters which are in the girl's hands?"

I said, "I will take back those letters too." He said, "Don't forget! because those seven letters will keep me always falling in love. Just I have to copy one letter, because I cannot manage... you have made such beautiful letters. I don't care that the girl is lost, but those letters I would miss my whole life!" I took back the letters from both sides. After ten years, I found him in another city. He had become a professor, and he had a wife and children. I said, "You managed perfectly well." He said, "The whole credit goes to you. Those letters worked miraculously. I tried them on many girls and was refused, but this girl..." And I saw why this girl... because she was not much of a girl. She even had some moustache growing! I said to him, "You are a fool! You should have at least asked me. I would have managed some other girl. There are so many girls -- the whole world is full of girls, and you are such a nice looking fellow." He said, "Something is wrong with this girl?" I said, "It is not a girl at all! Look at her moustache." I have come across only two women: one was this girl, and one was the daughter of one of my principals; she had a little beard. I think it is perfectly good, there is no harm, but I said to that fellow, "You are an idiot from the very beginning, and without my help you should not have taken this step." He said, "Now it is too late. I have got three children." All ugly! I told him, "It was absolutely certain that you would do something nasty like this." He said, "Is there something wrong with my children?" I said, "Will you ever mature? I don't think so, in this life." He said, "But everybody says, looking at my children, `How nice they look!'" I said, "Whenever somebody says to a woman that her child looks very nice, that simply means that the child is ugly." I told him about an incident that happened in a bus:

A woman was holding her child, and an old drunkard came across, looked very closely at the child, and said, "My god! This must be the ugliest child in the whole world!" The woman started crying and weeping; these things are not to be said. But a drunk fellow... The bus was stopped, because the driver said, "It doesn't seem right that the woman is crying." So he went to the woman, and he said, "Don't cry. That fellow was a drunk. And I don't know what he has said to you, but I will bring you a cup of tea." So he brought a cup of tea and gave it to the woman, and said, "Just drink the tea and forget what that drunkard did. And I have also brought a banana for your monkey." People never think, what kind of children they are having. That drunkard was at least honest, and the driver was also honest. 

But unconscious people go on doing things without any reason and rhyme. The unconscious man is basically a follower in every dimension of life. He doesn't have the sense to find a direction for himself. He is always looking for somebody to guide him. He is bound to fall into a long dark night which has no end. One thing has to be decided by every individual -- particularly my people have to decide it -- to find your own life source, to find out what your potentials are, and let them grow. Even if you go against the whole world, at least you will be fulfilled in your freedom. Otherwise you become just driftwood; anybody can give you a shape, anybody can give you a direction, anybody can give you guidelines.

Osho