A Place to Meditate and Meet Yourself
Osho,
As another of your communes takes off the ground, I strongly develop symptoms of a misfit. India, and even a commune, just does not seem to be the place where I feel comfortable. Is there such a state as “doing your own thing, content and full of gratitude” that is not just another ego trip?
Prem Leeladhar, I myself am an unfit. And this place here has gone far beyond being a commune. The commune was an alternative society. But it has its own organization, its own rules, regulations. Seeing that for misfits it will be difficult to be part of even a commune, I have dropped the idea of a commune too.
Here, now only individuals are living together. Nobody here is expected to be a permanent resident; whenever he feels, he can be here and whenever he feels, he can move. We are trying to give every misfit all the space that is possible. One of my sannyasins – Veeresh, in Europe – is creating "Osho Misfit Cities."
I think you have carried the idea from the American commune. It must have been difficult for you there, because whenever thousands of people live together, they have to follow certain rules. Otherwise it will become impossible to live.
Here there is no permanent residency. As long as you feel good, you can be here. The moment you feel uncomfortable, the whole world is available to you; wherever you want, you can go and be comfortable. But I want to remind you: if you cannot feel comfortable here, you cannot feel comfortable anywhere else either.
I will read your question. "As another of your communes takes off the ground..." That is not right.
I have tried hard and found it impossible... if the commune has to exist, the individual has to compromise. That's absolutely natural and necessary. And I am so much in favor of the misfit people, that rather than dropping the misfits, I have dropped the idea of the commune itself. Now there are only misfit people here.
The misfit people obviously understand each other's needs. The need is just to be yourself, and doing your own thing. That's why we are not developing any kind of productive activity here. Neither roads have to be made, nor houses have to be made. Because if you have to make roads and you have to make houses and you have to do farming, and you have to have milk products of your own, then naturally a certain organization becomes necessary.
Leeladhar is a plastic surgeon. Here we are not going to have even a medical center. There was in the old days before the American commune happened, a medical center, but that needs organization.
Now I want this place just to be a paradise – a holiday resort where you can relax, have a massage...soon there will be swimming pools, larger gardens and lawns. You can play on your instruments whenever you want, at whatever time you want. You can do your own thing.
Just remember that your thing should not be an interference in somebody else's life structure, because he also wants to be independent, just as you do.
that everybody is free to the limit that he does not interfere with anybody else.
This much of a limit is absolutely necessary. Just think – you are sleeping and few misfits come and start doing dynamic meditation in your room. They are doing their thing; they are not telling you to do the dynamic meditation. And by the time they have left, other misfits come and start playing on their musical instruments. Nobody is bothering you; you can go on sleeping or whatever you want to do! "So this line has to be remembered....
Otherwise there is no interference at all. Work I have dropped completely, unless you want to do it, unless it is your thing. In the commune, work was absolutely necessary to survive. Here, you come whenever you can manage financially, for as long as you can manage to live here, but there is no question of any work being imposed on you. You can choose if you want to do something or you simply want to rest, swim, do a few groups, meditate – or not to do any group, not to do any meditation, just to be.
You are saying, "I strongly develop symptoms of a misfit." Again you are wrong: Leeladhar, you are a born misfit. It is not something that you are developing. I know you perfectly well.
It was I who was forcing you to remain in the hospital unit in the commune, in spite of yourself. Because I wanted you to remain in the unit, you remained – but you are a misfit.
The misfit has to accept one thing: that he will not be respected by the ordinary society. He will not get recommendations and honors and awards for being a misfit. I am certainly thinking to create an award, a world award each year, to be given to the greatest misfit in the world. And Leeladhar, your name is the first on my list.
But the discomfort is not coming from the outside, because outside I don't see that you are expected to do anything. You are feeling uncomfortable as an inner tension; you don't want to be a misfit, and you are. You have not accepted your misfitness with total love and joy.
They are the people who carry the torch of freedom and consciousness from generation to generation.
Do you think Gautam Buddha was not a misfit? Or Mahavira was not a misfit? The son of a king goes naked – his father was ashamed, his family was ashamed. They were willing – "You can renounce the world... but what is the need to go naked?" But Mahavira never felt uncomfortable; he accepted himself as he was.
The misfitness does not come alone; it will bring disrespect from people. You have to accept it.
The society is made by the people who are square, absolutely fit people. Any misfit is a disturbance. That society creates in every child the idea: never be a misfit, otherwise you will be dishonored, disrespected, rejected. And those ideas are still in your mind.
Misfitness is your nature, and the discomfort is arising because the ideas that society gives to everybody, it has given to you too. You are not together; there is a split. Deep down you don't want to be a misfit.
I would like to suggest, drop those ideas. All respectability, all honor is meaningless if it drives you against your nature. What can you do if you are not a lotus flower, but just a marigold? Enjoy being a marigold.
The sun makes no difference, the moon does not discriminate; the whole existence accepts you as you are. But deep down within you there is a rejection, so you are in a split, in a dilemma. With this dilemma, wherever you go you will feel uncomfortable – more uncomfortable than you are feeling here, because here nobody is interested in condemning, in judging. Nobody will say, "Leeladhar, you are not what you should be." There is no "should" here.
In the American commune, you were not willing to remain a plastic surgeon. Now is the chance – nobody is telling you to be a plastic surgeon; even if you want to be, nobody is interested in plastic surgery here. If somebody's nose is a little long, nobody objects. Or a little smaller... a nose is just functional. With the long nose or the small nose, if breathing is going well, there is no problem. Here nobody is interested in changing from a man into a woman, or from woman into a man.
This is not a commune, this is simply a gathering of all kinds of misfit people who cannot fit anywhere else. Here they can celebrate their misfitness without losing respect and honor and dignity.
You say, "India, and even a commune, just does not seem to be the place where I feel comfortable."
It is unbelievable that Indian society down the ages has never crucified a Jesus and there have been many who were claiming "Ambram Hasmi" "I am a god" – Jesus was only saying "I am the only begotten son of God" – and nobody has objected. If they are enjoying and feeling blissful, they are not doing any harm to anybody.
Gautam Buddha did not believe in God. Mahavira absolutely rejected the very idea of God. But they were not crucified, they were loved as they were….
This country has accepted and loved all kinds of unfit people, and if you feel that India is making you uncomfortable, you have to be here a little longer to feel the atmosphere. I have been around the world. No country has such a groovy atmosphere….
Certainly you are not a bigger misfit than I am….
Leeladhar, your discomfort is coming from your own conditioning, one thing. Second, you have not accepted your unfitness in its totality; otherwise why should one be uncomfortable?
And you can be free to do anything you want, anywhere.
For example, I have not been uncomfortable anywhere around the world. I was not uncomfortable in the American jails. I was not uncomfortable in different cultures, different countries, different religions. I accept my unfitness with absolute joy….
I have never felt uncomfortable anywhere.
It is an inner feeling, nothing to do with anything outside you. And I repeat: if you cannot feel comfortable here, Leeladhar, you will not find another place in the whole earth to be comfortable. Nowhere else is the uniqueness of individual respected; nowhere else are you loved as you are. You have to prove, you have to deserve.
Here you don't have to prove anything, and you don't have to deserve anything. You don't have to be worthy of anything. This is the way you are and everybody is in a tremendous, accepting, awareness. Just give it a little time.
"Is there such a state as doing your own thing, content and full of gratitude?"
Yes. That's my whole approach towards life: "doing your own thing content and full of gratitude..." It is not an ego trip. It is your nature wanting to be left undisturbed.
And here we are not engaged in any kind of work which has to be forced on you. This place has to leave in you a memory of sheer enjoyment, of silence and beauty. And people who are non-interfering with you, are happy in your happiness. Nobody is jealous, nobody is competitive. Nobody is even comparing.
But it all depends on you.
I have created the space here.
Now how you use it, is up to you.
Excerpted from a 1987 Osho talk published in The Hidden Splendor, (Number 21)
