posted October 29, 2004 06:32 AM         

Philosophers have always believed that essence precedes existence, that man is born with what he is going to be already determined. Just like a seed, he contains the whole program; now the question is only of unfoldment. There is no freedom – that has been the attitude of all the philosophers of the past, that man has a certain fate, a destiny. One is going to become a certain entity that is fixed, the script is already writ-ten. You are not aware of it, that’s another matter, but whatsoever you are doing, you are not doing it. It is being done through you by natural, unconscious forces, or by God.

This is the attitude of the determinist, the fatalist. The whole of humanity has suffered from it immensely, because this kind of approach means there is no possibility of any radical change. Nothing can be done at all about man’s transformation; everything is going to happen the way it is going to happen. The East has suffered most because of this attitude. When nothing can be done, then one starts accepting everything – slavery, poverty, ugliness; one has to accept it. This is not understanding, it is not awareness; it is not what Gautama the Buddha calls suchness, tathata. It is just despair, hopelessness hiding itself in beautiful words.

But the consequence is going to be disastrous. You can see it in its most developed form in India: the poverty, the beggars, the illness, the crippled people, the blind people. And nobody takes any note of l because this is how life is, this is how life has always been and this is how life is always going to be. A kind of lethargy seeps into the very soul.

But the whole approach is basically false. It is a consolation, not a discovery that comes from looking into the reality, It is somehow to hide one’s wounds – it is a rationalization. And whenever rationalizations start hiding your reality you are bound to fall into darker and darker realms.

Essence does not precede existence; on the contrary, existence pre-cedes essence. Man is the only being on the earth who has freedom. A dog is born a dog, will live like a dog, will die like a dog; there is no freedom. A rose will remain a rose, there is no possibility of any trans-formation; it cannot become a lotus. There is no question of choice, there is no freedom at all. This is where man is totally different. This is the dignity of man, his specialness in existence, his uniqueness.

That’s why I say Charles Darwin is not right, because he starts categorizing man with other animals; this basic difference he has not even taken note of. The basic difference is that all animals are born with a program, only man is born without a program. Man is born as a tabula rasa, a clean slate; nothing is written on it. You have to write everything that you want to write on it; it is going to be your creation.

Man is not only free, man is freedom. That is his essential core, that’s his very soul. The moment you deny freedom to man you have denied him his most precious treasure, his very kingdom. Then he is a beggar, and in a far more ugly situation than other animals because at least they have a certain program. Then man is simply lost.

Once this is understood, that man is born as freedom, then all the dimensions open up to grow. Then it is up to you what to become and what not to become; it is going to be your own creation. Then life becomes an adventure – not an unfoldment but an adventure, an exploration, a discovery. The truth is not already given to you; you have to create it. In a way, each moment you are creating yourself.

Even if you accept the theory of fate, that is also an act of deciding about your life. By accepting fatalism you have chosen the life of a slave – it is your choice! You have chosen to enter into a prison, you have chosen to be chained, but it is still your choice. You can come out of the prison.
Of course people are afraid to be free, because freedom is risky. One never knows what one is doing, where one is going, what the ultimate result of it all is going to be. If you are not ready-made then the whole responsibility is yours. You cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else’s shoulders. Ultimately, you will be standing before existence totally responsible for yourself. Whatsoever you are, whosoever you are, you cannot shirk it; you cannot escape from it – this is the fear. Out of this fear .people have chosen all kinds of determinist attitudes.

And it is a strange thing; the religious and the irreligious are agreed only on one point – that there is no freedom. On every other point they disagree, but on one point their agreement is strange. The communists say they are atheists, irreligious, but they say that man is deter-mined by the social, economic, political situations. Man is not free; man’s consciousness is determined by outside forces. It is the same logic! You can call the outside force the economic structure. Hegel calls it “History” – with a capital H, remember – and the religious people call it “God”; again the word is with a capital G. God, History, Economics, Politics, Society – all outside forces, but they are all agreed upon one thing, that you are not free.

I say to you, you are absolutely free, unconditionally free. Don’t avoid the responsibility; avoiding is not going to help. The sooner you accept it the better, because immediately you can start creating yourself. And the moment you create yourself great joy arises, and when you have completed yourself, the way you wanted to, there is immense contentment, just as when a painter finishes his painting, the last touch, and a great contentment arises in his heart. A job well done brings great peace. One feels that one has participated with the whole.

The only prayer is to be creative, because it is only through creativity that you participate in the whole; there is no other way to participate. God has not to be thought about, you have to participate in some way. You cannot be an observer, you can only be a participant; only then will you taste the mystery of it. Creating a painting is nothing. Creating a poem is nothing, creating music is nothing compared to creating your-self, creating your consciousness, creating your very being.

But people have been afraid, and there are reasons to be afraid. The first is that it is risky, because only you are responsible. Secondly, the freedom can be misused – because you can choose the wrong thing to be. Freedom means you can choose the right or the wrong; if you are only free to choose the right, it is not freedom. Then it will be like when Ford made his first cars – they were all black. And he would take his customers into the showroom and tell them, “You can choose any color, provided it is black!”

But what kind of freedom is this' – provided it is right. Provided it follows the Ten Commandments, provided it is according to the Bhagavad-Gita or the Koran, provided it is according to Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathustra. Then it is not freedom at all! Freedom basically means, intrinsically means that you are capable of both: either choosing the right or the wrong.

And the danger is – hence the fear – that the wrong is always easier to do. The wrong is a downhill task and the right is an uphill task. Going uphill is difficult, arduous; and the higher you go the more arduous it becomes. But going downhill is very easy. You need not do anything, gravitation does everything for you. You can just roll like a rock from the hilltop and the rock will reach to the very bottom; nothing has to be done. But if you want to rise in consciousness, if you want to rise in the world of beauty, truth, bliss, then you are longing for the highest peaks possible and that certainly is difficult.

Secondly, the higher you reach the more there is a danger of falling, because the path becomes narrow and you are surrounded on all sides by dark valleys. A single wrong step and you will simply be gone into the abyss, you will disappear. It is more comfortable, convenient to walk on the plain ground, not to bother about the heights.
Freedom gives you the opportunity either to fall below the animals or to rise above the angels. Freedom is a ladder. One end of the ladder reaches hell, the other end touches heaven. It is the same ladder; the choice is yours, the direction has to be chosen by you.

And to me, if you are not free you cannot misuse your unfreedom. Unfreedom cannot be misused. The prisoner cannot misuse his situation – he is chained, he is not free to do anything. And that is the situation of all other animals except man – they are not free; they are born to be a certain kind of animal and they will fulfill it. In fact, nature itself fulfills it; they are not required to do anything. There is no challenge in their life. It is only man who has to face the challenge, the great challenge. And very few people have chosen to risk, to go to the heights, to discover their ultimate peaks. Only a few – the Buddha, the Christ – only very few, they can be counted on the fingers.

Why hasn’t the whole of humanity chosen to reach the same state of bliss as Buddha, the same state of love as Christ, the same state of celebration as Krishna? Why? – for the simple reason that it is dangerous even to aspire to those heights. It is better not to think about it, and the best way not to think about it is to accept that there is no freedom – you are already determined beforehand. There is a certain script handed over to you before your birth and you have just to fulfill it.

Only freedom can be misused, slavery cannot be misused. That’s why you see so much chaos in the world today. It has never been there before, for the simple reason that man was not so free. You see more chaos in America for the simple reason that they are enjoying the greatest freedom that has ever been enjoyed anywhere in the world, at any time in history. Whenever there is freedom, chaos erupts. But that chaos is worth it, because only out of that chaos are stars born.

I am not giving you any discipline, because every discipline is a subtle kind of slavery. I am not giving you any commandments, because any commandments given by anybody else coming from the outside are going to imprison you, to enslave you. I am only teaching you how to be free and then leaving you to yourself, to do what you want to do with your freedom. If you want to fall below the animals that is your decision, and you are perfectly allowed to do it because it is your life. If you decide it that way, then it is your prerogative. But if you under-stand freedom and its value you will not start falling; you will not go below the animals, you will start rising above the angels.

Man is not an entity, he is a bridge, a bridge between two eternities – the animal and the god, the unconscious and the conscious. Grow in consciousness, grow in freedom. Take each step out of your own choice. Create yourself and take the whole responsibility for it.

posted October 29, 2004 08:37 AM         

Once again, you've blown my head right off with this. Lots of truths in there, ones that are much needed at this time. Thank you for sharing this passage.

posted October 29, 2004 11:13 AM         

Paras, you`re right, animals and flowers have NO free will. At Creation, they are in perfect submission to God/Dess. How perfect and Glorious is that

posted November 01, 2004 06:03 AM         

IAmThat: Inspiration, not "information".

Juniper: Perfectly glorious, and gloriously perfect!

posted November 01, 2004 09:09 AM         

My real inspiration to understand free-will came from a chance encounter with a woman. When I read Osho's thoughts it reminded me of our conversation. Thanks for sharing with us your wisdom thats what I meant

PEACE.

posted November 01, 2004 11:08 AM         

I once had a dream that I was on an open plain with no thing around. My voice spoke to me, but I knew it wasn't me, but was God (this is that dream).
God said, 'all before you is your own creation. Here you may manifest with a single thought. On earth you were given physical means to manifest. You had to work with your hands, your legs...the limitations of Time. Here there are no such limitations."

I had a thought and directly to my right appeared my vision....an artic scene so real. With snow and a polar bear. It was magical and out of place with the rest of the flat, empty scenery around us. I could feel the brisk cold air from it on my face. I knew I had created it from my thought.

Then I thought of a cliff and it appeared. I walked to the edge and felt eager and excited with the opportunity to fly from there. I stretched my arms and leaped, only to fall.
"Why can't I fly?" I thought.
Suddenly next to me appeared a friend, who in life I had unresolved issues with.
"These things hold you back," God said. "Even here. You will fly one day when you are ready. There is still a journey."

I was confused. 'But I thought here there were no limitations?'

"Only the ones you yourself have created," God said.

Then next to me appeared my daughter........and a small creature wobbled up to her. It had a long tail, like a monkey, but was a creature that I had never seen before. It was very cute, with an unthreatening presence. Then, suddenly the creature wrapped its tail around my daughter's neck and began strangling her. I wrestled the creature off of her and then it disappeared.

I was confused again. I had thought that this scenery was my creation. Where did the creature come from? Why did it act so malicious?

"Even here there are still challenges that appear before you. Manifestations that come from outside yourself." God said. "There is an infinate Universe of creation......and you embark on the next adventure from here".

Forgive me the indulgence of posting a personal dream here......but it was the best way I could think of to describe my feelings on this subject.

We are free to create always, I feel, but that doesn't mean that events and circumstances won't happen to us from outside of us as well. Yet, from that event, we are free to react to it in any way we feel. How we react is what we carry on to the next leg of the journey.
The journey is always open......but there are suprises in store for us as well.
At least that is the meaning that I got from the dream.