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presents
The Mystery School
Learning to Live in the Vertical Dimension
“The progress of humanity and the progress of human consciousness are two quite different dimensions.
The progress of history is in time and the progress of consciousness is not in time.
The progress of all that we can see, of all that is visible, is horizontal,
while the progress of consciousness – which we cannot see – is vertical.
And we cannot see it because it is vertical.”
Osho,
We have experimented with communes
in both the East and the West
that did not last.
Buddha and other enlightened masters
created communes that did last.
What is the difference?
Gautam Buddha
and other masters
never created communes
the way we have
created them.
Buddha
has followers,
but not staying in one place...
moving continuously.
Mahavira had followers,
but not staying in one place... moving continuously.
So the way
we created commune,
nobody has
created that way
Five thousand people living together
is a totally different experience
than five
Buddhist monks
moving
from one place to another place,
only staying three days at one place.
Was a totally different thing.
And even in that,
man's cunningness comes in.
Jaina monks
have to move
continuously,
except during the rainy seasons.
In India,
the seasons used to be very fixed.
before
atomic experiments started,
Even dates and days were fixed
-- that on what day
the rains will begin and on what day the rains will stop
-- and there were clear-cut three seasons, four months each.
So for four months in the rainy season they had to stop.
But that also does not mean that thousands
of sannyasins will be stopping in one place,
wherever they are.
But
the cunningness of man's mind is such
that I have seen in Bombay
Jaina monks who have lived their whole life
-- somebody is there for fifty years...
I enquired, "How is it being managed?
-- because it is against
their basic rule
and discipline.
In three days they have to change."
And I was answered that
in Mahavira's time there were not such big cities as Bombay.
Now the Jaina monk moved from one part of Bombay
to another part of Bombay,
and in this way he goes on moving around Bombay,
inside Bombay, from one place to another place.
But he remains in Bombay;
he never leaves Bombay.
Clever idea!
From one
suburb
he will move to another suburb;
that is another place.
And because in Mahavira's time
there were no
such big cities
these suburbs would have been
different
cities, different towns,
so..."We are moving!"
And they go on circling.
And Bombay has
a population of
the daily population is
nearabout
ten million people.
Forty million people come every day
to work,
from
nearby towns,
and by the evening they return.
So sixty million people
are living in the town.
They are logically right,
that there was no city
in Buddha's time of such
population.
But the whole point is missed.
The point was simply
that you don't become attached
to a certain place,
that you don't start having friendships,
likings, dislikings.
In three days you cannot do much.
One day you come,
just
one day you really stay really,
and the third day you have to move.
It is not enough time
to get into
any politics,
or any
local problems.
To avoid
power politics,
to avoid local problems,
attachments,
the device was created that you move after three days.
But they go on moving after three day
in the same city
-- for fifty years, sixty years.
They have immense
contact with people.
They are almost residents of Bombay!
The people who like them
come to listen to them wherever they are.
Nobody had
any commune
the way
we tried,
and
both the experiments
have given
great insights into human nature,
so nothing has been a failure.
We have learned much.
So now I am not going to create a commune.
I am going to create a totally different thing:
a mystery school...
where forty, fifty people
will be there
to take care
of the school,
and two hundred, three hundred, five hundred people
can come for a one month course,
or a two month course, or a three month course,
and move on.
And slowly, slowly we can train people
so that they can open mystery schools around the world.
A school is a different thing.
You come for three month
to learn something,
to go through some experiences,
and then you are back in the world,
to your work, to your job.
The commune has made it clear that
if five thousand people
are living in a commune,
they will have to do many things
-- make roads, make houses,
make other facilities for five thousand people,
and for the guests who will be coming
for festivals.
These people will not have any time left
for the real search they had come for
in the first place.
They will not have time for meditation.
They will not have
time to go
within themselves,
find techniques and work upon them,
because the work is such
that you cannot just work five hours a day,
five days a week;
it will never be completed.
You have to work ten, twelve hours a day
seven days a week.
You are tired
-- and moreover,
what you are doing is only the necessary
facilities for yourself.
Soon you will have to start production;
otherwise from where are you going to get
your food, your clothes?
So this is a vicious circle.
And when five thousand people are there,
then there is bound to be power politics.
Then you have to
find group leaders,
coordinators.
It is not possible
to give freedom to five thousand people:
"Do whatsoever you like"
-- because they will all go swimming and
trekking and
playing their guitars,
but then who will make the roads and the houses and the farming?
And how are your food
and your clothes to be arranged?
How long can we depend on donations?
Sooner or later
you will have to make factories
and you will have to create something.
Then this commune becomes just an ordinary world
-- so why make so much
unnecessary trouble?
Our basic reason was
to give you
an insight into yourself.
That is completely forgotten in unnecessary trivia.
So my new phase of work is
a mystery school.
You work in the world, where roads are already there,
houses are already there,
you need not make them.
Factories are already there...
in thousands of years the world
has created all that.
So you can manage -- five hours working
five days a is enough.
On the weekend
you can meditate,
you can go into silence or you can go
to some isolated spot and just relax.
And in a year you will be able
to earn so much money, save so much money,
that you can come here
for one month, two months, three months...
as much as you can manage.
And being with me
has no connotations of work.
Then being with me
is simply joy,
celebration,
meditation,
singing, dancing.
Those three months are simply
holiday.
You forget the world for those three months.
They are pure search for the truth.
And after three months,
whatever you have learned,
continue it at home;
there you have time.
Five hours you work
-- you have enough time;
you can get at least two hours
for yourself.
Not only this...
when you start living with me
there is
a possibility
that you may start taking me granted,
that I am always here.
Nine months being away
will bring you closer to me,
because distance creates longing,
creates love,
creates understanding.
So each year you will be coming, going
Whatever you can manage... you can come twice.
You will not be a burden on anybody,
and there is no need for anybody to dominate you;
there is no need for any
strict
discipline
-- work needs that.
No coordinators,
so we can avoid the power trip.
So our both
communes have helped
to bring us to this point where we can start
a mystery school.
Without those two communes it would have been impossible.
This is my way
of looking at things.
Even failures
bring you closer
to success,
because each failure gives you insight
what went wrong,
how it went wrong.
So both the experiments have been
immensely significant.
And now we are in a position
to create
a totally different kind of place,
which is simply a festival
all the year round.
People will be coming and going.
They will take whatever they learn and they will practice
in the world,
and they will come again
to renew, to refresh,
to go further, deeper.
Only a skeleton crew
will be here to take care of you.
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