Panch Mahavrat or The Perennial Path The Art of Living

SR No.: 007697
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Osho Rajnish
Publisher: Osho Rajnish
Total Pages: 96
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 1 MB

Page 40

CHAPTER 4. NONSTEALING
or bones, but the fire of anger even burns the soul, burns everything within. It turns everything into ashes within. When a person draws back his hand after putting it into the fire, how does he dare to put his hand into the fire of anger? He does so because he has not thoroughly seen that he is putting his hand in the fire of anger. When he puts his hand in the fire of anger, he pretends as if he is touching flowers. He is burning within with hatred, but keeps a smile on his lips. If he sees deep within, he will find that his hands are burning with the fire of anger.
If a person does not laugh a false laugh and tries to understand sincerely his weeping, his miseries and pain, he will see this fire burning soon. There is no greater fool than the one who entertains hatred even after seeing, understanding what anger is, what hatred is. So when I said, you steal when you put on a mask, I do not mean to say that when you are smiling, it is a mask. That smiling will be a mask only when there is no smiling within but it is all outward. That weeping would be a mask when there are no tears within, they are in the eyes only. Your greeting someone will be a mask when you say within 'what a calamity, this man has come!' and outwardly you say, 'A guest is to be considered as a God, you are most welcome, please be seated. In such circumstances, the guest is certainly dishonoured, God is also disregarded. Always say what is there in your heart. Tell the truth. It will be very difficult. This difficulty must arise, because only after it arises, will there be liberation from falsehood mask. If you want to tell the guest who has come to your house, 'you have put us through great inconvenience, you do not look at all like a God', you will find it rather difficult. But by enduring this difficulty, the guest will soon appear a God to you, because he who can be so frank-hearted, can also look upon the guest as God. But a cunning person who says in his mind, 'How has this bad man come to my house!' and outwardly says 'you are a God, you are most welcome, your arrival has filled his house with joy', can never regard the guest as God. This man is behaving so fraudulently with himself that this cunningness will make him crooked, complex and dishonest.
Thus we are amassing cunningness and crookedness throughout our lives, and everything about us is false and untrue. A religious person declares that he will give up this sort of crookedness, he will be innocent, frank-hearted. He will be what he is. He will show himself as he is. Then masks disappear and the true face of a person begins to appear. All have their original - true - faces, but we have covered them with so many masks that we ourselves do not know which is the real face. When you stand before a mirror and are pleased to see your face, there will be ninety-nine chances out of a hundred of that face also being a mask. We are not what we are even in a mirror. We wish to be seen as what we imagine we are. That is why a person stands before a mirror with a complete make-up.
I have heard about a woman who was ugly. She would break a mirror if someone held it before her. She would say, 'From where did you bring such a bad mirror? It makes my face absolutely ugly.' 'The mirror is bad! We also like to break all the mirrors, but we are not prepared to change our faces. But the face is not changed by breaking the mirror, life is not changed by breaking mirrors. What I mean by a mask is that we should not put on false faces upon our real face. It does not mean that we shall not change faces in our life, because we shall change them every day throughout life, but those changed faces should be yours. When there is darkness in life, tears will certainly come in our eyes. If a friend dies tomorrow, tear, will certainly come, and if a friend, separated for a long time, meets us tomorrow, our hearts will certainly throb with delight and we might begin to sing and dance. Our face should change every moment, it should be responsive, but that face should be yours. I do not say that you should maintain only one face throughout. If you do so, it would be a face of stone.
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
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Osho