________________
CHAPTER 1. NONVIOLENCE
people of the town gathered together and found out the truth. All the servants were collected there, and it was found out there were many owners. Then a difficulty arose. All the servants began to quarrel. They declared 'We are the owners'. When the quarrel became serious an old servant said, 'Please pardon me, we are quarrelling uselessly. The owner of house has gone out, and we all are his servants. The owner has not yet returned though many days have passed and so we forgot him. And now it is not necessary to remember him. Perhaps he may not ever return. Then one day when the owner returned, And those twenty-five servants disappeared at once, that is they immediately became servants. Gurdjieff used to say this is the story of man's mind.
It is very interesting that we generally project our conflict outside. There is a thief within you. You are quarrelling and fighting with that thief, trying to suppress him not to commit theft. If a theft is committed in your neighbour's house and the thief is caught, you will beat the thief the most, because there is already a thief suppressed within you, to whom you had desired many times to punish but could not do so. Now you got a thief outside, so your thief (within you) which was projected outside. You will certainly punish him. A thief's presence is necessary to punish his. A pious person cannot beat a thief, because there is no cause for projection. Therefore those who are thieves would be condemning thieves all the time. Those who are rascals will be slandering the rascals. Those who are lustful will be censuring sex. We project that outside which is there within us. Bertrand Russell has said somewhere that when a person cries aloud that there goes a thief, catch him, a theft is committed, it is very bad, etc. then our first duty is to catch that person who is shouting, because such a person, if not today, will commit a theft in future.
Generally we plant our illnesses, our mental diseases on others. Therefore, it generally so happens that if a person is speaking ill of some other person, he is unable to show much about that other person but is showing much about himself. His act of speaking ill of others tells us what he is projecting. There is some conflict going on within him, which he is planting on another person. And so when there is no conflict going on within the matter of planting it ceases at once.
Man's mind is fragmented. His violence is born in this very place. When man's mind begins to be nonviolent, it will become whole, unfragmented - it will be one. And when the mind becomes one whole, then there are no different or opposite tunes, then there begins a dance of joy. In man's life, a flute of joy begins to chime and people reach God travelling on that road of flute of joy. They have not reached God by any other road, they cannot.
IMPACT OF VIOLENCE ON LIFE
Water from mountains flows downward trying to find out pits, ditches or lakes. Water runs downwards; then the same water, becoming well heated, is transformed into vapour and then begins to run towards the sky, begins to find heights, begins to ride on clouds, begins to travel towards the sun. It is the same water, it is the energy, but it is transformed; there comes a revolution. A violent mind is in search of ditches and pits. It flows downwards. It is heading for a fall. A nonviolent mind becomes very fine - is transformed into vapour - and starts to reach peaks of mountains. It is a journey toward, the sky. It is on a journey to the sun. It is a flight towards the highest. It is eager to go towards the direction of liberation and God. A violent mind is always in search of 'the other'. That 'other' is the abyss. A nonviolent mind is in search of the 'self'. When we are in search of the 'other', we shall experience as if we are on a downward journey. Why is it so?, because the 'other' is the abyss, 'the other is the downfall, the 'other' the hell. Why is the 'other' a road leading to the
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
Osho
