Panch Mahavrat or The Perennial Path The Art of Living

Author(s): Osho Rajnish
Publisher: Osho Rajnish

Page 65

CHAPTER 6. SELF ENERGY FROM SEX ENERGY
A friend was brought before me recently. Those who brought him told me that this person has tried to commit suicide five times till now. I said, he seems to be a very wonderful man, it seems he is making incomplete efforts. It is difficult to believe that a person is still living if he had tried to commit suicide five times. Where was the need to die, to commit suicide, if you are living totally. This man has already tried to die five times. I told him, 'you should be ashamed of yourself, now don t make any more attempts. Five times is quite enough.' But what is the meaning of this - a person who tried to commit suicide five times and failed?
Its meaning is that a portion of his personality must have been trying to save himself, and he must have attempted to die also, otherwise who can stop another person from dying? How can there be honesty in living when it is not there in dying? When there is no honesty even in dying, there cannot be any honesty in living. Life will be a total dishonesty. Therefore, I told that person he should be ashamed of himself. He should have died at the very first attempt. And he was brought before me when he tried to die for the sixth time. I told him not to try anymore, he would be much censured.
He was very surprised as he had thought that I would persuade him not to commit suicide. He told me, 'What type of a man are you? Everyone whom I was taken to persuaded me and told me it was a very bad thing.' I said, I do not call it a bad thing, I say to do anything halfheartedly - incomplete - is bad. If you want to do a thing, do it totally. That man continued to stare at me for some time, then said, I do no wish to commit suicide, I also want to live but I want to live on my conditions. If they are not accepted I will commit suicide. So he wants to live and also wants to live on his own conditions. If he lives, he lives as if dead, and when he dies, he will die a miserable death all the while wishing to live. He who can not live fully, cannot die fully. He will be a shattered person.
We all belong to this category. There is not much difference in all of us. We are doing the same thing. We do not love the person whom we say we love because in the morning we think of a divorce. Then again, we seek to be pardoned by him then, in the afternoon, we regret it. Thus we beg pardon in the evening and think of divorce in the morning.
I was putting up at a house. There the husband and wife had kept their divorce application ready, only it was not signed. I had seen it with my own eyes. The husband told me many times that the situation becomes so bad that he thinks of putting his signature on it. He was fully prepared for it. I told him there is no harm if you sign it but to keep the application ready is very dangerous. Is there any meaning in calling - claiming that woman as wife whom you are prepared to divorce? There is no meaning at all. She is still your wife. He said that this application has been kept ready for the last seven years. There is nothing new in it.
This conflict of living half-heartedly causes the wastage of energy. I shall tell you a small story to explain my point. I have heard there was a very famous swordsman in Japan. There was no one in Japan who could be compared with him in swordsmanship. The fame of his skills reached many far off countries. One day he learnt that his watchman had fallen in love with his wife. He arrested both of them. The knight told the watchman, my mind tells me to cut your throat, but you have also made love to my wife, so it would be proper for us to fight in a duel with swords in our hands. He who is saved at the end will be the master of my wife.
The watchman said, why do you wish to play this game, you may cut my throat even without a fight - a duel. My throat will be cut anyway because I do not know how to handle a sword, and there is
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
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Osho