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CHAPTER 1. NONVIOLENCE
say humanity has been doing this since long; it has been torturing one another, but we do not have any idea of it. This will continue to be so, so long as man is not pleased with his own self, so long as he is not ready to live with his own self, his journey begins with his own self. It leaves the outside and enters within because the other is always the outer, the other is always the without. He will certainly be out. As long as the search continues for the other, he (the other) will always be out, even though that 'other' be a wife, or a beloved, or a lover or even God. If anyone looks even at God as some other person then violence will continue and in that action there cannot be freedom from violence. That is why Mahavira rejected 'God of the outside' because he thought 'if God is the other', there would be a way for violence. So very few people understood why Mahavira rejected God. The ignorant thought Mahavira was an atheist, they thought Mahavira said so because God is perhaps non-existent.
Mahavira said 'There is no God except you.' The only reason for this statement is that if there is God as 'the other', the violent mind will make even God the means of going out and going downward.
Mahavira said, 'there is no God outside, we have to make a journey within. The soul within is God himself.' And as soon as one enters within, his journey to the highest peak begins. There are very great heights within, and there are very deep abysses outside. There are peaks as high as Gaurishanker within and there are depths as deep as the Pacific Ocean in the outer world. If any one goes deeper and deeper in the outer world he will go on falling in bottomless pits where there will be darkness, misery, death, torture and hell. And if any one climbs within, towards the Self, there will be great heights, there will be peaks of Kailash, there will be peaks of gold, there will be liberation - moksh, there will be heaven. That journey is of within. When life force becomes violent, it degenerates, and when it becomes nonviolent, it is sublimated. In both the cases, life energy-life force - is one and the same thing. When it flows in the world outside, it gives misery and brings pain and unhappiness, and when it travels within, it gives happiness and brings happiness. If in any moment when you have experienced the highest joy, you must have known that you are absolutely alone. If in any moment when thrills of joy have spread in you, you must have experienced that you are within yourself. If in any moment when a single drop of the rain of joy had fallen within you, you must have experienced, I alone am here, no one else.' You must have always got miseries by being associated with others, and you must have always experienced happiness within yourself.
We also follow a golden deer when we desire happiness from another. No sooner do we believe that the golden deer is existing, than our fall begins. Our degeneration begins that very moment when we believe that the other can give us happiness. It is our experience of the whole life that we got nothing but unhappiness and miseries from the world outside. But the hope persists that happiness will one come day. But it has never been achieved. We always hope it will come in future, but looking at the past, can you say if it was ever achieved? Has anyone ever got happiness from the other? On the contrary, the fact is one gets as much unhappiness from him from whom one had expected to get as much happiness. That is why, that son whose marriage is arranged by his parents does not get that much unhappiness from his wife as the son who goes in for a love-marriage, gets from his wife. There is a greater possibility of getting dashed on the rock of love-marriage, because one whose marriage is performed after consulting horoscopes, etc. does not entertain high hopes of happiness. He will also get unhappiness but that will be in proportion to the hopes of happiness predicted according to the horoscope. We get that much unhappiness as much as we hope for happiness in life. Those who hope for much happiness are rewarded with much unhappiness. There is no way to give him unhappiness who does not hope for happiness.
The Perennial Path: The Art of Living
Osho
