GUILT

GUILT

?

Can you say something about how guilt and

fear are related? Sometimes I find it hard

to separate the two.

Fear is natural; guilt is the creation of the priest. Guilt is man made. Fear is in-built, and it is very essential. Without fear you will not be able to survive at all. Fear is normal. It is because of fear that you will not put your hand on fire. It is because of fear that you will walk to the right or to the left, whatever is the law of the country. It is because of fear you will avoid poison. It is because of fear when a truck driver sound his horn, you run out of the way.

         If the child has no fear there is no possibility that he will ever survive. His fear is a life protective measure. Because of this natural tendency to protect oneself… and nothing is wrong in it, you have the right to protect yourself. You have such a precious life to protect, and fear helps you. Fear is intelligence. Only idiots don’t have fear, imbeciles don’t have fear; hence you have to protect this people, otherwise they will burn themselves, or they will jump out of a building, or they will go out into the sea without knowing how to swim—anything they can do.

         Fear is intelligence; when you see a snake crossing the path, you jump out of the way. It is not cowardly, it is simply intelligent. But there are two possibilities out of this natural phenomenon. Fear can become abnormal, it can become pathological. Then you are afraid of things of which there is no need to be afraid, although you can find arguments even for your abnormal fears.

         For example, somebody is afraid of going inside a house. Logically, you can prove he is wrong. He says, “What is the guarantee the house will not fall?” Now, houses are known to fall. So this house can also fall. People have been crushed by houses falling. Nobody can give an absolute guarantee that this house is not going to fall; an earthquake can happen, anything is possible. Another man is afraid and he cannot travel because there are train accidents. Somebody else is afraid and cannot get in their car, there are car accidents. Somebody else is afraid of an airplane. If you become afraid in this way, this is not intelligent. Then you should be afraid of your bed too, because almost ninety-seven percent of people die in their beds—so that is the most dangerous place to be! Logically, and you should remain as far away from your bed as possible. Never go close to it. Then you will make your life possible

         Fear can become abnormal; then it is pathology. And because of this possibility the priests have used it, politicians have used it, all kinds of oppressors used it. They make it pathological, and it becomes very simple to exploit you. The priest makes you afraid of hell. Just look into the scriptures, with what joy they depict all the tortures, with really great relish. Adolf Hitler must have been reading these scriptures, with what joy they depict all tortures; he must have found such great ideas from these scriptures describing hell. He himself was not a creative genius as to be able to invent the concentration camps and all kinds of atrocities. He must have found them in religious scriptures—they were already there, priest had already done the work. He only practiced what priests have been preaching. He was really a religious man! Priests were only talking about the hell that was waiting for you after death, Hitler said, “Why wait for so long? I will create a hell here and now so you can have a taste of it.”

         The priests became aware very early that the fear instinct in man can be exploited. He can be made so afraid he will fall at the feet of the priest and beg them, “Save us! Only you can save us.” And the priest will agree to save them only if they follow him. If they follow the rituals prescribed by the priest, he will save them. And out of fear people have been following all kinds of stupidities, superstitions.

         The politicians also became aware that people can be made very much afraid. And if you make them afraid, you can dominate them. It is out of fear that nations exist. Indians are afraid of Pakistanis, and Pakistanis are afraid of Indians, and so on all over the world. It is so stupid! We are afraid of each other, and because of our fear the politicians say he will save you here, in this world, and the priest says he will save you in the other world. And they conspire together.

         It is fear that creates guilt, but no the fear itself. Fear creates guilt via the priests and politicians. The priests and the politicians create in you a pathology, a trembling. And naturally, the human being is so delicate and so fragile, he becomes afraid. Then you can tell him to do anyhthing and he will do it, knowing perfectly well it is stupid, knowing perfectly well deep down it is all nonsense—but who knows.? Out of fear man can be forced to do anything to save himself. And because the pathology that has been created in you is unnatural, your nature rebels against it. Then once in a while you do something natural, which goes against this unnatural fear, guilt arises.

         Guilt means you have an unnatural idea in your mind about how life should be, what should be done. Then one day you will find yourself following nature and you do the natural thing, you go against the ideology you are carrying. Because you go against the ideology, guilt arises and you are ashamed. You feel inferior, unworthy.

         By giving people unnatural ideas you cannot transform them. Hence the priests have been able to exploit people. They are not interested in transforming you either; their whole idea is to keep you always enslaved. They create a conscience in you. Your conscience is really not your conscience, it is created by your religions. They say, “This is wrong.” You may know from the deepest core of your being that there seems to be nothing wrong in it, but they say it is wrong and they go on hypnotizing you from the very childhood. The hypnosis goes deep, sinks deep in you, becomes almost part of your being. It holds you back.

         They told you sex is wrong, but sex is such a natural phenomenon that you are attracted toward it. And nothing is wrong in being attracted toward a woman or a man. It is jut part of nature. But your conscience says, “This is wrong.” So you hold yourself back. Half of you goes toward the other and the half of you is pulling you back. You can’t make any decision; you are always divided, split. If you decide to go with the woman or the man your conscience will torture you: “ You have committed a sin.” If you don’t’ go, your nature will torture you: “You are starving me!” now you are in a double blind. Whatever you do you will suffer, and the more you suffer, the more you go to the priest for advice. The more you suffer, the more you seek a salvation.

         Bertrand Russell is absolutely right that if a man is given total, natural freedom from all this so-called conscience and morality, and if he is helped to become integrated, natural being—intelligent, understanding, living his life according to his own light and not according to somebody else’s advice—the so called religion will disappear from the world.

         I perfectly agree with him. The so-called religions will certainly disappear from the world. If people are not in suffering, they won’t seek salvation. But Bertrand Russell goes on and he says religion itself will disappear from the earth.  There I don’t agree with him. The so-called religions will disappear, and because the so-called religions will disappear there will be, for the first time in the world, an opportunity for an authentic religiousness to exist. Christians will not be there, Hindus will not be the, Mohammedans will not be there: only then will a new kind of religiousness spread over the earth. People will be living according to their consciousness. There will be no guilt, no repentance, because these things never change people. People remain the same; they just go on changing their outer garb, their form. Substantially, nothing changes through guilt, through fear, through heaven, through hell. All these ideas have utterly failed. We have lived in a very wrong kind of world; we have created a wrong kind of situation. People go on changing superficially: the Hindu becomes a Christian, the Christian becomes a Hindu, and nothing ever changes. All remains the same.

         The reformed prostitute is giving testimony with the Salvation Army on a street corner on a Saturday night , punctuating her discourse by beating a bass drum.

         “I used to be a sinner!” She shouts (boom!) “Used to be a bad woman (boom!) I used to drink! (boom!) Gamble! (boom!) Whore! (boom!boom!) used to go out Saturday nights to raise hell! (boom!boom!boom!)  now what do I do every Saturday night? I stand on this street corner, beating this motherfucking drum!”

Source: EMOTIONAL WELNESS

OSHO