The double-standard mind is always in deep misery
A tantra technique:"Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed.
This technique can be very helpful. WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY, YOU ALWAYS JUSTIFY YOUR ANGER; but when someone else gets angry, you always criticize. Your madness is natural, but others' madness is just "perversion"
THE SAME IS DONE BY OTHERS; but then the same rationalization is not given. If you are angry, you say it was necessary to help the other. If you were not angry, the other would have been destroyed, he would have got a wrong habit -- so it was good to give him punishment. It was just for his "good". BUT WHEN SOMEONE GETS ANGRY AT YOU, the same rationalization is not applicable. Then he is "mad", he is "evil".
WE HAVE DOUBLE STANDARDS -- one standard for one oneself and another standard for everyone else. This double-standard mind is going to be in deep misery always. This mind is not just; and unless your mind is just, you cannot have a glimpse of the truth. Only a just mind can leave this double standard.
Jesus says, "DON'T DO TO OTHERS WHAT YOU WOULD NOT LIKE DONE TO YOU." This means a similar standard is needed. This technique is based on the idea of a single standard: "Objects and desires exist in me as in others...." YOU ARE NOT EXCEPTIONAL, although everyone thinks he is exceptional. If you think you are exceptional, know well this is how every ordinary mind thinks. To know that one is ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in this world.
Someone asked Suzuki about his teacher: "What was exceptional in your teacher, Suzuki?" Suzuki was a Zen master. So he said, "The only thing I will never forget is this, that I have never seen a man who thought himself so ordinary. HE WAS JUST ORDINARY, AND THAT IS THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY THING -- because every ordinary mind thinks he is exceptional, extraordinary."
But no one is extraordinary, and if you know this you become extraordinary!
EVERYONE IS JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. The same desires that hover around you, hover around everyone else. But you call your sex love; others' love you call sex. WHATSOEVER YOU DO, YOU PROTECT IT; you say it is good -- that's why you are doing it. And the same thing done by others is "not the same." And this happens not only to persons, this happens to races, to nations. THIS IS WHY THE WHOLE WORLD HAS BECOME A MESS, because of this.
If India goes on strengthening its army, it is "for defense;" and if China goes on strengthening its army. it is "for attack." EVERY GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD calls its military organization "defense." Then who attacks? If everyone is defending, who is the aggressor? If you move into history, you cannot find anyone who is an aggressor. Of course, the defeated ones prove to be aggressors. The defeated ones always prove to be aggressors, because they cannot write history; the victorious ones write history.
If Hitler could have won, then the history would have been different. Then he would have been the savior of the world, not the aggressor. Then Churchill and Roosevelt and the other allies would have been the aggressors, and it would have been "good" if they were destroyed. But because Hitler couldn't win, he was "the aggressor;" and Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin and the other allies "saved humanity." NOT ONLY WITH PERSONS, but with everything we do -- as nations, as races -- the same logic moves: We are something different and the other is different.
NO ONE IS DIFFERENT! A religious mind knows that everyone is the same. So if you give rationalizations for yourself, please give the same rationalizations to others also. IF YOU CRITICIZE OTHERS, then apply that same criticism to yourself. Don't create two standards. ONE STANDARD WILL TRANSFORM YOUR BEING TOTALLY, because with one standard you become just; and for the first time, you can look straight into reality, as it is."Objects and desires exist in me as in others. So accepting, let them be transformed.
What are we doing? We accept that they exist in others. WHATSOEVER IS WRONG, EXISTS IN OTHERS; whatsoever is right, exists in you. Then how can you be transformed? You are already transformed. You think that you are already good, and everyone else is bad; the world needs a transformation, not you. That's why there are always leaders, movements, prophets who go on crying from the rooftops to change the world, to create a revolution; AND WE HAVE BEEN MAKING REVOLUTIONS AND REVOLUTIONS, and nothing changes.
MAN REMAINS THE SAME, AND THE EARTH REMAINS IN THE SAME MISERY. Only faces and labels change, but misery continues. It is not a question of how to change the world. The world is not wrong, you are wrong. THE QUESTION IS HOW TO CHANGE YOURSELF: "How to change myself?" is the religious quest; "How to change everyone else?" is the political. But the politician thinks he is okay; really, he is the model of how the whole world should be. He is the model, he is the ideal; and it is up to him to change the whole.
WHATSOEVER THE RELIGIOUS MAN SEES IN EVERYONE ELSE, he sees in himself also. If there is violence, he immediately wonders whether the violence exists in him or not. If there is greed, if he sees greed somewhere, his first reflection is over whether the same greed is in him or not. And the more he searches, the more he finds that he is the source of all evil. Then it is not a question of how to change the world, it is a question of how to change oneself. AND THE CHANGE STARTS THE MOMENT YOU ACCEPT ONE STANDARD. Then you are already changing.
- Osho
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
Vol 1, Ch #37: Techniques to witness the flux-like film of life
pm in Woodlands, Bombay
Vol 1, Ch #37: Techniques to witness the flux-like film of life
pm in Woodlands, Bombay