To help yourself, help the other be free of yourself || Acharya Prashant (2017)
Questioner: Acharya Ji, what does Osho mean when he says, you help the other be alone so that you do not remain a need for the other?
Acharya Prashant: This is with reference to a relationship. There is a relationship, a relationship apparently involves two and if the two are lonely what are they doing in that relationship? Just fulfilling their own self interest because the lonely person has nothing but himself in his world. The world exists for his sake so that he might be fulfilled.
For the lonely person who is paramount? Himself, his needs and his needs are great. Why are his needs great? Because he is missing the absolute. So, his need is the absolute. And if your need is absolute, nothing can fulfil your need. The absolute is infinite. If you are missing a little, then a little can fulfil you. If you are missing a little, then a little can fulfil you. But what if you are missing the absolute? Then what will fulfil you? What hope is there? Too bad.
Two lonely fellows in a relationship, both are missing the absolute, both are really missing the absolute. And both are trying to find in each other the absolute. Now they keep exploring the absolute, hunting for the absolute in the other. Do they get the absolute? Had the other fellow had the absolute why would he had a relationship with you?
The blind fellow is looking for some light, for some vision in the other. The other is saying, “Had I had some eyesight why would I had picked you in the first place? The fact that I am with you itself proves that I am blind.” Now you are blind and I am blind and both are looking for eyesight in each other. Both are asking each other for directions. Both are holding each other’s hands in the hope that the other will help them out of their blindness and misery. Will that happen?
But man is a stubborn creature. In spite of being humiliated, beaten up, defeated, trampled a thousand times, he still gets up and says, “I can have more.” The absolute manifests itself as the absolutely shameful in the one, who does not have the absolute.
You see the absolute is absolutely present even in the who does not have absolute. That is the definition. He is omnipresent. If the absolute is omnipresent, he must be present also in the fools. How is the absolute present in the fools? There he is present as absolute foolishness. Is it a joke? The absolute has to be present. Either you have the absolute or you are absolutely fool. In either case the absolute is there in some form or the other. When the absolute is not directly there but indirectly it is called Maya. Even Maya is the presence of the absolute.
So, the two are still sticking to each other in spite of being disappointed a thousand times. In fact, the more they get disappointed from each other, the more they latch on to each other. Osho is saying, “There is only one way to redeem this relationship, please help the other.” It is significant. He could have said, “Help yourself first.” He is saying, “Help the other so that you don’t remain a need for him. Till the time the other fellow remains what he is, he will keep using you and exploiting you for his own narrow purposes. The only way then to save yourself is either to give up this relationship or to help the other to not remain what he or she is.”
Giving up the relationship is both inhuman and impractical. It is inhuman because two blind men or one man and a woman started it of together; it might be their ignorance, it might be their blindness, but they did set off together. Now that you have set off together and you by virtue of grace, happen to gain eyesight, it is not becoming of you, it does not quite befit you to just abandon the other person midway. The two of you started together, it is just a grace. And grace in some sense is just an accident, that you happened to walk faster. Now would you jettison your partner? It is not the way of compassion.
Also, it is impractical I say because man lives in relationships. You can give up on this relationship, you will get into some other relationship. There again the same story will repeat. How many people would you leave and how many people would you get left by? Because the two of you might start together at some point, after that point your tracks would not necessarily remain parallel and aligned. They are bound to get a little disparate. So, rather than becoming a wanderer in relationships, firstly correct the one relationship where you are.
How do you correct it? You correct it by helping the other out. Ordinarily, people think that if their partner is dependent on them then it is some kind of a sign of love, even if a warped sign. It is not. It is no indicator of love. In your relationship, if you are the other person’s need, then you are just being exploited. And if you continue to be the other person’s need, then rest assure that you too are using the other person for your own needs. Otherwise, you couldn’t have tolerated him.
To be free of the other, help the other to be free of you. It is inhuman to run away in the name of your freedom. Personal freedom is just part of loneliness because everything personal exists for the lonely man. For the lonely man there is only his person and personal interests and personal world.
When it comes to personal interests, we talk of them as lowly. If someone wants to have personal money, we say, “It is lowly,” we denounce it. But what if someone wants to have personal freedom or personal enlightenment? Is that not equally lowly? Why should that not be denounced? Someone wants to have money just for himself we say that is base and mean. Don’t we? Oh! you are collecting it for yourself and not sharing it with others, you are so selfish. Don’t we say that? But what about those who seek freedom and enlightenment only for themselves? Are they not equally mean and selfish? Please! Are they not? I am working for my enlightenment. The other fellow says, “I am working for my progress and promotion and prestige.” Are they two radically different?
Don’t ask for your personal freedom. Help others around you, be free. You will never be personally liberated. Never. It is impossible. Individual enlightenment is a great myth. Either all get it together or nobody gets it. We all are on the same boat. Either we all cross or we all sink together.
Are you getting it?
To help yourself, help the other. I repeat, to help yourself, help the other. This is not merely altruism. You are not being charitable. This is the holiest form of selfishness. Help the other cross over on your back, when the other reaches the other shore, you find that you too have reached the other shore. Also, without having the other on your back, you will find that you cannot swim. This is the nature of the world river.
The world river is a flow of relationships. Nobody cuts through it alone. Take everybody with you, as many as you can. The more you take along with you, the more strength you get to take more and more along with you. And do not take this as an exaggeration. I am saying, “One day you can carry the entire universe with you.” It is not a matter of just a relationship between two people. Father and son or husband and wife. No, not at all. When the author is saying help the other, the other is not merely a person. It may be a person to begin with but it never remains a person to end with.
Are you getting it?
People have talked of the one who cannot be talked of in various ways. They have talked of him as a lover. They have talked of him as a creator, as a destroyer. But the most charming description of him is — ‘him as a parent, as a father or as a mother.’ And that is why even amongst saints, you find most references to him as that of a father or a mother. Yes, some people have called him lover also. Some people have called him destroyer also. Some have given him other colourful names, beautiful names. But the most prevalent name is the father or the mother.
There is a reason. Look at what he is doing. You would find that among other things mostly he is engaged in parenting. He is engaged in having things complete their cycles. Grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Even death is the next step in growing up. Grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Die. Grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Die. Even if you call him a destroyer, he is still apparent. He is helping you grow by dying. There is great joy in parenting. There is great joy in helping the other to grow and seeing the other to grow.
Be a parent even to your lover. Be a parent even to your husband, even to your wife. If you are a man, be a father to your wife. If you are a wife, be a mother to your husband. That is godly.
Are you getting it?
Be a father to your friend. Be a mother to your pet. And obviously that is far beyond physical procreation. Obviously, that is far beyond the social institutions such as marriage etc. You are a parent irrespective of who the other is. Your very touch is a touch of life. Your very touch is a healing touch. You touch someone and he grows.
You know what is growth? Growth is expression. You know what is expressed? The truth is expressed. That is what is called being a parent. You touch the Other one and his hearts comes to be expressed. That is godly. That is the only way anybody ever grows. That is the only way anybody ever gains maturity. By the parental touch, by the touch of the god, by the touch of the absolute.
Touch the other one and help him gain maturity. That is the joy of living. That is in some sense the only way of living. And the more we talk of it the more it appears foolish to escape away to some corner of the city or to a village or to a desert or a mountain, to any secluded place and hide there.
Look at the one you are worshipping. You are saying, “you are going to hide in that cave so that you may worship.” The one you are worshipping remains engaged. He is engaged with you, with you, with you….. He is always in relationship. God is in a million relationships. Million is such a small number. Why must then you abdicate your relationships?
Help the other grow. Helping the other grow is not a matter of pride. You will be skinned alive, the other does not want to change, the other does not want to grow. You try to help the other grow, you will realise that you firstly have to help yourself. So, it’s a parallel thing. You remaining what you are, your intention will merely remain an intention. You will want to help the other, the other will retort and you will find that you too are reacting and all the help has gone out of the window.
You go to the other and say, ”Darling! tonight you will grow.” And that night you have the great dance of destruction. She proves to you that she is already a mother goddess, she needs no growth. To live through that dance of destruction, first of all you will need to grow. That’s why I said that it will be a parallel journey.
Are you getting it?
Apparently, it is quite an ego trip to be a parent, to be a helper. It is not. It is actually a destruction of ego to really help the other. You will have to come down from your high palace to the low grounds. The other is not prepared to go up. The other is saying, “I am alright where I am. You come down to my place.” Now you are a resident of high skies, the other does not come to the high skies, she stays where she is, so you go there and get beaten up. It has to be a parallel thing. You have to parallely grow along with the other person.
Now you know what I meant when I said that it’s either everybody together or nobody. Because you and the world are one. As you attempt to help the world, you are parallely helping yourself. Remaining what you are, the world will remain what it is. And just to help you through your night of destruction, may I just say that, the joy of seeing the other grow far surpasses all the troubles that you face.
Raising a kid is a nightmare. But that nightmare is very, very bearable, indeed joyful. When you really see what you are doing, the fruits are there. The fruits are daily there. And if you do not see them daily, have some patience. The fruits will appear. People talk of the pleasures of ego. The pleasures of ego are nothing compared to the great pleasure of seeing a human being blossom in front of you. That is the greatest of pleasures. That is so great that ego cannot handle it. You have not merely modified, you have not merely transformed, you have really given birth. You are now God, you are now mother God. There is no pleasure bigger than this. Great pleasures, absolutely great pleasures are called joy.
For those of you who are addicted to some kind of pleasure or the other and there are many young people here, those of you who are seekers of pleasure, to them I am saying, “This pleasure exceeds any pleasure that you know of.”
If you are with somebody, then there is pleasure in being a lover to that person. Have that pleasure. All right. Fine. You want to have the pleasure of other’s company, the other’s smell, the other’s body, the other’s voice, the other’s looks, have that pleasure. But the pleasure of being parent to the other, don’t miss out on that one. Be a father to your girlfriend. And don’t mind if she minds it. Be a father to your father, help him be born.
Kishor Ji is saying that, if God is a parent, then we must offer him respect and regular worship (puja, dhyan, archana ityaadi). He says, “He often misses out on these things and then he feels guilty.” If you are a parent, you know, that it is not really the superficial respect or rituals or observation of ceremonies that you want from your child. If you are really in love with your child, you do not just want him to offer some customary signs of respect. You want him to really grow. That is what any loving parent wants. His fulfilment is related to the fulfilment of the child. Nothing short of genuine growth of the child would please the parent. Right?
That is the only thing that would please the parent. What? Genuine growth of the grower, the child. So, if God is a parent, what would genuinely please him? Your pooja, archana or your growth? If God is a parent, what would please him? Your real growth or the ceremonies that you offer to God? Right Kishor Ji?
God is not looking for all the foods that you offer him, for all the hymns that you sing to him, for all the fasting and the celebrations in the name of God that you profess. He wants you to be really close to him, so close that you are ‘him.’ That’s what pleases him. So, if you miss out on fasting, if you miss out on recitation of prayers, it’s okay. Do not miss out on the real thing. If prayers are leading to the real thing, only then prayers are useful otherwise, praying and fasting and pilgrimages and rituals are hollow. God wants to be you godly. Nothing more, nothing less. If you are not godly then anything else that you do is in vain.
Live a godly life.
