The doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind.
- Herbert J. Muller
And the whole, the cosmos, cannot have any purpose, because purpose means something outside. There is nothing outside the whole. And whenever we think that God must have some purpose we are talking in deep absurdities, because if God has any purpose, he is omnipotent so he can do it immediately. Why waste so much time? If he has only this purpose - that man should reach heaven - he can simply order, "Go to heaven!" Because when he can say, "Let there be light," and there is light; when he can say, "Let there be the world," and the world is there, then why can't he say, "Let there be only heaven," so that everybody is in heaven? ...why this nonsense?
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You can misunderstand me. I am not saying to go and do evil because there is no difference. I am not saying to go and kill somebody because it is just a drama. And if you are really thinking of killing someone, then when you are sent to jail or killed, murdered by the court, then you will have to enjoy it - it is a game. If you are ready to accept the whole, then you can go and kill. But then don't complain - because in a game, in a play, complaining is useless.
To understand this intellect alone will not be of much help. It can only prepare the ground. Unless your being is transformed you cannot see this unity, you cannot see this vast unity of polar opposites. They exist together, they disappear together. Gurdjieff used to say an apparently very absurd thing, but deep down a reality. He used to say that everything remains in the same quantity always, the proportion remains the same. The same proportion always remains between saints and sinners. That cannot be disturbed, otherwise the world will lose balance. The same proportion exists between ignorant people and people who are wise - that cannot be disturbed.
Now modern psychology also has discovered a few facts which are relevant. One of them is this: five percent of people, only five percent, are intelligent, talented, genius, and five percent of people are idiotic, stupid - exactly the same proportion. On one polarity five percent with intelligence, on another polarity five percent with complete absence of intelligence. And then there are other grades, and every grade has a proportionate grade on the other side. You can divide the whole world. It is like two polarities balancing each other; whenever something grows more, immediately the balance has to be regained.
It is just like a walker, a tightrope walker. The tightrope walker has a trick, a balancing trick. Whenever he feels that he is losing balance and is leaning towards the left and will fall down, immediately he moves to the right. When he feels that he has moved too much to the right and will fall down, he again moves to the left. Walking on the rope, continuously he goes on moving from left to right, from right to left, regaining balance by the opposite.
The same happens in existence, the proportion remains almost the same. Whenever there is born a very saintly person, immediately a sinner is born somewhere. Whenever a wise man is born, immediately one idiot has to balance him, otherwise the world would disappear immediately. Whenever you do a good act, know well that somewhere someone will have to do a bad act to balance you. So don't get too proud that you have done some good acts, because by doing them you have created the other also. Someone has to balance you because you unbalanced the world. Whenever you do a bad act someone is bound to become a saint because of you.
I am not saying to do this or that. The Upanishads are not concerned with your doing, they are concerned with your understanding - that you understand well that the world exists in duality, and if you go on dividing you will remain a part of ignorance. Don't divide; transcend division and look at the world as one vast expanse. Once you know that the two are not two, the opposites are not opposites, you cannot be tense, because tension is possible only when you choose. When you say, "This must be and that must not be," when you say, "This is good and that is bad," you are creating anguish for yourself. You will create tension, you will create a conflict within the mind; expectations, hopes, frustrations - all will follow. Once you can understand that no choice is needed because everything is the same, suddenly all anguish disappears. And then you have a tranquility, a peace, a bliss, that can exist only when divisions have disappeared.
- Osho
