Primitive Man Was Very Sensitive

PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES HAVE ALWAYS CONCEPTUALIZED GOD AS PARTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT, SUCH AS RIVERS, TREES, AND THE SUN AND MOON. AS SOCIETIES BECAME MORE CIVILIZED, THEY BEGAN TO CONCEPTUALIZE GOD AS A SEPARATE INDIVIDUAL. WHY IS THIS?

Primitive societies had no private property. Primitive societies had no families, they were tribal. Nobody knew who was the father, people only knew about uncles and the mother. Primitive societies were matriarchal; the mother was the only person they knew, the father had not yet arrived.

As societies started moving from hunting to cultivation, they stopped being gypsies; otherwise they were continuously moving wherever there was the possibility of finding more animals to hunt. They could not remain in one place, because soon the food was finished. And as animals were moving away from them, they had to follow the animals. Their whole concern was how to get food.

There were no houses, there were no cities, there were only temporary camps. Private property had not yet arisen. With cultivation, private property came into being. The people who were stronger managed to get as much land as they wanted. The people who were weaker managed to live at the very minimum – whatever was left over from the stronger gangsters.

Those strong criminals became finally your kings, and your lords, and your counts. These are basically criminal people, who have deprived humanity of much of their joys, forced them into a corner. But once private property arose, the father had to be certain that his son was his son. With private property the family came into being. And with private property the woman was transformed into a subhuman species. She became imprisoned. Now she was nothing but property, the property of a certain man. And her whole function was to be a factory to reproduce children.

Tribal people have no idea of a father, but the tribal people and the primitive knew many things that we have forgotten: they felt life surging in the trees; they felt life moving in the rivers; they felt life in the tidal waves of the ocean, shattering continuously, eternally on the seashore. They were more sensitive people. They were illiterate, uncivilized, but they were more sensitive and more receptive.

I have heard about the native Australians. Most of them have been killed by the white man, and killed in such an ugly way that the white man seems to be the most barbarious man on the earth. The native Australians were killed almost like animals. People used to go hunting the natives, because they thought them to be not human beings, but a far lower species. So almost ninety percent of the natives of Australia have been killed, and eaten, by the white people, because it was hunting. Just as you hunt tigers and lions and deer, you were hunting a different species from humanity. They were not white, their faces were different, their behavior was different.

But I have heard about the natives of Australia – and a few scientists are still working on the project – that they had a very strange way. They had no post office, they had no telephone system, they had no wireless. They used to hypnotize a tree, a particular tree which is more hypnotizable. Their sensitivity must have found the right kind of tree that is ready to be hypnotized.

In humanity thirty-three percent of people are immediately capable of being hypnotized, only thirtythree percent. But strangely enough, only thirty-three percent of people are intelligent; they are the same people. Only thirty-three percent of people are creative; they are the same people. The remaining ones are insensitive, unreceptive, unintelligent.

The natives of Australia have found which tree is more hypnotizable, so each village has its own hypnotized tree. And through the tree they used to send messages to another tree in another village. For example, somebody’s son has gone to another village, and the father wants to send a message to him. When the son was leaving, the father would say, ”If I have to send a message to you, I will send it exactly when the sun is rising. At that time you listen to the hypnotized tree in that village.” It may be hundreds of miles away.

And early, exactly when the sun is rising, the father will go to the tree of his village if he wants to send a message to the son. He will tell the tree, ”Please inform the tree in a certain village where my son must be waiting for a message...” And then he will tell the tree the message, and the son will be listening to the tree a hundred miles away. And the message was received, ”You can stay two days more, but finish the work” – or any message.

For thousands of years they practiced it, but slowly slowly they have forgotten, most of them have forgotten how to hypnotize, because Christianity is forcing them into schools to learn to read. And Christianity is absolutely against hypnotism. It thinks it is something to do with the devil. Hypnotism or mesmerism or anything is accounted dangerous. So they have destroyed, along with the natives, those trees, which had been hypnotized for centuries. They had become so sensitive that they immediately sent the message to the other tree hundreds of miles away, maybe thousands of miles away. The space did not matter, nor the distance.

Primitive man was very sensitive because he lived with trees, he lived with animals, he lived with rivers, he lived with oceans, he lived with mountains. He was part of nature. The primitive man had no religion, no organized church, no priesthood. Obviously, the primitive man was aware of a surging life all around. He lived amidst an ocean of life. And obviously, his love for trees, his love for rivers, his love for the ocean, his love for the high mountains, the stars, the sun and moon, was immense. He lived in a totally different world – very related. He was one of the members of the cosmos, just as every living thing is.

As far as sensitivity is concerned, he was far more human than the so-called civilized man, who has become hard, has become more mechanical, more robotlike; he has lost much of his sensitivity.

You can watch, holding hands with different people. Some hands will feel almost as if you are holding the hand of a dead man, no energy, no warmth, no throbbing of life, no transfer of any loving, friendly energy – just closed, dead. And you will find hands which suck you. You find afterwards that you are feeling weaker. There are people with whom you don’t want to be, because being with them you feel your energy sucked out, as if somebody has taken blood out of you. They are parasites of energy. They don’t have any energy to give, but they are ready to take any energy possible.

And you will find the opposite also: holding their hand you will feel healthier, fresher. Their hands will be flowing into your being, pouring some energy into you, some love, some warmth.

Just the other day, Anando brought one very rich woman. She owns some newspapers and magazines, a very beautiful woman. She wants to write an article about me, so she wanted a photograph of me with her. I took her hand in my hand, and it was a sad shock to me. The woman was smiling, but her heart was sad. I could feel in her hand immense sadness.

If you are sensitive, you will be able to feel whether a person is blissful, sad, feeling unworthy, feeling a sinner, or is standing on his own feet, feeling the dignity of being human, feeling rooted, centered; feeling that he has a place in existence of his own, that he is not accidental, that existence needs him otherwise he would not be here. ”The very fact that I am here shows clearly that existence needs me. There is some tremendous purpose, some destiny that existence wants to be fulfilled by me. I am existence’s ambition, just as you are.” The moment you feel this, you have a great gratitude arising in you.

Out of that gratitude primitive man was bowing down to the trees, to the rivers, to the sun, to the moon. It was far more beautiful than going into a church and bowing down to a sad Jesus Christ. And obviously, he has to be sad, he is crucified. You don’t expect him to laugh; that would have been absolutely inappropriate. I would have done it. But Jesus has a long face, utterly sad.

You will find all God-oriented people serious and sad, because deep down there is doubt. God is not their experience, it is just a belief. And how can you make belief a truth? It will remain a belief. You can repress your doubt as much as possible in the unconscious, but it is there and very alive and kicking. It makes you sad because you are living a fictitious life, a life that is not your own, a life that others have imposed on you. And God is the most responsible for taking away your prestige, your dignity, your pride.

The primitive man loved existence. To me, he was more religious than the civilized man.

With private property the father came in. The father can protect you when you are a child, but when you become young, you get married, you have to live your own life. By that time perhaps your father will have died, or will have become sick and old. And you have lived from your very first breath under the protection of your father. He was the big man in your life, the first big man. When you are alone, you start feeling some vacuum in you which the father used to fill. Hence, God became the father, a father who is not going to die.

Your father betrayed you, he left you alone, and you trusted him so much. And he did not care about you that you will be left alone. You have lived with that program from the very first breath.

So when the father leaves you and you are on your own, suddenly you feel a vacuum. That vacuum can be filled by another father, but that father cannot be a human being, because a human being has already deceived you. You are feeling hurt, so you project a father which is eternal and immortal, and far away, and omnipotent – not like your father, whom you used to think in your childhood...

You can see it – small children continuously fighting that ”My dad is the greatest man in the world!” ”Your dad is just a chicken!” Every child thinks his dad is all-powerful, he can do anything, because as he looks around him his dad is doing all kinds of things. He repairs the car, repairs the television, beats his mother... he knows he is powerful.

But that powerful father... slowly slowly, as you grow in intelligence, you start seeing his frailties, his weaknesses. Suddenly there is a gap. Even if the father is alive and with you, you know he is not omnipotent. He is becoming older, soon he will die. You know he is not all-powerful. Before his boss he starts wagging his tail, his invisible tail.

There is a place in your backbone, just at the end, where some million years ago there used to be a tail connected. The place is still there. That was the greatest argument by Charles Darwin that if there was no tail connected to you, then why this space? This space would not have been here. The tail has dropped, leaving the hole, leaving the space where it used to be attached.

Why do you start smiling as you see your boss? You don’t smile at your servant; the servant has to smile, not you. You don’t take any notice, you go on reading your newspaper; you know he is passing by, smiling, but you don’t even look at him. Your boss is doing the same with you. You smile, and he goes on writing. Perhaps he is not writing anything, but just seeing you coming in, he starts getting engaged in the file, turning pages, looking very occupied and busy.

I used to stay with one of the presidents of the ruling congress party, U.N. Dhebar. He was very much interested in me. He used to attend my camps, even though all his political friends tried to prevent him, telling him, ”Don’t go to this man.” But he was not a politician, not cunning, a very simple and very authentic man.

It was just by chance, accidentally, that he had become the president. It happens in most cases. He was chosen as the president because he was the most polite – a nice man who would never say no. And Pandit Jawaharlal needed a yes-man. He was the prime minister and he wanted the organization of congress to be ruled either by himself – which would look dictatorial – or by a yes-man. And U.N. Dhebar was such a simple man that he would say yes to whatever Jawaharlal wanted. So it was Jawaharlal who was dictating almost everything.

I was staying once in his house in New Delhi, and he was talking to me and gossiping about all the political leaders, what kind of people we have got; all kinds of idiots he was telling me about.

There was one Maulana Azad, a Mohammedan, who knew no English and knew no Hindustani. He was a scholar of Arabic and Persian, and he was the education minister of India. U.N. Dhebar was talking about this Maulana Azad.

Once Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had gone to a conference in London, a conference of the commonwealth nations. At that time India was part of the commonwealth, now it is no more. And Maulana Azad was the second man in the cabinet. He had been given that second place because he was a Mohammedan, to satisfy the Mohammedans of India.

You will be surprised to know India is the biggest Mohammedan country. No other Mohammedan country has as many Mohammedans as India. Even after Pakistan has been separated and Bangladesh has been separated, still India has a greater population of Mohammedans than any other country in the world.

To satisfy the Mohammedans a Mohammedan has to be number two in the cabinet. And when Jawaharlal went to London, Maulana Azad thought, ”Perhaps now I am the acting prime minister, because I am the second man.”

Prime ministers are prime minsters wherever they are. There is no such thing as an acting prime minister. If the president, who is the head of the government, goes out of the country then the vice president becomes the acting president. But the prime minister is not the head of the government in a constitution such as India or England has. The prime minister is not the head, so there is no need for any acting prime minister.

But he thought otherwise, and U.N. Dhebar was saying to me, ”We all told him that this is absolutely unconstitutional. There is no place in the constitution for any acting prime minister. There is only a place for an acting president.”

But he did not listen. He immediately phoned the chauffeur of Jawaharlal, ”Bring his limousine to my house, while he is away I am the acting prime minister.” And with the flag of the prime minister on the car, and two motorbikes ahead, and two motorbikes by the side, and two motorbikes behind, he went into the parliament, and everybody laughed.

So U.N. Dhebar was telling me, ”Such idiots there are! And Jawaharlal had to phone from London, ‘Don’t do this stupid thing. It is absolutely unconstitutional. There is no such thing as an acting prime minister.’”

And then suddenly came a phone call. U.N. Dhebar took the phone and said, ”I am very busy and I cannot give you any appointment for at least seven days,” and put the phone down.

I said, ”You are not busy, you are just gossiping with me.”

He said, ”This is the trouble in politics. You have to pretend that you are very busy, that you don’t have any time – and you have all the time. But you have to show the people that you are a very busy man, not approachable so easily. So I have told him after seven days he should phone again. If I have time, then I will see him. Although I am completely free... because you are here I have canceled all my programs. While you are here in my house, I don’t want to waste my time with anybody else. I want to be with you. This is a rare chance, because in the camps I cannot have much time with you. This is a great opportunity. And I have told everybody – the guards – ‘Don’t allow anybody...’”

I said, ”This is strange. That man may have some important work.”

He said, ”Who cares? Nobody cares about anybody.” Such a nice person, very cultured, educated, but who cares?

The moment he said it to me, I said, ”This is very insensitive. And you pray every day to God.” He had a small temple in his house with the statue of Krishna. He was a devotee of Krishna. ”Your prayer is meaningless. It is better to go outside and pray to a rose bush. At least the rose bush is alive! This Krishna that you are praying to is man-made, just a stone, cut into a statue. Can’t you see the deadness of your Krishna? Look outside, the whole world is alive. Birds are singing, flowers are blossoming, the sun is setting. Soon the whole sky will be full of stars.”

The primitive man lived in the universe as an essential part of it, and he was grateful just to be alive. His gratitude was more authentic than the God-oriented religions’ thankfulness to God. You are being thankful to a fiction.

One of the English writers, a well-known linguist, Dr. Johnson, had a strange habit, almost neurotic. Whenever he went for a morning walk he had to touch every lamppost. If he forgot to touch some lamppost, he would go back, touch it and then go ahead. Whoever was with him would say, ”What are you doing?”

He said, ”What can I do? I feel such an urgency that it has to be done. I know it looks stupid, and I know there is something wrong with me, but what to do? If I leave one post, it creates so much upset, so many sentiments, emotions, feelings – ‘What are you doing? Just go back!’ And I have to go back.” A lamppost!

I used to go for a morning walk, and an old retired professor of mathematics started... He was also always going for a morning walk, so he became friendly with me and started going with me. But he had the habit... In India you find temples everywhere. Just after a few houses, again a temple. If not a temple, then under the tree, a red stone representing the monkey god. And he would bow down.

And I said, ”This is torture to me. Either you leave me or leave your gods. What nonsense! Every place... and this whole city is full of temples of this god and that god, and you have to... And I have to stand with you, and I look embarrassed. What kind of companion have I got? So either you stop following me – you can go on your own way – or you have to stop this stupid habit. All those stones are dead.

”If you want, then look at something living. And I don’t see you ever looking at the trees, looking at the flowers, or looking at the last star that is disappearing.”

And it is such a quiet moment in the early morning: the sun has not risen yet, it is still dark and the last star is disappearing. At this moment, such a moment, Gautam Buddha became enlightened. The last star was disappearing, and as the last star disappeared, something in him also disappeared. Suddenly the sky was there, empty, and he looked inside. There was also utter emptiness: two skies – one outside, one inside – and a great silence. And for the first time he bowed down, not to anybody in particular, but to the whole existence. This is gratitude, this is authentic sensitivity.

But with private property, the father became important. And when the father was seen in his true reality, was found lacking in omnipotence, in omniscience, in omnipresence, he was not a god; you had to create a god as a substitute for your father.

So when Jesus falls down on the ground on his knees and calls, ”Abba!” in the Aramaic language which Jesus spoke... He never spoke Hebrew; Hebrew was the language of the highly-cultured scholars, rich people, educated people. Aramaic was the language of the villagers, uneducated people; it is Hebrew but not sophisticated. Abba is father in Aramaic. But the way he used to fall on the ground and look at the sky and call ”Abba!” shows that he had not grown beyond his childhood. It is childish.

And remember the difference between childlike and childish. The awakened one becomes childLIKE, he is not childish. And the God-oriented person becomes childish. His behavior is just like a child who has lost his way in a fair and is searching for the father. ”Abba!” he is crying. ”Where is my father?” Without his father he is not safe, he is not secure. All these prayers show your fear, all these prayers show your disappointment in your father. You have created a fantasy, the fantasy is sick.

God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 124 ♡♥Osho♡♥