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in Buddha Hall
Archive code: 7406120
ShortTitle: WING03
Audio: Yes
Video: No
Length: 104 mins
BELOVED OSHO,
A WARRIOR CAME TO THE ZEN MASTER HAKUIN AND ASKED "IS THERE SUCH A THING AS HEAVEN AND HELL?"
HAKUIN SAID "WHO ARE YOU?"
THE WARRIOR REPLIED "I AM CHIEF SAMURAI TO THE EMPEROR."
HAKUIN SAID "YOU, A SAMURAI? WITH A FACE LIKE THAT, YOU LOOK MORE LIKE A BEGGAR."
AT THIS THE WARRIOR BECAME SO ANGRY HE DREW HIS SWORD.
STANDING CALMLY IN FRONT OF HIM, HAKUIN SAID "HERE OPEN THE GATES OF HELL."
PERCEIVING THE MASTER'S COMPOSURE, THE SOLDIER SHEATHED HIS SWORD AND BOWED.
HAKUIN THEN SAID "AND HERE OPEN THE GATES OF HEAVEN."
Heaven and hell are not geographical. If you go in search of them you will never find them anywhere. They are within you, they are psychological. The mind is heaven, the mind is hell, and the mind has the capacity to become either. But people go on thinking everything is somewhere outside. We always go on looking for everything outside because to be inwards is very difficult. We are outgoing. If somebody says there is a god, we look at the sky. Somewhere, sitting there, will be the divine person.
One psychologist in an American school asked small children what they thought about God. Children have clearer perception: they are less cunning, more truthful. They are more representative of the human mind, they are unperverted. So he asked the children and the answers were collected. The conclusions were very ridiculous. Almost all the children depicted God something like this -- an old man, very tall, bearded and very dangerous. He created fear. If you didn't follow him he would throw you into hell; if you prayed and followed him he would give you paradise and all the pleasures. He was sitting on a throne in the sky watching everybody. You couldn't escape him; even in your bathroom he was looking.
The outgoing mind projects everything outside. This is YOUR God too. Don't laugh, don't think this is a child's conception -- no, this is you.
This is how you think about God -- as a cosmic spy, always searching to condemn,
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