Unworthy of Love

Unworthy of Love

Osho,
I feel so unworthy of love. This makes me keep my door closed and nothing can come in. My heart is suffering but it seems I have forgotten where the door is. Could you please comment?

“It is one of the crimes that has been committed against everybody everywhere in human society: you have been continually conditioned and told that you are unworthy.

“Because of this conditioning, the major part of humanity has given up even desiring any adventure, any pilgrimage to the stars; they are so convinced of their unworthiness.

“Their parents were telling them, ‘You are unworthy.’ Their teachers were telling them, ‘You are unworthy.’ Their priests were telling them, ‘You are unworthy.’ Everybody was forcing the idea on them that they were unworthy. Naturally they accepted the idea.

And once you accept the idea of unworthiness, you naturally close. You cannot believe that you have wings, that the whole sky is yours, that you have just to open your wings and the sky is going to be yours, with all its stars.

“And it is not a question that somewhere you have forgotten to open one door. You don’t have any doors, you don’t have any walls. This unworthiness is simply a concept, an idea. You have become hypnotized by the idea….

“Since the very beginning, all cultures, all societies have been using hypnotism to destroy individuals — their freedom, their uniqueness, their genius — because the vested interests are not in need of geniuses, not in need of unique individuals, not in need of people who love freedom.

“They are in need of slaves. And the only psychological way to create slaves is to condition your mind that you are unworthy, that you don’t deserve, that you don’t even deserve whatever you have, you should not go for anything more. Already you owe too much for things which you are not worthy of.

And hypnotism is a simple process of continuous repetition.

“Just go on repeating a certain idea and it starts settling inside you, and it becomes a thick wall, invisible; there are no doors, no windows. There is no wall either.

“George Gurdjieff has remembered his childhood. He was born in the Caucasus, one of the most primitive parts of the world. It is still at the stage where humanity was when it lived by hunting; even cultivation has not started.

“The people of the Caucasus are great hunters. And any society that lives by hunting is bound to be a nomadic society. It cannot make houses, it cannot make cities, because you cannot depend on animals — today they are available there, tomorrow they are not available there. And certainly you will kill them, and because of your presence they will escape — either they will be killed or they will escape….

“Gurdjieff was brought up by a nomadic society, so he was coming from almost another planet. He knew a few things which we have forgotten. He remembered that in his childhood the nomads hypnotized their children — because they could not carry them continuously while they are hunting; they had to leave them somewhere under a tree, in a safe place, but what was the guarantee that those children would remain there? They had to be hypnotized. So they used a small strategy — and they have used it for centuries.

“From the very beginning when the child was very small, they would make him sit under a tree. They would draw a circle around the child with a stick and tell him, ‘You cannot go out of this circle; if you go out of it, you will be dead.’

Now those small children believed, just like you. Why are you Christian? — because your parents told you. Why are you Hindus? Why are you Jainas? Why are you Mohammedans? — because your parents told you.

“Those children believed that if they went out of the circle they would die. They grew up with this conditioning. You may try to persuade them: ‘Come out, I will give you a sweet.’ They could not, because death….

“Even sometimes if they tried, they felt as if an invisible wall prevented them, pushed them back into the circle. And that wall existed only in their minds — there is no wall, there is nothing. Unless the person who had put them in the circle came and withdrew the circle, took the child out, the child remained inside.

“And the child goes on growing but the idea remains in the unconscious. So even an old man, if his father draws a circle around him, cannot get out of it. So it is not only a question of the child; the old man also still carries his childhood in his unconscious.

“And it is not a question of one child. The whole group of nomads have put their children under trees nearby, and all the children are sitting there the whole day long. By the time their parents come back, it has become such a conditioning that no matter what happens, the child will not leave the circle.

“Exactly the same kind of circles are drawn around you by your society. Of course they are more sophisticated. Your religion is nothing but a circle, but very sophisticated; your church, your temple, your holy book is nothing but a hypnotic circle.

“One has to understand that one is living surrounded by many circles which are only in your mind. They don’t have a real existence, but they function almost as if they are real….

It is simply a conditioning that you are unworthy. Nobody is unworthy. Existence does not produce people who are unworthy.

“Existence is not unintelligent. If existence produces so many unworthy people, then the whole responsibility goes to existence. Then it can be definitely concluded that existence is not intelligent, that there is no intelligence behind it; that it is an unintelligent, accidental materialist phenomenon and there is no consciousness in it.

“And this is our whole fight, our whole struggle: to prove that existence is intelligent, that existence is immensely conscious.

It is the same existence which creates Gautam Buddhas. It cannot create unworthy people. You are not unworthy.

“So there is no question of finding a door; there is only an understanding that unworthiness is a false idea imposed on you by those who want you to be a slave for your whole life. You can drop it just right now.

“Existence gives the same sun to you as to Gautam Buddha, the same moon as to Zarathustra, the same wind as to Mahavira, the same rain as to Jesus — it makes no difference, it has no idea of discrimination.

“For existence, Gautam Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Bodhidharma, Kabir, Nanak or you are just the same. The only difference is that Gautam Buddha did not accept the idea of being unworthy; he rejected the idea…

“So drop the idea of unworthiness, it is simply an idea. And with the dropping of it, you are under the sky; there is no question of doors; everything is open, all directions are open.

That you are is enough to prove that existence needs you, loves you, nourishes you, respects you.

“The idea of unworthiness is created by the social parasites. Drop that idea. Be grateful to existence, because it only creates people who are worthy, it never creates anything which is worthless. It only creates people who are needed.

“My emphasis is that every sannyasin should respect himself and feel grateful to existence that he has been required to be here at this juncture of time and space.”

END

Excerpted and abridged from Osho, Beyond Enlightenment, Talk #31 — Discarding the Container, Discovering the Content

To read this complete talk and see all the available media formats, click here.

To download the audiobook of this complete talk, click here.

Trademarks | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Contact Us
OSHO International Foundation | All Rights Reserved © 2024 Copyrights