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Living Outside the Circle  

In my consulting work, I have worked with many people who feel so unworthy of love. This makes them feel the want to keep their door closed and now their heart is suffering but they have forgotten where the door is.

It is one of the crimes that has been committed against everybody everywhere in human society: you have been continuously 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.

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.

It is not a question of somewhere you have forgot 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 anything; 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.

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 through 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 here, tomorrow they are not available here. 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 remembers that in his childhood the nomads hypnotized their children, because they cannot carry them continuously while they are hunting. They have to leave them somewhere under a tree, in a safe place. But what is the guarantee that those children will remain there? They have to be hypnotized. So they used a small strategy, and they have used it for centuries.

From the very beginning when the child is very small, they will make him sit under a tree. They will 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 believe, 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 believe that if they go out of the circle they will die. They grow up with this conditioning. You may try to persuade them: "Come out, I will give you a sweet." They cannot, because death.... Even sometimes if they try, they feel as if an invisible wall prevents them, pushes them back into the circle. That wall exists only in their minds; there is no wall, there is nothing. Unless the person who has put them in the circle comes and withdraws the circle, takes the child out, the child remains inside.

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. 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. 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.

Osho Beyond Enlightenment