To be a warrior doesn’t mean to be a soldier, it is a quality of the mind….OSHO

Sannyas has to be a real break away. A loving surrender to the new....

To be a warrior doesn't mean to be a soldier, it is a quality of the mind....

THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL QUESTIONS CONCERNING WHAT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT WARRIORS AND BUSINESSMEN. SINCE MOST OF US WERE BUSINESSMAN AND PROFESSIONALS, AND NOT WARRIORS, ARE WE GOING TO MISS ENLIGHTENMENT?

To be a warrior doesn't mean to be a soldier, it is a quality of the mind. You can be a businessmanand be a warrior; you can be a warriorand be a businessman.

"Businessman" means a quality of the mind which is always bargaining, trying to give less and get more. That's what I mean when I say businessman: trying to give less and get more, always bargaining, always thinking about profit.

A warrior is again a quality of the mind, the quality of the gambler, not of the bargainer, the quality which can stake everything this way or that — a noncompromising mind.

If a businessman thinks of enlightenment, he thinks of it as a commodity like many other commodities. He has a list: he has to make a big palace, he has to purchase this and that, and in the end he has to purchase enlightenment also; but enlightenment is always the last — when everything is done, then; when nothing remains to be done, then. And that enlightenment is also to be purchased because he understands only money.

It happened that a great and rich man came to Mahavira. He was really very rich; he could purchase anything, even kingdoms. Even kings borrowed money from him.

He came to Mahavira and he said, "I have been hearing so much about meditation, dhyan, and during the time you have been here you have created a craze in people; everybody is talking about dhyan. What is dhyan? How much does it cost and can I purchase it?"

Mahavira hesitated, so the man said, "Don't you think about the cost at all. You simply say and I will pay; there is no problem about it."

How to talk to this man? — Mahavira was at a loss as to what to say to him. Finally Mahavira said, "You go. In your town there is a man, a very poor man; he may be willing to sell his dhyan. He has achieved, and he is so poor that he may be ready to sell it."

The man thanked Mahavira, rushed to the poor man, knocked on his door and said, "How much do you want for your dhyan? I want to purchase your meditation."

The man started laughing. He said, "You can purchase me, that's okay. But how can I give you my dhyan? It is a quality of my being, it is not a commodity."

But businessmen have always been thinking in this way. They donate to purchase, they create temples to purchase. They give but their giving is never a giving; it is always to get something, it is an investment.

When I say to you to be a warrior, I mean to be a gambler, to put everything at stake. Then enlightenment becomes a question of life and death, not a commodity, and you are ready to throw away everything for it. And you are not thinking about the profit.

People come to me and they ask, "What will we gain out of meditation? What is the purpose of it? What will be the profit out of it? If one hour is devoted to meditation what will be the gain?" Their whole life is economy.

A warrior is not after gain; a warrior is after a peak, after a peak of experiencing. What does a warrior gain when he fights in a war? Your soldiers are not warriors any longer, they are just servants. Warriors are no longer on this earth because the whole thing is being done by technology. You drop a bomb on Hiroshima; the dropper is not a warrior. Any child can do that, any madman can do that — really, only a madman can do it. Dropping a bomb on Hiroshima is not being a fighter or a warrior.

War is no more the same as it was in the past; now anybody can do it, and sooner or later only mechanical devices will do it. A plane without a pilot can do it — and the plane is not a warrior. The quality is lost. The warrior was facing, encountering the enemy, face to face.

Just imagine two persons with drawn swords encountering each other: can they think? If they think they will miss. Thinking stops; when swords are drawn thinking stops. They cannot plan because if they plan, in that moment the other will hit.

They move spontaneously, they become no-minds. The danger is so much, the possibility of death is so near, that the mind cannot be allowed to function. The mind needs time; in emergencies the mind cannot be allowed. When you are sitting in your chair you can think, but when you are facing an enemy you cannot think.

If you pass through a street, a dark street, and suddenly you see a snake, a dangerous snake sitting there, what will you do? Will you start thinking? No, you will jump. And this jump will not be out of your mind because the mind needs time, and snakes don't have any time; they don't have any mind. The snake will strike you — so the mind cannot be allowed.

While facing a snake you jump, and that jump comes out of your being; it comes before thought. You jump first and then you think. This is what I mean by the quality of a warrior: action comes without thinking, action is without mind; action is total. You can become a warrior without going to war, there is no need to go to war.

The whole of life is an emergency, and everywhere there are enemies and snakes, and ferocious wild animals ready to attack you. The whole of life is a war. If you are alert you will see that the whole of life is a war, and any moment you can die; so the emergency is permanent. Be alert, be like a warrior as if moving amidst the enemy.

Any moment, from anywhere, death can jump on you; don't allow the mind. And be a gambler — only gamblers can take this jump. The jump is so much that those who think of profit cannot take it. It is a risk, the greatest risk; you may be lost and nothing may be gained. When you come to me you may lose everything and you may not gain anything.

I will repeat one of Jesus' sayings: Whosoever clings to life, whosoever tries to preserve it, will lose it; and whosoever is ready to lose it will preserve it.

This is talking in the language of a gambler: Lose it — this is the way to preserve it. Die — that is the way to reach the eternal life, the immortal life.

When I say a businessman, I say a calculating, cunning mind. Don't be cunning minds. No child is ever a businessman, and it is difficult to find an old man who is not a businessmen. Every child is a warrior and every old man is a businessman. How every warrior becomes a businessman is a long story: the whole society, education, culture, conditioning, makes you more and more fearful, afraid. You cannot take a risk and everything that is beautiful is risky. Love is a risk. Life is a risk. God is a risk.

God is the greatest risk, and through mathematics you will not reach — only through taking the ultimate risk, putting everything that you have at stake. And you don't know the unknown; the known you risk and the unknown you don't know.

The business mind will say,"What are you doing — losing that which you have for that which no one knows exists or not? Preserve that which is in hand and don't long for the unknown." The warrior mind says, "The known has been known already, now there is nothing in it; it has become a burden and to carry it is useless. The unknown must be known now, and I must risk the known for the unknown."

And if you can risk, totally risk, not preserving anything, not playing tricks with yourself, not withholding anything, suddenly the unknown envelops you. And when it comes you become aware that it is not only the unknown, it is the unknowable. It is not against the known, it is beyond the known. To move in that darkness, to move in that uncharted place without any maps and without any pathways, to move alone into that absolute, the quality of the warrior is needed.

Many of you still have a little of it left because you were once children; you were all warriors, you were all dreamers of the unknown. That childhood is hidden but it cannot be destroyed; it is there, it still has its own corner in your being. Allow it to function; be childlike and you will be warriors again. That's what I mean.

And don't feel depressed because you run a shop and you are a businessman. Don't feel depressed; you can be a warrior anywhere. To take risks is a quality of the mind, a childlike quality — to trust and to move beyond that which is secure.

OSHO