7/27/2019 The Religion of the Future Will Be Aesthetical, Poetic, Blissful, Joyful

1/2

"THERE IS NO SIN, NO PARADISE, NO LOSS OR GAIN;ABOUT THIS TRANSCENDENTALITY, NO QUESTIONS!"--Yoka, Zen

And questions cannot be asked about it: EITHER YOU EXPERIENCE IT OR YOU DON'T. And questions can't help you toexperience it either. Just go under the sky and watch. Feel the wind blowing through the pine trees. Become the windpassing through the pine trees, and sometimes become the pine trees and feel it.

RELIGION HAS TO BE FELT. Become the stream and reflect the moon, or become the moon and be reflected by thestream. And if your meditation goes deeper, you can become both together -- the moon and the stream, both together.

And those are the experiences of God.

That's why I say ZEN IS GOING TO BE THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE -- because the religion of the future will beaesthetical, it will not be ethical.

THE RELIGIONS OF THE PAST WERE ETHICAL, MORALISTIC, PURITAN. The religion of the future will be aesthetical. Beautywill be its value, and all else will arise out of the feeling for beauty. The past religions have been prose, the future religionis going to be that of poetry.

IN THE PAST, if somebody was FASTING, it was thought to be great -- THAT IS NOT GOING TO BE SO IN THE FUTURE. Ifsomebody is dancing, then he will be thought to be a saint. Fasting? What it has to do with religion? The man is amasochist, is pathological, needs psychological treatment! He is killing himself, and you are worshiping him -- you are alsoa part of it. If he is going to hell, he will take you there too. If there is any hell, you both will be there -- because hetortured himself and you helped him to torture himself... you are violent!

WHEN YOU WORSHIP A MAN BECAUSE HE IS FASTING, YOU ARE BEING VIOLENT, you are inhuman -- because if you goon worshiping him, HE WILL HAVE TO TORTURE HIMSELF MORE AND MORE. That's what happens: if he wants his ego tobe fulfilled, if he wants more and more people to worship him and think of him as a saint, he will go on fasting more andmore. He will find more subtle ways of torturing himself: he will lie down on a bed of thorns, or he will start beatinghimself every morning.

There has been a sect, a Christian sect... AND THE GREATEST SAINT WAS ONE WHO WOULD FLOG HIS BODY TO BLOODevery morning. And people would come and watch. Just think of those people. They would watch... and the saints wouldbe flogging their bodies, and blood would be coming, and their bodies would be tortured. And people would watch withglee -- seeing who was the greatest saint, who could torture himself the most. Now, these saints were ill, and the peoplewho had come to see them were also ill.

In Russia, there has been A CHRISTIAN SECT IN WHICH MEN WOULD CUT OFF THEIR GENITAL ORGANS, and womenwould cut off their breasts -- and they were thought to be great saints. And when this ceremony happened, thousandswould gather to see.

NOW, IN WHAT KIND OF WORLD HAVE WE LIVED IN THE PAST? What kind of people have we been thinking to bereligious?

THE NEW RELIGION IS GOING TO BE AESTHETICAL, POETIC. A man will be thought religious if he paints beauty, singsbeauty, dances beauty. If he has grace, if his life is a joy... And not only joy in himself but an overflowing, asuperabundance of joy; not only that he is blissful, he shares bliss. That is the religion that is going to happen in thefuture.

And the first hints of it have happened in Zen: it is only the Zen Masters who have been painting, and writing poetry.These are THE FIRST GLIMPSES OF AN AESTHETIC REVOLUTION.

And my feeling is that IF A MAN HAS A SENSE OF BEAUTY, HE CANNOT BE BAD -- because all badness is ugly. The manwho has a sense of beauty is bound to be good -- and without any cultivation of good. The goodness will be just natural: itwill follow his aesthetic sense of beauty. LET BEAUTY BE YOUR GOD!

"THERE IS NO SIN, NO PARADISE, NO LOSS OR GAIN;ABOUT THIS TRANSCENDENTALITY, NO QUESTIONS!"

Don't be philosophic, be religious. Don't speculate, experience.

"WHO IS THOUGHT-LESS? WHO IS BIRTH-LESS?"

Don't go on thinking about these things, these are questions: What is God? What is soul? What is paradise? Don't go onthinking about these things -- you will never solve them; and the answers that will be given will create more questions andnothing else.

"WHO IS THOUGHT-LESS?"

7/27/2019 The Religion of the Future Will Be Aesthetical, Poetic, Blissful, Joyful

2/2

Who is this witness? Who meditates? Who arrives? DON'T ASK THESE QUESTIONS; ARRIVE, MEDITATE, WITNESS. Becomethoughtless and see, and you will come to know who is birthless, who is deathless.

Life is birthless, life is deathless; life continues. Forms go on changing, forms are momentary; life is eternal. But rememberthat eternity is expressed through moments. DON'T CREATE A SEPARATION BETWEEN THE MOMENT AND THE ETERNAL.And don't start searching for the eternal, and don't start sacrificing the momentary -- because the eternal expresses itselfthrough the momentary, the soul expresses itself through the body.

And God has not made the world, God has become the world.

If God has made the world, he remains separate, aloof. GOD HAS BECOME THE WORLD. Declare it! Go to the house topsand declare it to the whole world: God has become the world. Now there is no more any duality between God and theworld; there is nothing like God AND the world. THE WORLD IS DIVINE. The world is God-full; it is a God-fullness, it is aGodliness. THERE IS NO OTHER GOD BEYOND IT!

IT IS HERE, IT IS NOW -- in me, in you, in the birds, in the trees -- this moment! But live it, experience it.

OSHOThe Sun Rises in the EveningCh #5: When we attain to reality...am in Buddha Hall