Have you ever thought, if you don't have any hate in you, can you have love? That is not possible. All these religious teachers have been telling you things which are unnatural: "Love everybody." It is not possible. You can neither love everybody nor can you hate everybody.
If you love somebody, that means you have a choice, a liking; anybody who doesn't fit with that liking, that choice, you cannot love. You will have to decide; if you love, you will have to hate somebody; if you have friends, you will have enemies.
A man like me has no friends and no enemies. Only then can you be free of misery. But you have been told that there are good ideals which have to be saved, and there are evil things which have to be dropped; that there are divine values, and that there are evil temptations. The trouble is that they are not separate.
You will be surprised to know that the word "divine" and the word "devil" come from the same Sanskrit root, deva. They are not separate; devil and divine mean the same. But you have been told that they are just polar opposites and that there is a universal fight going on between God and Satan, God and evil. If that is true then it seems God is losing continually.
The devil is winning because everywhere you can see crime increasing, people becoming more and more inhuman. It does not seem that God is winning. Seventy-five percent of every country's income goes to the devil, twenty-five percent goes — I am not saying to God: it goes to small devils.
But seventy-five percent goes to the chief, the great devil. Every country is wasting seventy-five percent of its income for war. God is not winning. God cannot win because He is the other side of the devil. They are together, they are partners in the business.
If you try to understand the complexity of your misery you will see that all that is good is connected with all that has been condemned as bad. And you have been told to drop the bad and save the good. This is the dilemma you have been put into by your priests, by all your religions, by all do-gooders. They have put you in such a schizophrenic state ….
Once you see that good and bad are together you will be immensely relieved, you will feel such a relief, because the whole conflict was baseless. You were fighting against shadows, you were fighting against yourself.
It is as if my left hand is fighting with my right hand. Do you think there is any possibility of coming to a conclusion? There is no possibility. Both are my hands; there is no need for them to fight, they can be together and friendly. They can be helpful to each other, they can be a tremendous support to each other.
And that's the whole difference between me and all the religions of the world. They have been trying to create a conflict in you between good and bad, and I am trying to bring your good and bad closer and closer so that you can start using them in a harmonious unity. When I started calling the new man that is going to come into the world, "Zorba the Buddha," this was the idea behind it.
You need not drop anything. You have simply to understand your complex being, where good and bad are one. But you have been told they are not one and you have accepted that nonsense; hence, you have been trying to drop the bad. And you cannot.
I don't want you to drop it, because that is your energy. It is good that you cannot drop it. I want you to transform it, not drop it. A man who cannot feel suffering cannot feel compassion either. What is compassion? If you cannot feel suffering you cannot feel compassion for somebody else's suffering because for you suffering does not exist. Your experience of suffering can be used for your growth.
All the stones on your path can become stepping stones.
They need not hinder you, you just have to know that they are steps.
Look into your suffering, find out that good and bad are all together there. You cannot separate them, so the question of dropping does not arise. You have to use them together — not as opposites, but as complementaries. And that is possible.
Even poison can be used as medicine — it is used. In fact, on most of the medicines you will find written: POISON — in red letters. Poison is to kill, but by understanding it you can use it to save somebody who is dying.
But if you are foolish, even nectar will kill you; you may drink too much of it. In fact you will drink too much nectar if you can find it.
OSHO
