The other is never responsible

Everybody becomes wise when the moment is gone. Retrospective wisdom is worthless. When you are picking on something, at that very moment become aware, and let awareness function. Immediately you will drop it.

But when you have done everything and fought and nagged and bitched and then you become wise and see that there was no point in it, it is too late. It is meaningless – you have done the harm. This wisdom is just pseudo-wisdom. It gives you a feeling as if you have understood. That is a trick of the ego. This wisdom is not going to help. When you were doing the thing, at that very moment, simultaneously, the awareness should arise, and you should see that it is useless.

If you can see it when it is there, then you cannot do it. One can never go against one’s awareness, and if one goes against it, that awareness is not awareness. Something else is being mistaken for it.

So remember, the other is never responsible for anything. It is something boiling within you. And of course the one you love is closest to you. You cannot throw it on some stranger passing on the road, so the closest person becomes the place where you go on throwing and pouring your nonsense.

But that has to be avoided, because love is very fragile. If you do it too much, if you overdo it, love can disappear.

The other is never responsible. Try to make this such a permanent state of awareness in you that whenever you start finding something wrong with the other, remember it. Catch yourself red-handed, and drop it then and there. And ask to be forgiven.

Osho, Beloved of My Heart, Ch 1

Quote published in The Book: An Introduction to the Teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
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