Beware of

Good Parents!

E verybody knows that good parents are dangerous parents. A

parent that is too good is bound to be a wrong parent --
because he will encage you. Too much good is destructive. A
good mother will destroy you, because the mother herself is not
centred. Her good is enforced; she is trying to do good. The good is
Whenever there
is a child, there is
bound to be
not natural and spontaneous. It is not like a shadow; it is effort, it is
some conflict
violent. Your so-called Mahatmas keep crippling people, destroying between the
people, destroying their freedom in many ways. They go on trying to
child and the
dominate by subtle methods, in subtle ways. But the whole desire is
to dominate, and it is very easy to dominate somebody when you are parents,
good. He cannot even rebel against you. Against a bad mother you particularly
can escape; but what do we do against a good mother? She's so good
that you start feeling bad. Watch it: everybody has passed through
between the
that state, and it has to be understood. Otherwise you will never be child and the
able to accept yourself.
mother in the
Whenever there is a child, there is bound to be some conflict
between the child and the parents, particularly between the child beginning, and
and the mother in the beginning, and then later on with the father. It then later on
is natural -- because the mother has her own way, her own ideas, her
own philosophy of how life should be lived. And the child is almost
with the father
wild; he knows no society, no culture, no religion. He's coming -Osho
directly from God; he's as wild as God. He has nothing but freedom,

JULY 2008 35
 so there is bound to be some
conflict. And the child has to be
initiated into the walls of the
society. He cannot be left alone --
that too is true. So conflict is
natural. If the mother is very good
then the child has a problem, a very
great anguish and anxiety. The
anxiety is that the child loves his
freedom and knows, intrinsically,
that freedom is good. Freedom is an
intrinsic value. There is no need to
prove that freedom is good --
freedom is good, it is self-evidently
good. Everybody is born with that
desire. That's why we called the
ultimate goal in the east 'total
freedom', Moksha: where the
intrinsic desire is completely
fulfilled and one has no limitations
of any sort. One is absolutely free,
unconditionally free.
Every child is born with that
intrinsic desire to be free, and now
everywhere there is bondage. The
mother says, "Don't do this, don't
do that, sit here, don't go there."
And the child feels pulled and
pushed from everywhere. Now, if
Buddha
the mother is bad, there is not much
brought a difficulty; the child can think that
revolution into the mother is bad and deep in his
heart he can start hating her.
the world of Simple, it is arithmetical -- she is
religion, the destroying his freedom and he
hates her. Maybe, for political
greatest ever.
reasons, he cannot express it, so he
The revolution becomes a diplomat. He knows that
was this: that she is the worst woman in the
world, but he goes on paying lip
he emphasised service.
consciousness But if the mother is good then
the problem arises. Then the child is
and not
at a loss to figure it out; the mother
conscience. He is good... and freedom is good:
emphasised "Now, if Mother is good then I must
be wrong, and my freedom must be
awareness and wrong. If I am good and my
not character freedom is good, then Mother must
be wrong." Now, to think that the
36 OSHO WORLD
mother is wrong is impossible --
because she is really good, and she
keep caring, loving, and doing a
thousand and one things for the
child. The mother is really good, the
child knows that she is good. So
there is only one possibility to
decide, and that is: "I must be
wrong. The mother is good, I must
be wrong."
Once the child thinks, "I must be
wrong," he starts rejecting himself. I
ordinarily never come across a
person who accepts himself totally.
And if you don't accept yourself
totally you will never grow --
because growth is out of
acceptance. If you go on rejecting
yourself, you are creating a split.
You will be schizophrenic. The part
that you reject will hang around
your neck like a great burden, a
great sorrow, a great anxiety, a
tension. You cannot discard it,
because it is part of you; it cannot
be divided. At the most you can
throw it into unconsciousness. You
can become unaware of it, you can
forget about it, you can believe that
it is not there. That's how the
unconscious is created.
The unconscious is not a natural
thing. The unconscious is that part
of your being that you have
rejected, and you don't even want
to face it, you don't want to
encounter it, you don't want to see
that it exists at all. It is there; deep
down in your being it goes on
manipulating you. And it will take
many types of revenge, because it
also needs expression. Now this is
the whole misery of human beings.
A 'good' mother can create the idea
of a 'bad' child. The child himself
begins rejecting himself. This is a
division, a split in personality. The
child is getting neurotic.
Because to feel good with one's
own self should be a natural and
easy thing. That's what your

religious preachers go on doing,
what your priests keep doing: go to
the mosque, go to the temple, go to
the church, and they are there --
thundering, condemnatory, ready
to throw you into hell, ready to
reward you with heaven if you
listen to them, if you follow them.
Of course you cannot follow
because their demands are
impossible, and their demands are
impossible because they don't show
you the way to be good. They
simply say. "Be good."
The way to be good has nothing
to do with being good. The way to
be good has something to do with
centring, with awareness. Being
good has nothing to do with your
character. A really good person has
no character at all; he is
characterless. And when I say
'characterless', I mean he has no
armour, no armature around him.
He has no defence around him, he's
If the mother is
very good then
the child has a
problem, a very
great anguish
and anxiety. The
anxiety is that
the child loves
his freedom and
knows,
intrinsically, that
freedom is good.
Freedom is an
intrinsic value
-Osho
simply open. He's as ever watched? -- your shadow
characterless as a flower. He's goes on following you, and you are
neither good nor bad. He's simply not burdened, and you need not
there -- alert, conscious, care about it. You need not think
responsible. If something happens about it. Even if you forget
he will respond, but he will completely it will be there. You
respond directly, he will respond cannot lose it.
from here. He will respond out of
the now, he will not respond out of -Osho
the past. 'Character' means: you go The Discipline of Transcendence,
on carrying the things that you Vol-4, Ch 5
have learned in your past.
'Character' means: the conscience
that has been preached to you and
forced upon you. Conscience is a
prison for consciousness.
Buddha brought a revolution
into the world of religion, the
greatest ever. The revolution was
this: that he emphasised
consciousness and not conscience.
He emphasised awareness and not
character. Of course, character
comes automatically, but it comes Read or Listen to
like a shadow. You are not to carry Full Discourse on
www.oshoworld.com
JULY 2008 37