Commentators say that “Waiting for Godot” a play by Samuel Beckett, was Osho’s favourite play.
Performances were made by the theatre group in Pune in the old days, and Osho spoke about the play in various places, and perhaps most pertinently below.
Samuel Beckett was certainly a rather strange fish. He got very angry when he heard for example that there were performances of the play now being made by women actors. He said that it was ridiculous because they did not have prostates!
He called the play a “tragi-comedy” and did not seem to demur when critics called it part of the “Theatre of the Absurd”.
I myself only tried to watch the play once, and had to leave in the interval. Maybe it was the performance I saw, but it seemed vacuous, and on the edge of not really wanting to “make sense of the mess”. Later it was pointed out to me, that that was the point. Well not sure I go for such paradoxes when paying good money in a West End theatre. It would be interesting to see what SN punters think about it, and our Master’s great interest in the play.
(Parmartha)
Samuel Beckett
Osho said:
In Samuel Beckett’s great work, WAITING FOR GODOT, there happens this small incident. Ponder over
it.
Two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, are on stage. They are there to wait – just as everybody else in
the world is waiting – nobody knows exactly for what. Everybody is waiting, hoping that something
is going to happen: today it has not happened, tomorrow it is going to happen. This is the human
mind: today is being wasted, but it hopes that tomorrow something is going to happen. And those
two tramps are sitting under a tree and waiting… waiting for Godot.
Nobody knows exactly who this Godot is. The word sounds like God, but it only sounds, and in
fact the gods you are waiting for are all Godots.
These two tramps are there just to wait. What they are waiting for is the coming of a man, Godot,
who is expected to provide them with shelter and sustenance. Meanwhile, they try to make time
pass with small talk, jokes, games, and minor quarrels….
That’s what your life is: one is engaged meanwhile with small things. The great thing is going
to happen tomorrow. Godot will come tomorrow. Today one is quarrelling – the wife with the
husband, the husband with the wife. Small things, ’small talk, jokes, games… tedium and emptiness’.
Today, that’s what everybody is feeling: tedium, emptiness….’Nothing to be done’ is the refrain that
rings again and again…. They say again and again ’Nothing to be
This play of Samuel Beckett, WAITING FOR GODOT, IS very essentially Taoist.
… In the midst of the first act, two strangers – Pozzo and Lucky storm onto the stage. Pozzo seems
to be a man of affluence; Lucky, the servant, is being driven to a nearby market to be sold. Pozzo
tells the tramps about Lucky’s virtues the most remarkable of which is that he can THINK. To show
them, Pozzo snaps his whip and commands ’Think!’ and there follows a long, hysterically incoherent
monologue in which fragments of theology, science, sports, and assorted learning jostle in confusion
until the three others hurl themselves on him and silence him.
What is your thinking? What are you saying when you say ’I am thinking’? It is a ’hysterically
incoherent monologue in which fragments of theology, science, sports, and assorted learning jostle
in confusion’… until death comes and silences you. What is your whole thinking? What can you
think? What is there to think? And through thinking how can one arrive at truth? Thinking cannot
deliver truth. Truth is an experience, and the experience happens only when thinking is no longer
there.
So Tao says that theology is not going to help, philosophy is not going to help, logic is not going
to help, reason is not going to help. You can go on thinking and thinking, and it will be nothing but
invention – the pure invention of human mind to hide its own stupidity. And then you can go on and
on, one dream can lead into another and that other dream can lead you into another… dream within
dream within dream that’s what all philosophy, theology is.
from Tao: The Pathless Path
Osho
Big P,
I guess that Osho only read it and never actually sat through a live performance.
This is what happened when ‘The theatre of the Absurd’ hit psychedelia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqbJHbP61PY
(No surprise you don`t hear so much about it these days, really).
My memory of ‘Waiting for Godot’ is that while studying it in college was tortuous, when I watched Naseerudin Shah’s play it was sheer magic to see the characters alive.
I love Osho’s critique. And I loved the play when I saw it years ago. Also saw a performance with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, which was more humorous than Beckett may have envisaged. But the play captures beautifully the truth: that the mind, unless controlled, goes mad. We see this beautifully in some of the correspondence at this forum!
“that the mind, unless controlled, goes mad”
I have been under the impression Osho teaches observation of the mind, rather than control.
Arpana,
Doesn’t it depend on what he, you or I might mean by control? Being abused in one way or another in the past, I saw control negatively. After all, control was another word for repression. I reacted against all control and many forms of disciple. (MOD: FREUDIAN SLIP, PERHAPS, SIMOND? discipline?)
As I matured in my understanding of what the mind is, so naturally I’ve been able to observe it and to control it. For me, it is a natural response to the knowledge that the mind needs mastering. I have no problem with control.
What’s it mean to you, Arpana? Can you outline your own understanding, rather than refer to Osho?
Years ago, pretty much immediately after I began to explore meditation, I became agonizingly caught up with my inner life. My inner life became unignorable, which was torture.
That began to ease when I started to go into Osho meditation. In 1984, one morning when walking through Barnes in London, I became aware of how much I was condemning myself -an epiphany – for being caught up with my inner life, and everything I became aware of that was going in internally, and from then on the judging lessened.
Full on watching is awareness of that internal process without judging. And as I become less judgmental of what went on inside, I also became less judgmental of others, more able to just observe without reacting.
Arpana,
Thanks. What a lovely tale of the insight you gained into the mad mind! The realisation in Barnes has a beautiful ring about it, with its realisation that the mind judges and condemns, and you, or I, can see or seperate ourselves from it.
With such an insight, a natural form of control arises, doesn’t it? Natural, because you now have understanding or knowledge; you might call it awareness. So when the mind arises again, with vengeance, as it always does, you control it, put it in its place.
This is why control is no longer an issue for me.
Thanks for sharing.
Can you really control the mind, Simond? Who is controlling what you might think the next moment?
Doesn’t it just happen? I’m sure the mind doesn’t agree, ’cause it lives by control as in…no, no, no, no, no, I did it, I did it, dammit, I, I, I, I, I, believe me, believe me-me-me-me, mia more….
Dear control MOD(B)S, the little i was meant to stay little, and you changed it into big I, VVWY?? diddd you think i meant Goddd?
(MOD: We’re very sorry (and so am I!) )
Dear Godmod, you are so forgiving!!
It doesn’t surprise me that the word ‘control’ brings up lots of questions.
It alludes to repression and discipline, all aspects of the mind we have learned to fear, even dislike.
Yet ‘self-control’ is pretty much acceptable. So what is wrong with the word?
As for controlling the mind, yes I have controlled it, but I do it in such a way that does not involve repressing it.
I allow it all, I give it its place, and I give it freedom, but I also contain it, rather than express it. This does not mean repression. I just don’t act on it.
Another way of saying this is that I am using the mind to control the mind.
As for your question, “who is controlling what I might think in the next moment”?
I don’t worry who is control in the next moment at all. I concern myself with this moment.
All that matters is how I deal with my thoughts now. If they are morbid or worried or negative, I look in and find out why they are appearing. Is there something I’m not acting on, something I’m afraid of? Something I’m avoiding?
If there is, I must act, I can’t think my way out of it. I must act. I must resolve the issue.
Most thoughts are about simple problems. Why aren’t I feeling better? why haven’t I got more love and contentment? Rather than avoid them, I act on them. I act to make my life better, I go and get more love.
I’ve also learned to understand that there are aspects of the mind that are always ‘negative’. I’m not afraid of them. I’ve embraced and understood them. I just don’t act on them.
I hope this makes sense, it’s a tricky subject, isn’t it?
Verry,verry good, Simond, we have to go to the bitterr end of trying to deal with this dirrty mind, but that’s what it lovzzz, attentention…and that you think it is REALLLLL.
I certainly did mean discipline! Not disciple.Thanks
I would like to take the liberty to present one of my poems:
‘Shadow Boxing The Mind’
The Mind assaults me in broad daylight
Kicks my awareness in the balls
Punches me in the chest
I feel a blow to my head
I go down
I`m punch-drunk and barely conscious
Seven, eight, nine…
Suddenly I`m up
Again
Swinging in lefts and rights
With total awareness
Giving my mind a good seeing to
But watch out…
Here comes that sucker punch again….
Beautiful poem, Frank. Direct and to the point.
Also Confrankius say:
Man who uses mind to speak against mind is like turkey who vote for Xmas.
He end up with own head stuck up own ass for stuffing!
Agree re Osho’s critique, Simond – and the theme of the play is so very true (for me anyway). In the light of exposure to enlightened energy and wisdom all these years, the human situation, including mine, is indeed tragi-comic – hopefully, more comic, but…
Can’t help somehow being reminded of football fans’ radio phone-ins – all that never-ending ‘sound and fury’, complaining, blaming, occasionally temporarily exulting, creating a sort of separate reality where ‘something really great’ might happen some time…but behind it all, when you strip it down to basics, as Beckett does, just waiting and hoping, in ‘quiet desperation’-cum-incipient madness…
Thus, the spectrum of fundamental emptiness…absurdity…insanity…
A great play indeed.
Yet, to quote Dylan, “you and I have been through that, and that is not our fate” – well, ‘hopefully’, anyway….
I think a new drama needs to be enacted, ‘Projecting on Godot’.
With their Jesus and Buddha, our Osho can play the role too.
“He knows what is happening, and nothing is happening without his nod.”
Waiting for Godot? My mind drifts back. My recollections patchy.
During the Godot episode I was running the Caravanserai Disco up the back of Koregaon Park with my two partners, Prita and Mac. The juke joint had a stage. By popular demand we put on three shows of Beckett’s very long play.
The place was packed every night. 200 people, can you believe? Some returned for each performance. Business was booming as usual.
It was fairly representative of Osho’s powers of persuasion that so many actually sat through this boring opus to waiting on nothing. Osho had everyone hoodwinked into believing this load of utter shite was symbolic of the search for God, enlightenment. So there we all sat, watching the play run its meandering course to nowhere.
The act of waiting usually implies that there is an element of something negative in it. This certainly was the case for me. I hated that play, after sitting through three endless performances. Perhaps it could be said that there was something enlightening about the whole tedious affair and that was the massive relief that came when the curtain fell on the last night. Blessed relief poured over me in waves.
But don’t you see, Lokesh…You saw through Osho’s ‘device’. This was your genius. Many of the rest of us, we are a bit slower.
I’m not being sarcastic here, Lokesh. You have to remember that we all came to Osho with very varied understandings. Some of us needed to be bored! It actually helped. Others, like you, it appears, it didn’t!
My grandson is ten. You know kids do this “I’m bored” number. So a couple of years back I told him that the most boring people are the ones who say they are bored. Since then, he has never once told me that he is bored. Nonetheless, were he to view Waiting for Godot he would for sure be bored…in about five minutes. Gimme Billy Connelly any day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtZ2k8xlTtU
Lokesh,
Did you also ask him why he was bored? Boredom is a very real state of ignorance, a very real question for children and adults alike.
Why do we get bored? What is so dissatisfying about life that we should be bored?
As a child, I got bored too. I was restless and uncertain and confused. If I’d had an adult to talk to, who could explore my boredom, I’d have been very happy.
I would not have been satisfied with your answer. It would have just shut me down for a while.
Now I’d talk about the mind with this child. I’d ask him to express and explore his dissatisfaction. What can I do to truly help? How can I show him a way out? Or In?
Billy Connolly looks like a desperately confused example of someone to refer to. He may be very funny at times. But he is angry and dissatisfied, very aware in some ways but also deepy ignorant about himself. Yes, he can point the finger at the ignorance of religion, but has he solved the problem of unhappiness?
You can do better than this, Lokesh. Explain and explore and lose your understanding with your grandson. He will be eternally grateful for your real wisdom and feedback!
Boredom in children usually boils down to one simple thing: lack of external stimuli. Kids don’t want philosophical lowdowns, they want instant gratification and they want it now. If they don’t have that they are bored.
I don’t see Auld Sir Billy as an angry man. He is a prety good guy and the world would be a sadder place without him. He has a keen eye for the absurdity in everyday human behaviour and he has iron balls to stand up and make a joke out of Jihadists.
Humour is a very personal thing. Being a Scot, I like Rab C Nesbitt. Billy and Rab are stage presences. In their private life they are quite the opposite of how they appear in public. A bit like Osho, now that I come to think about it.
Lokesh, isn’t the problem a child faces, with the lack of stimuli, and boredom – the same problem we face as adults?
Isn’t it indicative of how hard we have found it to be still, and why we have to be taught techniques like meditation?
Is there a way we can help children begin to deal with the issue, rather than wait until ‘adulthood’?
Surely wanting “instant gratification and they want it now” are the root causes of an ignorant mind. Better to assist at the earliest stage, rather than reinforce their ignorance?
Boredom, as I understand it, is quite an unnatural feature of my psyche. There was so little stillness around me, I just copied the bored, dissatisfied minds I saw around me. As a result, I got very confused, eventually having to go through endless so-called meditations to rediscover my natural state.
Try telling that to a kid, you’d bore them stiff. Let the children play. Kids are ignorant about the big things in life, that is how childhood is. Blissfully unaware of what is to come and occasionally bored. Let them have it is how I see it.
Lokesh
Isn’t leaving them blissfully unaware part of the reason why we were messed up?
Wouldn’t you have preferred some intelligent reflection about life as a child? Of course it must be appropriate to the child’s understanding.
The beauty of experimenting with this is that we discover that children aren’t stupid and better just “left to play.”
My own experience as a father has shown me that children are looking for reality and real reflection, otherwise all they get is the ignorance and unhappiness most of us were brought up in.
Speaking for myself and maybe my generation, I could have done with a lot more time to `just play`.
It was a happy day when I found out that the whole of existence was a divine play and that ‘God’ himself was just larking about!
Btw, in my day, well-meaning ‘divinity masters’ like the conscientious Reverend Simond would have got short shrift…
I can see it now…
“Would the thoughtful soul responsible for the tacks and superglue on the Padre`s chair come and see me after assembly?”
and
“Would those responsible for running Rev. Simond’s underwear up the school flagpole report to the headmaster’s office forthwith?”
etc. etc….
Frank, exactly.
Sometimes watching nothing gives you a tingling feeling…
Did someone mention consensual S&N (my Freudian slip’s showing again ) for getting their kicks?
Do try this at home…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30412358
Dear Frank,
Very witty!
It’s odd here on the site that some of the discussions lead to personal attack. It’s common enough, I guess, when discussion reaches a certain point, fear arises. To deal with fear, we mock and laugh, rather than continue with discussion.
I don’t do this. I’m not offended or afraid of your mockery. I just recognise it as a limitation in you.
You make a good point about wanting more play in your day. I agree. The ineffective teaching methods of our day led to much frustration. We needed more freeedom. We needed to break out from our repressed lives.
Play is essential, but in a largely ignorant world, with little consciousness from our elders, I was also bereft of real reflection about the world. Play can be fun, freeing, but it’s limited because we don’t just need more fun in this world, we need greater intelligence.
All around us people are having fun, the world of tv and entertainment expands daily. We are obsessed by an idea of freedom and fun and having a good time. But is it working? Are we any happier?
Look around you and be honest – is play bringing us more happiness? Parents seem more and more obsessed by play and freedom and spoiling their children. As I see it, this is a direct reaction to the world of repression that we were born in. But the effect is that we have moved from one ignorant pole to another just as ignorant.
It was led me away from Osho that I observed an over-emphasis on celebration and fun amongst sannyasins. Osho appeared to sanction this, but at the same time he also despaired of us. Fun and laughter were helping some of us, superficially. At one level of the mind, we were so damaged; at least he could show us that to relax and have fun was an improvement on our miserable lives.
But he also recognised that for others, just teaching us to laugh more wasn’t enough. We needed more input, more intelligence and a deeper level of teaching. This is the message I learned from him.
It may have dawned on you “that the whole of life was a divine play and that God was larking about”. It is a beautiful Rumiesque sort of statement, loved by poets and romantics, but are you living it? Can you look in the mirror and tell your friends that you are happy? Are you contented? Do you fear death? Be honest, at least with yourself!
What has God got to do with it? What do you know about God – but your silly romantic and Eastern notions? Does God even exist – except in your mind? Can you honestly say that you know?
Btw, I also remember the “well meaning divinity teachers”. I also laughed and mocked them. We tore them to pieces. Ironic, eh. Now I’m one of them!
You sound a bit like Shantam.
All this talk about others.
“But he also recognised that for others, just teaching us to laugh more wasn’t enough. We needed more input, more intelligence and a deeper level of teaching. This is the message I learned from him.”
I was under the impression you don’t approve of Osho’s teachings being quoted here, so when did you do all the research that backs up this lengthy post, because it sounds to me typical received wisdom. You’ve read it and are parroting it.
Yep, Arpana and Lokesh,
I is one helluva messed-up, self-righteous parrot who ain’t got no sense of humour, who is angry and confused inside. I don’t feel anythin’ , just robotic in me thinkin’ with no smile on me face and no love in me life. I just parrot others, attack all ye great Orange folk, who knows more about philosophy than I ever will.
I never offer mesself with any of my own understandin’. I just a goddam fool who copies others. I ain’t worth nuthin’.
And thank God that none of ye wise motherf****** on this site take anythin’ serious, like. You ain’t got no received wisdom like me. I is real sorry for my offence to ye.
An’ I take everythin’ far too serious, like, I gotta laugh more and be happy like ye all. Man, I too serious and messed-up. I just like that goddam Krishnamurti, you is right, he never laughed, he just a goddamm celibate idiot . Thank ye for puttin’ me right. I forever grateful to ye clever lovin’ folk.
This sounds a bit sulky, Rev.
And you sound somewhat ‘threatened’, Arpana, as if you feel your values have been ‘undermined’, or something like that.
Ah, bless.
Change the e to i
Go on -
Just try…
Unjustified criticism, I think, Arpana.
Simond has given plenty of info about himself, where he’s been and where he’s at, and his contributions are on an altogether different level to Shantam’s.
For me, it’s clear from his posts that he’s closely looked into and is looking into and applying what he refers to, ‘living it’ rather than merely “parroting” others’ wisdom, as you claim.
For instance, re his take on how to bring up kids, well, being a father is (as Prince Charles once said) “a rather grown-up” sort of thing, it’s not just a matter of ‘theory’, it’s all too real, hence his approach has the urgency and sincerity of one ‘in the firing-line’ rather than that of a mere ‘commentator’ with nothing at stake.
I agree with Madhu, he’s been a welcome breath of fresh air, opening other perspectives here.
If greater intelligence arises there will be more fun as a result. People who lack a sense of humour do not appear intelligent to me. Sense of humour needs to be developed.
I have not met any wise man/woman who did not have a well- developed sense of humour. I never met Krishnamurti. Perhaps because he was too serious. The beedie wallah spoke some of the greatest wisdom ever delivered to unenlightened ears. His talks are peppered with a wry sense of humour.
Simond,
The idea that play and intelligence are opposed is entirely misinformed and unsupported by any evidence.
Those who believe them to be incompatible are simply ignorant.
And they display the same type of thought processes as religious and spiritual preachers and teachers of all stripes.
That is why I pictured you as a chaplain, Rev!
In fact, careful enquiry shows that play is the primary means by which intelligence is arrived at.
Play has the character of doing something just for the sake of doing it. It has its own reward. Yet, paradoxically, enormous positive results come from it.
Highly intelligent people know this. For example, Einstein said: “Play is the highest form of research.”
TV and mass entertainment are not good examples of play. More pseudo-play.
And laughter is not the answer to all and everything, but did you know that kids naturally laugh an average 200 times a day and in many adults that dwindles to close to zero?
Any world-view that supports this kind of direction in favour of some assumed ‘deeper intelligence’ is going to get it in the neck from me!
Without my political commentary, discussion looks very British!
Let this peasant from India dare to declare, novelist Thomas Hardy as the first enlightened being from England.
Have you just paused & thought, Simond, is there a possibility that Rev. Simond could have really existed in Frank’s life? Be honest, atleast with yourself.
“It may have dawned on you “that the whole of life was a divine play and that God was larking about”. It is a beautiful Rumiesque sort of statement, loved by poets and romantics, but are you living it? Can you look in the mirror and tell your friends that you are happy? Are you contented? Do you fear death? Be honest, at least with yourself!”
My answer is YES to the first three questions and no to the fourth. Can anyone do anything about it? But at least now I know that this is my problem, I have to deal with it myself .
Btw, I too am not for the over-emphasis on celebration, but sadly it has been misinterpreted as Osho’s only Teaching / USP by the many sannyasins/others.
Anyway, you have been a welcome change on SN, for me.
Kavita,
I appreciate your kindness and honest feedback. Thanks,
Simond
You are a very honorable guest on this website, Simond.
Some of my pain becomes at ease…for the time being…
At the moment, I just want to add that the “more intelligence” you stated we all are needing, needs to be an ‘Intelligence of the Heart’, and I don´t know if you remember the wisdom whisperer´s talks to us on This.
There is so much, I feel, to acknowledge again and again – much more to say, and much more to be silent about.
However, I like to share I am glad you appeared here – and grateful to be able to see and to read.
Thank you.
Madhu
Madhu,
Thanks, too. I love being on the site. I’m exploring my mind, responding to great articles and learning, learning, learning.
I’m just using the discussions to get clearer, expand my thinking and discover if I have any value.
To be appreciated is important. And I need feedback.
So, thanks again.
“Intelligence of the Heart” is that rare flower which grows in the garden of sannyasins.
At least the notion is like this!
Whenever there is a new entrant on SN it seems he / she has had to face the real power-of-the-mystery-school (this word I am borrowing from Shantam, who used this term in our one-to-one correspondence not very long ago).
All The Best, Simond, to me it seems your AIDS test is negative, after approval from SD the Chief Forensic Pathologist & let me take the liberty for the the rest of them, who have secretly accepted you!
What a bunch of softees. Whatever happened to true grit?
It is very difficult to get attention when Patriarch Lokesh is there.
By comparison, Simond is really young and vibrant.
I read the next article before signing in here & realised my folly of taking liberty &… later also that I can’t risk my neck!