14 Aug Each person is elusive. You can catch hold of the body, but not the soul. (OSHO)
So, this is the first basic fact to understand: that except for yourself, nobody can penetrate your privacy. That is the difference between a rock and you. The rock can be penetrated to the very center; it has no privacy. That is the difference between matter and consciousness.
Matter has no privacy; consciousness has privacy. Matter can be understood from the outside because matter has no inside. There is nothing like inner in matter; everything is outer. And in consciousness, just the opposite is the case: everything is inner and nothing is outer.
If somebody can see you, you are reduced to an object, to a thing. You are not a man then. Try to understand this. That’s why whenever somebody looks at you, stares at you, you feel uneasy.
In Hindi we call that type of man lucha. The word means: one who stares at you. The word lucha comes from lochan; lochan means: the eye. One who goes on staring at you, goes on staring at you, is violating, is trespassing. He is not civilized. He is incivil, uncultured.
There is a certain limit, a time limit: psychologists have come to discover that it is near about three seconds. If for three seconds you look at somebody there is no problem, it is just a casual look. Two strangers can look at each other passing on the road for three seconds. Up to that time, it is a casual look. If it is longer than that, then the look becomes not casual. Now you are trying to penetrate the other person. If you love the person it can be allowed, because lovers are open to each other. But if you don’t love the person and the person doesn’t love you, then you are offending. Then this is violence. Then you are trespassing on the privacy of the other person, and the other person will feel offended, will feel uneasy. He will retaliate. Why? — watch: you are sitting alone in your room; you are totally a different person. Then somebody comes in; you immediately change because two eyes have come. You are no more in private. You are taking your bath in the bathroom, humming, making faces in the mirror, and then suddenly you become aware that somebody is looking through the keyhole; you change. That gaze, that look penetrates you like a sharp sword. You are no more — the humming stops — your privacy has been violated.
Why do you feel offended if somebody is looking through the keyhole? — because you have been reduced to a thing. Your subjectivity has not been respected. You are not a thing. Your permission should be asked before somebody looks at you. Without your permission, somebody looking at you like a thief is offending you. He is creating a thing out of you. You are a consciousness, a subjectivity. You cannot be reduced to a thing.
You go to a prostitute: you pay because you will make love to her, she feels hurt because she is not a commodity-but you reduce her to a commodity. Life somehow has forced her to be a thing in the market. Even the ugliest woman is more beautiful than the most beautiful prostitute, because to be a woman and not to be a thing gives a grace, a dignity. Even the most beautiful prostitute is ugly. And people who go to her must be people who don’t have any aesthetic sense. How can you make love to a woman if you have reduced her first to be a thing? You are making love to a dummy. You are making love to a dead body, a corpse. You are making love to your money. You are not making love to a person, because a person is an inwardness, and a person cannot be purchased.
Always watch around yourself, and you will see that the person is elusive. You can catch hold of the body, but not the soul. Nobody can do that.
Come Follow To You
Osho
