OshoI will not say to you that " response-ability means to turn your other cheek if somebody hits you, no. I can only say one thing: let that moment decide. Sometimes perhaps you have to turn the other cheek. Sometimes perhaps you have to hit the person harder than he has hit you. Sometimes perhaps you have to hit him on both cheeks, but nothing can be given to you as a readymade formula. It will depend on you, the person, the situation.
But act with awareness, then what ever you do is right. I don't label acts as right and wrong. To me, the quality of your awareness is dicisive. IF you can respond with awareness than whatever your response is, I declare it right. IF you loose your awareness and react then whatever you do - you may be turning the other cheek - it is wrong. Do you see that I have used two different words? with awareness I used the word response; with unawareness I used the word reaction.
Response comes from your self. Reaction is created by the other person. He has hit you. He is the master of the situation and you are simply a puppet. You are reacting. His action is decisive and because he has done something now you are doing something in reaction. This is unconscious behaviour that is why an unconscious person's behaviour manipulated very easily you smile, she will smile. You be angry, he will be angry.
It is because that people Dale Carnegie can write books like how to win friends and influence people all that you have to know is simple reactions. Carnegie himself describes a situation. He was working as an insurance agent, and there was a rich woman, the richest in the town, a widow, who was very much against insurance and insurance agents; so much so that nobody could make an appointment to see her - just at the gate they would be turned away. Her orders to her gate-keeper "throw they out" no question of getting in to see her.
And when Dale Carnegie joined the company all the other agents said to him, " You are writing this book winning friends and influencing people. Now if you can sell insurance to this old lady, we will think you have something to say; otherwise it is all - hocus pocus". And he managed to insure the woman. How did he do it a simple method.
Early in the morning he went around the woman's house. She was in the garden standing outside the fence, he said " I have never seen such beautiful flowers".
"The old woman asked are you interested in roses? " he said, " how did you know ? I am mad about roses the only flower that only attracts me is the rose.
The women said, " Why are you standing outside? come in I will show you my roses. I am also mad about roses. And you will not come across such big rose flower as I have grown here in my garden. And he was invited in and they went around her big garden, full of beautiful roses and he was all praise and poetry. The woman was so impressed you seem to be such an intelligent man I want to ask a question. What do you think about insurance? - Because she was tortured by these insurance agent continually, and they were always trying to visit and being thrown out.
He said, " For that I will have to come back again, because I have to think it over and do a little research on it. I never advice anybody unless I am certain."
the woman said, that is right. You are the first man who is not too eager to advice me that is the sure sign of a fool: too eager to advice others.
He said, no I will have to look at the whole matter. Perhaps it will take a few days. And during those few days he use to stop by every morning and stand outside the fence.
The woman said, " there is no need to be standing out there I have told all the servants that for you my doors are open any time of the day. whenever you want to come into the garden you can come, if you want to come into the house you can. It is your house, don't be shy." within a few days he had gone to her with all the forms, the files, everything. He said, " I have worked out the whole thing intact I had to become an agent of an insurance company to find out absolutely all the details, the inside story, because from the outside you cannot know much. Now I am absolutely certain that this is the thing for you. "
Now, this is the way the whole of humanity functions, through reaction. You just do something that you know how the other unconscious being is going to react to to. And it is very rare that an insurance agent will meet and awakened person, a rare possibility. In the first palce, the awakened person will not have anything to be insured. Only with the awakened person will Dale Carnegie fail, because that person will not react but respond. And response you cannot predict.
