Darshan 14 March 1976

[The brother of Vipassana, a sannyasin who died three days ago of an inoperable brain tumour came to darshan.]

You did well. It is difficult, but you did well. And if one can face a loved one's death, one comes out of it completely integrated.

Death can be very disintegrating... it can shatter you, or it can be a very crystallizing force and can make you integrated. It depends how you use it, how you look at it. And you have done well. Very good.... Something to say?

[A sannyasin said he had only done an Encounter group that he said he 'hated'.]

Then you will have to do it again! (laughter) Because hate shows that you are deeply related. Hate is a relationship. Unless you come out of a group indifferent, it is going to help you; either way - whether you love it or hate it, mm?

Hate is also a love relationship. Behind each hate, love is hiding, and behind each love, hate is hiding. In fact love and hate are not two things. They are not love and hate... the whole energy is love/hate. That's why any love relationship can change into a hate relationship very easily - in a single moment. Just a single moment before you were in love, and now you hate. And vice versa is also possible.

A friend can become an enemy. The enemy can become a friend. In fact to make anybody an enemy, first you have to make him a friend. You cannot make simply anybody an enemy; that's impossible. You will have to go through friendship.

So you will have to do it... keep it in mind. Then next month our Hypnotherapy group will start, so you join it. It may be helpful. Hypnotherapy can be very very helpful if rightly used. It is one of the greatest methods ever developed, but it has not been rightly used yet.

[Chaitanya is a musician from Germany, who has produced five records. He sees the goal of music - if there is a goal - as that of awakening people. He says: I would like to know if there's anything I can do - whether I can stay here a long time, or be here for a short time and then go.... It hurts so much when it comes time to go from you.]

Mm mm. Take it easy... don't become serious about it.

Whenever you can be herenow, be. If the mind moves and you forget, that too is natural. Don't worry about it - otherwise first you move into the future, and then you start thinking about the past.

So both ways you are killing the present, mm? First you are not in the present, so the present is lost.

Then you start thinking that you have lost the present and that you have missed much and that that time is wasted - so now you are thinking about the past. Again you are missing another present.

A serious mind can never be in the present. Only a playful mind, only children, are in the present.

So be more childlike... play more.

And you can be - you are a musician. The whole secret of music is to be in a playful mood, so play with the instruments. A musician need not have any other meditation; that's enough meditation. Just be absorbed in it. And never think about the time that is gone - that is gone!

I will give you a method, mm? Start playing with your instrument - any instrument will do. And do this method every night... it is in three steps. For the first seven days, the first step: Lying down on the bed, or sitting, put the light off, be in darkness. Just remember any beautiful moment that you have experienced in the past. Any beautiful moment - just choose the best. It may be very ordinary - because sometimes extraordinary things happen in very ordinary grounds.

You are just sitting still, doing nothing, and the rain is falling on the roof... the smell, the sound... you are surrounded - and something clicks. You are in a sacred moment.

Or one day walking along the road, suddenly the sunlight falls on you from behind the trees... and click! and something opens. For a moment you are transported into another world.

And once you have chosen it, continue it for seven days. Just close your eyes and relive it. Go into the details. The rain is falling on the roof... the tip top - the sound... the smell... the very texture of the moment... a bird is singing, a dog is barking... a plate has fallen, and the sound.

Go into all the details, from all sides; multi-dimensional, from all the senses. Every night you will find that you are moving into deeper details - things that you may even have missed in the real moment, but that your mind has recorded. Whether you miss the moment or not, the mind goes on recording.

You will come to feel subtle nuances which you were not aware that you had experienced. When your consciousness is focused on that moment, the moment will be there again. You will start feeling new things. You will suddenly come to recognise that they were there but you had missed them at that moment. But the mind records it all. It is a very very reliable servant... tremendously capable.

By the seventh day you will be able to see it so clearly that you will feel that you have never seen any real moment as clearly as this one.

After seven days do the same thing but add one more thing. On the eighth day, feel the space around you... feel the climate is surrounding you from all sides - up to three feet. Just feel an aura surrounding you of that moment. By the fourteenth day you will almost be able to be in a totally different world, although conscious that beyond that three feet a totally different time and a totally different dimension is present.

Then the third week, something more has to be added. Live the moment, be surrounded by it, and now, create imaginary anti-space. For example you are feeling very good; for three feet you are surrounded by that goodness, that divineness. Now think of a situation - somebody insults you - but the insult comes only up to the limit. There is a fence, and the insult cannot enter you. It comes like an arrow... and falls there. Or remember some sad moment... you are hurt - but that hurt comes to the glass wall that is surrounding you, and falls there. It never reaches you. You will be able to see - if the first two weeks have gone right - by the third week, that everything comes up to that three foot limit, and nothing penetrates you.

Then from the fourth week continue to keep that aura with you; going to the market, talking to people, continuously have it in the mind. And you will be tremendously thrilled. You will move in the world having your own world, a private world, continuously with vou. That will make you capable of living in the present.

Because, in fact, you are continuously bombarded by thousands and thousands of things, and they catch your attention. If you don't have a protective aura around you, you are vulnerable. A dog barks - suddenly the mind has been pulled in that direction. The dog comes into the memory. Now you have many dogs in the memory from the past. Your friend has a dog... now from the dog you go to your friend. Then to the friend's sister with whom you had fallen in love. Now the whole nonsense starts. The barking of this dog was in the present, but it led you somewhere else into the past. It may lead you into the future - there is no way of saying. Anything can lead to anything, mm? It is very complicated.

So one needs a surrounding, a protective aura. The dog goes on barking, but you remain in yourself - settled, calm, quiet, centred. Carry that aura for a few days, a few months. When you see that now it is not needed, you can drop it. Once you know how to be herenow, once you have enjoyed the beauty of it, the tremendous bliss of it, you can drop the aura of it.

Try it, and after four weeks tell me how things are going.

[The Enlightenment Intensive group attended darshan tonight. A group member asked if there was any suggestion Osho had for him.]

Just float... moment to moment. Just live as intensely, moment to moment, as possible.

Always feel as if this is going to be the last moment... as if there is going to be no other moment. So live it totally. There is no point in postponing it because there is going to be no other moment. Live every day as the last day. And when you go to sleep at night, thank God for the day. Don't wait for the morning, because nobody knows - the morning may not be there.

If you can live each moment as the last, you live it totally - because there is no space to postpone.

If this remains in the consciousness, it becomes a constant pointing to the present. Nothing else is needed - everything is going so well. Good !

[Another group member says: I found on the third day that I am too much outside myself. I feel to keep silent is better - and I feel good.]

Continue... but don't make it a strain, mm? If something is needed, you can speak, but on the whole, remain more and more quiet. Don't speak unnecessarily. Rarely is there anything that is necessary to be said. So just telegraphically, mm? ten words a day (laughter). That will do.

And you look good... more settled. Do a few other groups also. Groups are good... they give you a few insights, and then you can use those insights in your daily life.

So whatsoever you have learned, use it, mm? Don't forget - otherwise one again closes into the old pattern. Keep silence... and I will also give you a meditation to do every night.

In the night, put the light off, sit on your bed, and close your eyes. Just imagine yourself in a forest, mm?... big green trees... wild. Imagine that you are standing there, then start moving... Let things happen, don't force. Don't say 'I would like to go near that tree' - no, just allow yourself to move.

Walking in the forest for five to seven minutes, you will come near a cave.

Feel everything in detail - the earth underneath... touch the stone walls of the cave with your hand...

feel the texture, the coolness. Near the cave there is a waterfall. You will find it. A small waterfall...

and the sound of water falling. Listen to it, and to the silence of the forest and of the birds, mm?

Allow yourself the whole experience. Then sit down in the cave and start meditating. It is meditation within meditation. Have you seen chinese boxes? One box inside another box inside another box....

So you will be meditating inside the cave, and after five minutes I will appear in your meditation. So if you want to ask a question.... Only one question is allowed!

And then you report back to me, and tell me what I said to you. And I will know - so you cannot fool me! (laughter) This is a very very old meditation technique. So you start from tonight.

[Another group member says: On the second day when we were doing communication techniques, something happened to me.

I was sitting with my partner, and I was to be the listener, but I was sleepy. I didn't have much energy.

I closed my eyes, and perfectly clearly I saw a shadow - a shadow of the figure of a person. And in the figure was an entrance way of light... just the colour of light. And there was just energy vibrating all around.

I wasn't feeling high or anything. You know I just looked at it. I would open my eyes and be the listener, and then would close my eyes again, and there it was. It was there for about ten minutes.

I hadn't really thought about it till I was sitting here and you were talking about caves and things (Osho chuckles).]

You can try it every night. Just bring the visualisation again, and you will be able to feel it. Go into the entrance and find out what is there.

Many things of the unconscious can be revealed in these ways. Everything that you will come to know is within you. But we don't know many parts of our being... we live only in the porch. A big palace - but the palace remains completely closed, because we never enter it. These are all the ways to enter into the many rooms of your being. These are unconscious doors - use them.

It is possible that these things will happen when you are not feeling any energy, because when you are feeling energy, you are engaged in your ordinary everyday affairs. When you are no more feeling energy and you are not engaged in your routine, your mental work, there is a possibility for the unconscious to open a door. Because you were trying hard to listen and you were not feeling energetic, you had no energy to move in the ordinary way of the mind. That created the situation - hence this experience came.

So whenever you feel low energy, repeat it. Just sit, and try to be alert, and it will appear again. Ten minutes is too long a period. If the figure remained there continuously, it has some message for you, it has something to reveal to you.

Just allow yourself to be led by the unconscious, wherever it leads. Don't be afraid. Whatever happens is going to be good and beneficial. Do it, and then tell me, mm?

[An indian visitor, Arup, who was here to do the camp, said that he felt concerned that perhaps he wasn't meditating rightly, because nothing seemed to be happening.

Osho told him not to expect results, and to do the meditations as exercises... ]

... the sheer exercise is beautiful. The body will feel good at least, and by and by it will penetrate into the mind.

We have to create a situation in which the thing you want to happen, can. It cannot happen just by wanting. The situation is needed - and the meditation is going to create the situation. So choose any one meditation out of these five and do it for one month. And just for one month, don't expect anything - as if one is doing for doing's sake.

This is my observation - that many times we expect, and the very expectation functions as a barrier because it gives a tension.

It is just as if somebody says that swimming is beautiful and that it makes them feel beautiful. You are also in search of happiness. You say 'I'm coming'. And you go. At each stroke you are waiting for happiness. You swim, but you are not in the swimming. You are continuously thinking about happiness - it has not come yet... it has not come yet.... And each moment you are giving a negative suggestion to yourself; you are hypnotising yourself about its not coming. It has not come yet so it is all hocus-pocus, useless nonsense - and this man was saying that it is very beautiful.

But you are swimming and there is no beauty; nothing is happening.

These repetitions in the mind go on creating a barrier. They won't allow anything to happen. For happiness to happen, the first thing is to forget about happiness. Don't wait for anything... just swim.

And suddenly you will be caught unawares. Suddenly, when happiness happens, you may not even be aware when it happens. Only after a few minutes will you become aware. And suddenly a relief, and you know that it has happened.

This is the way that expectation functions as an anti-suggestion, a negative suggestion. The mind goes on repeating that nothing has happened, and becomes more and more strong.

So forget about it. For one month simply do it. It happens... trust me. It has happened to so many people, and there is no exception to it, because everybody is by birth entitled to it. Meditation is not something like a talent - that somebody has and somebody else doesn't have. It is not like somebody is a poet and somebody else is not; somebody is a born actor and somebody else is not.

Then nothing can be done. Even if you learn, at the most you can become a mediocre poet - never genuine, never real gold - because you don't have the talent.

Meditation is not like a talent. It is like breathing - everybody has it, whether they know it or not.

Whether you are breathing rightly is another thing, but everybody can breathe, because without it, nobody can be. It is simply natural. One has just to recognise its spontaneous flow.

I have been watching you in the morning. Listening to me is going to be your greatest meditation.

Just listening to me, you relax. Just listening to me, you go... far out. Because just listening to me, you forget yourself. There are moments - I have watched on your face - when you are no more your ordinary self... just glimpses, mm? Sometimes you are no more in your ordinary mind; the old groove is not there. You have relaxed out of it, slipped out of it.

So continue to come, mm? and go on listening to tapes. Listening will be more helpful than reading, because in reading, you will be there. Just listen to the tape with closed eyes so you have nothing else to do; so your mind can drop out of functioning.

Listening can be done without the mind. Reading is difficult to do without the mind; possible, but very great training is needed, otherwise the mind comes in. With listening you have to be totally attentive, otherwise you will miss. In reading there is no need - you can read the page again; you can go back again.

And go on thinking of sannyas... that is going to help. There is no need to decide - just go on thinking about it. Any day you will suddenly have the urge, and you will come running.