Darshan 30 March 1976

[Osho suggested to a sannyasin to start a small meditation centre.]

It will be good for you also. This is my observation, that there are many things that you learn only when you start teaching them. The best way to learn a thing is to teach it.

And you grow more when you are less concerned about your own growth and more concerned with others' growth, their problems. Deep down no problem is such that it is not yours. Every human being carries on the same type of problem; degrees differ, but they're almost the same problems. So when you are helping somebody to resolve something, to decide something, to come out of a vague, confused state, to settle, to centre, to be rooted, grounded; whenever you are helping somebody, you become aware of many things about yourself, because they are your problems also. When you help somebody to really solve a problem, you have attained a key.

It will be difficult when you are really involved in your own problem because you are too close to it; you cannot be an observer, you cannot be aloof and neutral. You cannot be a witness when he problem is yours. But when the problem is somebody else's you are wise, and you learn much.

When the problem comes in your own life, you will be able to cope with it more easily, because you know that the problems are just problems; they don't belong to you or to me, or to anybody else. And keys are just keys. Solving many prob ems of others, you are solving your own life, and by helping others, you are helped.

That's why I go on insisting that people go back and start helping others. In the beginning you feel a little apprehensive, because you know that you cannot even help yourself. I also know it. Knowing it I give you some work to get you out of your self-concern. Sometimes the self-concern is the only hindrance. When you help others you have moved out of your own ego, you are more relaxed. This happens every day in life.

If the surgeon is going to operate on his own wife, it will be difficult, almost impossible. His hands will tremble. He may be a great surgeon, but when it comes to his own wife or his own child, he will have to seek somebody else's help; he will have to ask some other surgeon - because now the problem is so close. It is as if he is operating on himself. As it is difficult to operate on yourself, it is difficult to operate on people who are close to you; you lose all skill. But whenever you are helping somebody who is not close to you, suddenly you become wise, you have the skill.

So always remember, never avoid an opportunity in which you can be of help to somebody. It pays...

it will make you more and more centred, alert. And you may not have to pass through many things; helping others, they will be resolved in you. If you go on helping others, thinking, meditating for others about their problems, watching, analysing, finding clues, you forget yourself completely, and one day suddenly you will see that your own problems have disappeared on the way.

So you go... and I am going to work - don't be worried.

Just call your friends, and start a small beginning.

[A sannyasin said that sometimes when he lay down he had a sensation, which was not very comfortable, of moving energy. Osho checked his energy.]

Good... come back. It is perfectly okay. Rather than being disturbed by it, you should be happy. But you are not cooperating with it, and that creates the trouble.

If energy arises and you resist, you are creating a contradiction in your being. That is the problem - the contradiction. Go all the way with the energy, and never create a contradiction in your being, otherwise you will be divided and you will feel very much disturbed by it.

It is something which is very valuable, but you can use it only if you cooperate. Nothing on your part is to be done, simply cooperation. If this hand wants to move, there are three possibilities. One is, you can stop it. It is your hand, it is your energy - you can dominate it. But then you are creating a contradiction and you will create a very deep worry inside. It will come again, and you will fight; you will become destructive. Something beautiful was going to happen; you are making it horrible.

Something which could have turned into flowers will turn sour and bitter.

The second thing is, you can simply be indifferent - neither cooperating nor fighting. If you are indifferent, it will take a very long time to complete, to come to a peak; years, even sometimes lives.

That is wasting time. It is better than the first, better than fighting, but not yet the best. The third is positively cooperating with it.

The hand wants to move - you move with it, you participate. You are not a spectator, an onlooker standing by the side of the road. You are part of the process, you dissolve in it Then something of tremendous value can happen very soon.

So this is my suggestion. Back home make it a practice every night, before you go to bed, to put this (the box) on your head for fifteen minutes and cooperate. Just go almost crazy with it but go with it. In fact a step ahead of it - not lagging behind... ride on the wave. Within a few weeks you will see such tranquillity coming to you, such unity... a unison, a music, a harmony, because the conflict

is no more there. The whole day you will feel a serenity surrounding you. Anger will automatically become difficult... Love will become easier. Hate will become difficult... compassion will come easy.

When one is harmonious within, life moves on a different plane. It has a totally different plenitude.

You fly - you don't walk. And that is possible. The energy is struggling to come up and possess you, but you are resisting. Somehow you are afraid of it.

The western man has become very much afraid of all such phenomena. There is a reason in it, because the western mind has been brought up and trained to control everything. And this is something you cannot control. If you control, you destroy it. It can flower only if you are controlled by it.

Because of the wrong attitude of controlling everything, a deep unconscious barrier exists between you and this energy. Drop that barrier. That's what surrender is... that's what trust is. Trust it - it is your deepest energy. It is your centre trying to make contact with the periphery. It is you - your own depth trying to make contact with your height. It wants to bridge the gap.

Allow it. Not only allow it, welcome it. Cherish it... invite it... wait for it - and drop all resistance.

It will take a little time because deep habits take a little time to go, but once it goes you will feel a tremendous release. A grace will surround you.

The whole thing for you to remember is - go with it, ride on it.... And everything is beautiful.

[A sannyasin said that he felt some kind of division between what he felt inside and what was expressed outwardly; that he felt open but his body looked closed. Or, he said, sometimes he wanted to act, to do something, and nothing happened.]

I understand It happens. When your mind changes, suddenly you feel a gap between the body and the mind.

The body and the mind ordinarily go together; they have a deep adjustment. But when you start meditating, the mind grows faster and the body lags behind. Many times you will become aware that the mind is open but the body is closed. Many times the mind is flowing very high and the body is Lying dead on the earth. The body feels like a load, mm? One would like to be bodiless... to open all the dimensions.

This is a good sign. It simply shows that the mind is growing. But the body goes slowly. The pace is different because the body is material and is very orthodox, very conventional. It will try in every way to follow the old routine. When it is absolutely convinced that the mind has changed.... First it will try in every way - it will not believe in the mind, it will doubt. Those doubts are very existential because the body cannot think. Its doubts are very very existential. It cannot believe that the mind has changed, so it will lag behind. It will create fight and will not listen to the mind. This will continue for a time being.

Continue working on the mind - don't be bothered by the body. It will take a little time. Once it understands that the mind has changed, then it immediately follows. It is a robot, and it depends on past conditioning. When it sees the mind being open again and again, it will learn. It learns by

repetition; there is no other way for the body to learn. If you want to teach something to the body, repeat it, then it learns. If you go on doing certain exercises every day then the body learns. If for just a few days you don't exercise, the body forgets everything. The muscles relax and the body relapses. For the body, repetition is the method.

So don't be worried about it. Just take note of it, and go on working on the mind. The more open you feel, the more the body will have a repeated experience of openness. It needs hammering again and again and again, then it starts listening. It is very sleepy, fast asleep. Once it understands, once it listens, then it goes deep. Then it becomes routine and the body will follow the mind.

For a person who is growing, this situation will come again and again many times. The body will settle with this mind, and by that time, the mind will be floating still higher, and again, the gap. This goes on and on and on until the mind explodes completely and is there no more. Once the body learns that now there is no mind, that the mind has become so open that it is almost no more, that the mind has flown so high that it has disappeared into the vastness of the sky, then the body adjusts for that. That is the last adjustment, but before that many adjustments will he there.

Just take note of it and don't be worried about it. Just go on working. It is a good indication that something is happening in the mind at least. The body will follow. Don't get disturbed because of the body, otherwise the mind will get disturbed - and that's what the body wants. If the mind gets disturbed, the body will say 'I knew it before... it is all nonsense. You have not changed, so there is no need to change. We can continue the old pattern'.

Go on changing, and let the body know again and again that the mind has really changed, and that you are no more the same person.

[A sannyasin had previously spoken with Osho about her negativity. He suggested she return to London. She said: Okay, I'm going to be good if I can stay.]

Mm, that you have to decide. If you want to be here, then drop all negativity. And this is a question of simple decision. Once you decide not to be negative, you will never be negative. It is through your deep decision to be negative that you are negative.

Nobody else can make you unhappy. It is your decision to be unhappy. Somehow you feel happy in being unhappy, so you continue.

[She says: Most of the negativity was directed to-wards myself. It didn't go out very much.]

That too, stop. Just get out of it, as one gets out of old clothes and changes. Because if you continue to be negative I will send you to London. That is the punishment (a chuckle) for negative people!

And the right place for them is London (laughter).

[She asks: Is there something for me to do, or just be positive?]

No, do something. If you drop this negativity and become positive, you can do many things. You have so much potential, so many possibilities, but you continuously waste your energy being negative.

It is not a simple thing to be negative. One unnecessarily wastes much. The same can be transformed. It can become gold, but it goes on becoming baser metal. This is the alchemy. Once you decide not to be negative and to be positive, you will start changing baser metals into gold. And you have much - that's why you are wasting; otherwise how can one waste?

People who are negative are potentially very very powerful people, that's why they go on wasting.

They have too much and they don't know what to do with their energies. So they are angry, they are sad, depressed, and this and that, and they create a lot of hell around themselves. The same energy can create a paradise around you. But it is a question of decision.

So I give you this alternative: if you are here, never again bring this word negative to me. And I should not come to know from anywhere that Veena has been negative (she laughs). Just drop it!

Otherwise you have to go to London!

The Soma group was present. The groupleader said: I began to get the feeling of a community - living together, eating - and it is very beautiful.]

Mm mm, that in itself can become a beautiful meditation. So tell people to be consciously together, to be alert about the community,.about the feeling of the whole group.

The individual has to learn how to be capable of merging into the group. In the West there is a very wrong notion that if you merge into the group you are no more an individual. Exactly the opposite is the case.

A real individual is always capable of losing himself, because he is so perfectly aware that he can bring himself together any moment. Only a person who is not really an individual is afraid of losing himself in a community, in a group. He's always defensive because he knows that once he is lost, he will be lost; he will not be able to come back to his centre again. That fear becomes defensiveness.

So real individuals are always communal. They can merge with the group absolutely. They are not afraid; they know their centre exists. And they know their centre so well that they can go to the opposite polarity without any fear. So help people to feel the community.

Be respectful about small things. When you are cleaning the room, it is not just cleaning the room.

You are creating a clean space for people. Be respectful about the people. You can clean the room mechanically, with no idea of the people who are going to live there. Then you clean the room, but your cleaning becomes just a simple work. It has no prayer in it and no love in it. A mechanism can do that. It has no human touch in it.

So let them feel with every small thing. If they are bringing or preparing food, let it be almost prayer- like, worship. When you prepare food for others, you are preparing food for God. Let it be an offering.

When you are preparing food, remember that your vibrations enter the food. If you are angry, doing it in anger, you are poisoning the food. If you are angry then go and take a bath, take a shower; get out your anger first. Don't touch food - it is harmful, because this food is going to become people.

Somebody will eat it. Soon it will be digested and will become part of his being. It will circulate in the blood... it will become his thinking, his feeling, his heart, his being.

If you do it in an angry mood, or if you do it in an indifferent way, or you simply do it because it has to be done and you don't have any love for it, better not to do it. The person who is preparing food is entering the food. His whole vibration is being received by the food, and food is very very receptive, because it is something alive. It is throbbing with life and vitality.

So teach people small things: to be respectful, prayerful, worshipful. And tell them, at least when the group is going on, that they should put their egos, their individualities, outside the house. Exactly where they take their shoes off, they should put off their egos also. Make it a meditation. People who don't know how to live without the ego go on being miserable. They think that this is all there is to life.

So, good.... These people will by and by become part of the community that is growing here. Sooner or later we have to create a communal being. Many communes come into existence and disappear.

This has been the history of all the communes, beautiful utopias, ideas, ideologies - and many people have put their whole life into them. But all communes sooner or later disappear. What goes wrong?

If you cannot create a communal soul, the community is going to die sooner or later. Once you create a communal soul, then individuals may go on changing... they will have to change: somebody will die, somebody else will come; old people will disappear, new, young people will enter the commune... but the commune will go on living. It will have a soul of its own.

So this is good, mm? Very good.

[A group member says: I've been in silence for a couple of days and I liked it a lot. Should I keep it up?]

You can - but don't force it. Whenever you feel like coming out of it, come out immediately; don't make it an enforced thing. Many things lose their beauty the moment you enforce them. They are beautiful if they are just happening, but if you enforce them, the beauty is lost.

Many people have come across this fact - that silence is beautiful. Once they know that silence is beautiful, they try to force it, and then by and by it becomes ugly.

So simply keep it because you enjoy it. The moment you feel that there is something which wants to come out of it, come immediately - don't wait for a single moment. This is not a vow... it is sheer enjoyment. You follow me?

Religion has missed many things, many beautiful things, because they made disciplines out of them.

Even if you make a discipline of being happy, you will destroy it. Enjoy it. Silence is a celebration, so enjoy it! There is nothing wrong in it. But remember, the day you feel that now you would like to come out of it, don't wait for a single moment. Otherwise the mind can start feeling that you are doing something wrong, committing some sin, when you want to come out of it. You will start feeling guilty... don't create that.

Life should remain an easy flow. Take it easy - whatsoever it is, and never try to get fixated anywhere. Talking is good... silence is also good. If you can move into silence easily and you can move into talking easily, then both are very very beautiful.

Talking will give a depth to your silence, and silence will give a depth to your talking. A person who simply talks and is never silent, his talk is superficial. And a person who continues to be silent and never talks, his silence will be useless .

Go into your being. Seek, search for pearls inside. When you get hold of them, bring them out, share... never keep them to yourself. The greatest religious revolution happens when you start sharing your innermost riches with people. Whatsoever you attain to in your silence, come out of it an( share with people... tell it to people, spread it. Then again go into it. Make it a rhythm; never make it a discipline.

Everything enforced is ugly, and everything flowing is beautiful and alive. So you continue, mm?

[To the group assistant Osho said:]

It is always good to help people grow - there is nothing like it. To see people grow is one of the greatest experiences. It is just like a gardener who plants the seeds and then watches them sprout.

Then one day they are flowering. He looks - the flowers have come, and all his hopes are fulfilled.

When you help somebody to grow, to pass through a fixation, an obsession, to attain to a breakthrough.... And when he blooms - that is exactly the right word - when he blooms, suddenly, a flare of energy. And the person who is helping is tremendously benefited.

And always remember that the more peaks that you attain, the more you become capable of further and higher peaks. And there is no end to peaks. There is no ultimate peak. . . it goes on and on. Life is an endless process. So never think that now, this is the last. It is never the last. When people start thinking that this is the last and they start settling, they miss much. Because this is my observation - that if you settle on a peak, sooner or later that peak will disappear, because peaks exist only when you are growing. They exist as dynamic points of realisation. They are not static.

Nobody can settle on a peak. Once you settle, the peak is ordinary ground. Soon you will realise that the peak has disappeared; you are moving again on ordinary ground.

So never settle for anything. Always go on and on and on.

One zen master, Rinzai, said to his master'Now I have attained to enlightenment, what shall I do?'

The master said 'Walk on'.

Walk on is the message.

So whenever you feel that one peak is attained, feel happy, thankful, grateful - but remember that this is only a new challenge. Go on looking for a further and higher peak which must be hiding somewhere in the mist. Use every peak as a step to a further peak. If you go on growing, you remain on the peak.

It is just like an aeroplane. If it goes on moving it remains on the height. If it stops moving, it falls.

Its being on the height is a dynamic phenomenon; it is not a static thing. And when you are in the aeroplane and you almost feel that it is not moving, it is moving very fast. When it is moving very fast, you almost feel it is not moving.

So remain dynamic. Always remain in the process. That journey is the goal... there is no other goal.

One goal from another is just an excuse for the journey. Goals exist for the journey, mm? People ordinarily think that the journey exists for the goal - no. Goals exist for the journey - just excuses so that one can go on journeying.

[A sannyasin says: When I first came here, I had been reading about astral projection and the Great White Brotherhood and blue triangles and golden chalices...

You started talking about being down to earth... and I dropped it all. And now you're giving it to me again!]

(chuckling) Many times I will take things away from you and then I will give them back (laughter), because sometimes there is a right moment for a certain thing.

Everything has its own place, and everything can be used for growth. And everything can become a hindrance... it depends. So sometimes when I feel that this is going to be a hindrance right now, I tell you to drop it. But sometimes if I feel that now you are ready, you can take it back. But you are not the same person now. I took those things from a person who is no more, and I give them to a person who was never before.

Life is such a tremendous change. You are not even for two consecutive moments the same. And with me, if you are really here, the change is so fast that sometimes you cannot even feel it. But later on when you think about it, you will see how much you have changed. That's why sometimes I insist for you to go away, because there you will realise how much you have changed.

You are a totally different person. You are going to be surprised back home - nobody is going to recognise you!