Darshan 31 March 1976

[To a sannyasin who had said he was studying history in the West, but didn't like it.]

History is not good...(laughter) it is just useless. Read something else, study something else which can be of creative use for your future.

Ninety-nine percent of history concerns foolish politicians. It is better not to know it, because it gives you a wrong notion about human beings. It is not the real past; it is the political past.

Millions of other things have been happening, but they are not being recorded. In fact all that is beautiful remains unrecorded, because the beautiful does not create any mischief, and unless you create mischief, you cannot become part of history. So only mischievious people - Ghengis Khan, Tamurlane, Adolf Hitler, and that sort; people who have created too much mischief in their lives, only they attract notice. In fact they are abnormal, ill people, and it would be good if we completely drop that sort of history from the world.

It is good to read something about Jesus or Buddha or Michelangelo or Wagner. Music, art, religion - study that... that's beautiful, that will open some hidden doors into your being. Don't fill yourself up, don't stuff your being with political nonsense - and all history is that.

In fact the real history has not been started. It remains for the future to ignore ill humans and to pay more attention to healthy beings. A Buddha is worth recording. One should know as much as one can know about him, because knowing about him is going to be, in a way, knowing about yourself.

So it is good that you dropped out of it. Now study some art, music, dance, anything that helps humanity to be more celebrating... anything that gives more love, that makes people more loving...

anything that helps you to share your being with others, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin asks: You spoke in one of the zen lectures on discipline, and I wondered if that meant self-control, and was some kind of discipline that we must have.]

Not exactly self-control... rather an awareness of whatsoever you are doing. Be fully alert about doing it, then a discipline comes out of it on its own accord - not that you have to force it. And there is a great difference between the two.

Ordinarily discipline means what you are saying - an effort to control oneself. But that is suppressing, and I am against it. Anything which is suppressive is dangerous and it is not going to give you freedom. It is not going to make you natural, spontaneous, blissful. Anything that is brought about by the will is a sort of violence.

So when I use the word discipline, I mean a discipline that follows like a shadow when you are aware.

For example, you are sitting here and I am talking to you. Somebody is sitting there. He can keep himself quiet, he can control himself, because that is the thing to be done. Then it is self-control. He will not enjoy this moment and this space. He will be constantly struggling, fighting; he will be in a tense state. This is discipline brought by control.

You are simply alert that I am talking to you. You have a certain problem, and that problem has to be understood. He is silent because of this understanding. He is respectful towards your problem, your difficulty; he is respectful about what I am saying to you. And he is in deep listening because your problem may be his problem also. So he is alert, watching, listening, learning.

The word discipline itself means exactly what learning means. Hence the word disciple - 'one who learns'. Discipline is a sort of learning. There is nothing to force in it, but a simple awareness that life is a tremendous opportunity to learn. In each moment one has to go on learning. No moment should be missed, because once missed, it is gone forever. That opportunity for learning is lost; you cannot reclaim it.

So one keeps alert. Through alertness one remains silent. Through silence one happens to be disciplined. This is the discipline that is brought by awareness, not by will. When you bring anything by will you are fighting. You are dividing yourself in two: the one who is to be disciplined and the one who is going to discipline - so you are already two. There is going to be continuous conflict - how can you be happy divided?

So when I use the word discipline, I mean a deep awareness in which you are undivided. So don't try to control, rather try to become more alert. The whole energy should be flowing in the direction of awareness. Whatsoever you do, don't do it sleepily; don't be a sleepwalker. Keep alert, aflame.

Even small things, ordinary, trivia - walking on the street - bring the quality of awareness to it. Walk slowly, gracefully, alert... as if each step is significant, as if a dancer is dancing on the stage... each step the dancer is fully alert. Walking also should be like dancing.

So if you can be alert in your ordinary day-to-day life, a discipline will come on its own, and it will be beautiful because it will not divide you. Your house will not be divided; you will remain undivided.

That is the meaning of the word individual - that which cannot be divided. You become individual...

one.

So try to understand the distinction between the two. That is the difference between real religion and pseudo-religion. The real religion has always emphasized awareness, and discipline through awareness. Jesus goes on saying to his disciples 'Be alert, awake! Don't fall asleep!' But they go on falling asleep, because to remain alert, tremendous energy is needed. Rarely in your life do you become aware.

For example the house suddenly catches fire you will be aware. Then the level of awareness will rise high. It is so dangerous a situation... for a few moments you will be at the top of your being.

That's where one needs to be continuously. Or somebody comes with a dagger and is going to kill you. For a single moment all thinking will stop. You will simply be aware of the situation - not even afraid, because there is no time for fear to enter. You will be simply shocked... no thought will move.

The dagger... the situation - and you will be simply alert.

Or you are driving a car and suddenly there is going to be an accident. Just a moment before, you become alert. Nothing can be done... it is going to happen... it is already on the way. It has happened. Then you are alert. Everything is a pin-drop silence within you. No thought, no cloud, no cloudiness... everything transparent and clear.

That's why danger is so appealing and people like to put themselves into dangerous situations.

Mountain climbing... what can be the attraction of it? It is very dangerous - a slight mis-step...

and gone forever. A thousand-foot-deep valley just yawning below you.... So when somebody is climbing a mountain, the more dangerous it is, the more alert they need to be. A certain altitude of consciousness arises.

When Edmund Hillary reached Everest, he must have touched not only Everest, but an inner, highest peak of being. He must have lived in that moment where a Buddha lives constantly. That's the beauty of it.

Why are people so attracted to the moon? There is nothing - nothing worth much - but the danger, the very danger of putting life in such a dangerous situation when coming back to earth seems almost impossible, almost a miracle... one attains to a height of consciousness.

That has been the attraction of war. The warrior attains to something on the warfront. While fighting, he encounters death. And those are the moments of peak.

But there is no need to depend on these artificial things. They are just like depending on LSD or marijuana - artificial. There is no need to drive your car madly, at such a speed that danger is there every moment. There is no need - because you can walk slowly and attain to that awareness.

Once you attain to that awareness, you live. You live on the Everest of being. And then a discipline arises of its own accord. Not that you bring it; it happens. It is not your doing.

[I decided today that I was definitely going to leave this Primal group that I'm doing. But I feel split....

but there's something else that wants me to be outside in the sun, and be allowed to do what I want.]

No, be there. You have been in the sun before - and what have you attained? Just three or four days before, you were in the sun, and after three or four days you will be in the sun. The sun is going to

be there. It is not going to disappear because of your Primal. So that is not the choice. This is a trick of the mind.

Always stick to something which is new, howsoever hard... there is something to learn there. These are tricks of the mind - to be in the open and in the sun. Why not do the whole process? There may be something that you want to avoid. There may be something that you are escaping. You may be afraid of something arising from the unconscious. It may just be on the brink so one becomes panicky and starts finding rationalisations to escape. No... never.

Always insist for the new, for the unfamiliar. The familiar is always there. The Primal group is not going to be your life-long thing - just a few more days - so why be in a hurry? In fact after a few days you will enjoy the sun more because of the Primal.

I was reading the other day about a poor Jew who was so desperate about his life that he had given up any hope for change and as a last resort went to see his rabbi. He told him in great detail of his horrible existence: that he was so poor that he, his wife and six children, and his mother and father- in-law all had to live in a one-room broken-down house and were all so irritable that they argued all the time and life was so unbearable that he really wanted to die rather than continue. The rabbi thought for a long while and then told the man he had a plan which would improve the situation and made him promise to follow it. The man was so desperate and trusted his rabbi so much that he promised immediately.

Then the rabbi asked him if he owned any animals. The man told him he owned some chickens, a cow and a goat. The rabbi said, 'Good! Go home now and take all of them into your house to live with you.' The man was astonished and thought that maybe his rabbi had gone a bit crazy, but as he had promised, he went home and did what he was told.

The next day he came back in tears and told the rabbi his life was worse than before and that if he didn't get help immediately, he was going to kill himself.

The rabbi calmly told him to go home and take the chickens out of the house, which he did. But the next day, he came back wailing that the cow had turned the house into a barn and it was impossible to live with her. The rabbi told him to take the cow out and that God would help him.

The man obeyed but a few days later came back, complaining loudly that the goat was tearing their clothes and smashing what little furniture they had. The rabbi gently told the man to let the goat live outdoors again. He did it. The next day he came running to the rabbi's house, smiling and happy for the first time. 'Rabbi, rabbi, how can I ever thank you?' he cried. 'My life is beautiful again. With all the animals gone, the house is so clean, roomy and peaceful that all of us love each other again.

What a joy!' It is the same room! The same people!

Primal is going to help you. It will bring in all the animals, mm? And after the Primal the sun will be sunnier, and the open sky will look vast, tremendously vast. Use the group. Don't escape from it. It is just a situation to bring something into focus. Finish it. Listen to the old rabbi, mm? (laughter)

[A sannyasin says: I don't know how much to do just what I feel like doing and how much to consider other people.]

You only have to listen to your own being. And just remember one thing - one should not cause any misery for anybody unnecessarily. But there are a few moments when it may be necessary. So the first thing to remember is your own feeling. Whatsoever you want to do, do, but do it in such a way that nobody is harmed; nobody is pained unnecessarily. Manage it in such a way. It is a great art - to do your thing without being cruel to others. There is no need to be cruel.

There are many people who really want to be cruel to other people, and that's why they insist on doing their own thing. They are not interested in doing their own thing. Whatsoever can cause misery to others, they say 'This is our thing. This is what we want to do'.

So always remember that this should not be the situation. Do your thing, but there is no need to cause any misery for anybody. Avoid that as much as you can. It is good... it pays. Because once you start causing misery to other people, they will start causing misery to you. In the long run it is not going to help you, and it is not going to help you to do your thing, because we are related.

That's the whole art of being with people. You are different, they are different, but we still depend on each other. So we have to consider others. I am not saying only consider others and never consider yourself. Then it is pointless. You go on satisfying everybody, and you remain unsatisfied. That too is a deep problem. If you are unsatisfied, you cannot satisfy anybody. You may try, but only a person who is deeply contented with himself can feel for others and can help others also to be contented.

So it is not only in your self-interest to do your thing. Ultimately it helps you to help others also.

Because once you are doing your own thing, you are so happy that your happiness goes on spreading around, ripples go on all around. And in your happiness you become helpful.

But it is a very delicate balance, mm? I don't say consider others. I say consider yourself - but if you consider yourself really, you consider others also, because you are not separate, you are not alone. I o man is an island... we are connected to everybody. So if I am to be happy I have to look all around to see that others should be happy, otherwise I cannot be.

So consider others for your own self-interest. I teach selfishness, but if you are really selfish you will be altruistic.

Don't be stubborn, mm? - otherwise for small things one becomes very egoistic, and one doesn't see the proportion - that for nothing you are causing so much misery, and people are going to take revenge. It is not worth it... drop it. Or do it in such a way that nobody feels that you are offending them.

When Roosevelt, the american president, died, just a few days before somebody asked him, 'What is your great secret in being so successful with people?' He said, 'My secret was this: that whatsoever I wanted, I always created a situation in which other people felt that they got what they wanted.'

He would call a conference and he would not suggest what he wanted, but would call twenty people and ask them what they wanted. Of course when twenty people are making suggestions, you can always find your suggestion somewhere.

It is... life is a game. Life is a game. If you want to be happy and you want that others should be happy, you have to learn the gamesmanship. One has to be very skillful. All other games are nothing before this big game of life.

.... And it gave satisfaction to the other person that his suggestion has been accepted. And Roosevelt was just looking for his suggestion to come from somewhere, and wit twenty people it can be managed.

It is like a symphony, a great orchestra. If one person is hurt, he will destroy the whole orchestra.

If there are fifty members playing, each one is needed to cooperate. If one person simply is not cooperating, goes astray, he will destroy the whole orchestra. Life is an orchestra.

In your life, hundreds of people are involved. They are playing the music - you are not alone. You may be the centre. musician in the orchestra, but still there are others whose cooperation is needed.

You cannot play solo - because you cannot be solo.

Just think of yourself as alone, left on the earth, everybody gone. Just think - will you be able to survive a single moment? Everybody gone and you are left to do your own thing. Now there is no problem of any consideration... nobody is going to hinder you - the government, the society, friends, enemies, the lover, parents - nobody at all. Just completely free. But what will you do? Nothing is left to do now. You will simply throw away your instrument and commit suicide.

Life is with people. Life attains to higher and higher peaks the more you can make a symphony in relationships. The greater the harmonies, the bigger the orchestras, the more people involved, the higher goes the peak, mm? So to consider yourself, consider others. My insistence remains on being selfish, because this is my observation - that a really selfish person is always altruistic. Good.

[A sannyasin says: I made an appointment to see you and I had a question, but it went.... I can't think of anything now.]

(chuckling) That's very good. That's the beauty of the appointment (laughter). If you can come to me immediately, you will bring a thousand and one questions which are useless. So Laxmi goes on delaying you, delaying you.... By the time you come, the question is gone!

It simply means it was a momentary question, not in any way significant. Always remember to make a distinction between the momentary and the essential. The essential question persists. The momentary is just coincidental, arbitrary. In a certain situation something has provoked it. But the situation gone, the question will also be gone. It has nothing to do with you as you are.

Then, very good. That's my whole effort here (laughter) - to help people to come to such a situation where they can't think of any question, mm?

[The Vipassana group was at darshan tonight. The groupleader said: It was a very small group...

they were very still in walking and eating slowly. It was very enjoyable, very quiet.

It seems that when there are more people in the room it becomes more like a silent encounter.]

You need a bigger place. Even if people are sitting silently they need a certain space, otherwise they create a crowded feeling.

Scientists say that even animals have a certain boundary around them. If you go near a monkey he will not pay any attention - up to a certain limit. For example, if you com closer than ten feet,

then immediately he will become attentive. Now you are crossing the territorial boundary. Now you are entering his space... you are trespassing. Then he will become inimical to you. If you are outside that territory, he is completely oblivious; whether you are there or not, it doesn't matter. Each animal has its own necessary space in which he can bloom and flower and be. Man has completely forgotten it.

But man also has a need to have a certain space around him. The world has become too crowded.

And when in a room twenty persons are sitting, they may be silent but their vibrations are crowding, are overlapping, trespassing, disturbing each other. It is not only a question of being silent. Inside their minds much turmoil is going on, and they go on broadcasting their turmoil. It is not necessarily that they speak. Even without speaking, whatsoever is going on inside their minds is carried by vibrations. They go on transferring their thinking to others, and a certain tension arises. Everybody is trying to protect himself and is defensive.

A certain strained defensiveness continues, even when the other is not doing anything, not even saying, mm? When people are crowded, their stomachs become tense. They shrink... their body aura shrinks, because that is the only way to avoid people and contact.

Just look in crowded trains, a local train - so many people standing. Just watch people's faces...

everybody will look like a closed thing. Even if a person is standing just by the side of someone else, even if the bodies are touching, they are not touching. The touch is not even human... no warmth.

But soon we will have a big place where people can have enough space around them, mm?

[A sannyasin says: In Arica they taught us a certain way of breathing which requires concentration, so I kept losing my natural rhythm of breathing, because the conditioning from Arica training was pretty heavy.

So I started concentrating on the breath going in and out here (indicating nostrils) and then it went better.]

That will be good - so remember it. Many Arica people will be here, and if they have been conditioned for a particular breathing, the breathing tends to be mechanical. So it is better just to concentrate on the tip of the nose where the air touches.

These are the two polarities: either you can concentrate on the beginning, or you can concentrate on the end. Both are the same. So if there is a problem concentrating on the hara and you feel that the breathing becomes unnatural, then drop that.

This is the difference between buddhist breathing and all other breathing. Buddha is absolutely in favour of spontaneous breathing. No effort should enter... not even a slight manipulation - because if you manipulate it, you have already become a doer. And the whole thing is to remain a witness.

Once you become a doer you are no more a witness. The doer has already fallen from grace. The doer is Adam turned out of the garden of Eden. The witness is inside the garden, natural; he has not done anything.

[Osho went on to say that unlike any other structure inside the body, breathing is the only thing that can be voluntary or non-voluntary; it is just in between... ]

So Yoga breathing is doing something - pranayama - a certain rhythm to be created. You can create a certain rhythm and it can be used for certain purposes. You can have better health if you can control your breathing, because by controlling your breathing, you start controlling your vital energy. By controlling your breathing, giving it a certain rhythm, you start controlling your body chemistry.

If you inhale more, deeply, long, and exhale fast, you will have a different proportion of oxygen and carbon dioxide. If you inhale sharply and exhale slowly, you will have a different proportion of oxygen and carbon dioxide. In fact you can create almost LSD-like states through breathing. That's why Krishnamurti is against it. He says it is the same - pranayama is the same as marijuana, because marijuana is changing your body chemistry.

If you can increase the quantity of carbon dioxide inside, you will lose consciousness. It will be alcoholic. If you can increase your quantity of oxygen in the blood you will become so throbbing with life that you will have a certain exhilarated state, an altered state of consciousness... ecstatic, almost mad.

Buddha has been from the very beginning against manipulation, because through manipulation you can change the chemistry. It is nothing spiritual. Whatsoever they have been doing in Arica is not spiritual; it is chemical - but this is an old yoga trick.

[Osho went on to describe how even just watching the breathing, subtle changes can start happening, so that it is an art to be learned - how to watch and yet not interfere - and that is what Vipassana is about. It is difficult not to manipulate because the ego wants to do something.

He said that he should remember to be aware of breathing at the nostrils so that the conditioned breathing would go.... ]

And when the breathing is perfectly natural, goes on its own, comes on its own, and you are just a watcher, a moment comes when you suddenly feel that it is not you who is breathing. You are not doing anything, so how can you say 'I am breathing'? You simply feel as if you are breathed .

That's what one sufi mystic, Mansoor, has said - 'I suddenly saw that God is breathing me!' And after that he declared 'I am God' - 'Ana-el-Haqq!' That became the crime, and he was murdered by mohammedans.

But his experience was perfectly true... right, because when the doer disappears, you are not breathing - you are breathed. 'That' is breathing you, or 'it' is breathing you. You are breathed through. You become just a vast space in which God breathes in and breathes out. And a total change happens. Whatsoever you call inhalation becomes the exhalation of God, and whatsoever you call exhalation becomes the inhalation of God. When God inhales, you exhale. When God exhales, you inhale.

There is a very old indian story of a man who went in search of God. He travelled all over the world.

Hindus say that the whole world is the body of God, so somewhere there are bound to be feet, somewhere hands.

The man travelled and travelled, and by chance it came to pass that hc came just near God's nose.

And in that moment, God was inhaling - so the man was inhaled... he disappeared in space. He became very afraid... what had happened? For a moment he could not believe where he was...

completely stoned. And then God exhaled. He came out and he ran away, mm? (laughter) Again he started searching. Then he came to a great seer and he said, 'I have been searching for my whole life. Where is God? I have travelled almost the whole world.' The sage said, 'Have you had any such experience?' The man said, 'Yes, I have come directly from one. For a single moment I disappeared into emptiness - as if somebody had inhaled me into somewhere. And then he exhaled and I ran away, because if he inhales again, who knows if I will come out of it or not?'

And the sage said, 'You have missed. That was the nose. You were so close. Now seek and search for that point again. You may not find it in the exact place because God is continuously moving. So now the nose may be somewhere else.'

But Vipassana is how one comes near the nose of God. It is the technique to find the nose of God.

So simply watch, mm? And if some day you suddenly find that you are being inhaled, allow it... don't get scared. It is exactly as it is in the story. One is simply sucked into somewhere in the unknown, and thrown out again.

But that becomes a rebirth. Then [you are] gone and somebody else comes out.