Darshan 5 April 1976

[A sannyasin says: I have a lot of problems about girls... I really get frightened - sometimes just of everything, sometimes of nothing. It's just a general sort of fear.]

A few groups will be very very helpful. The fear has to be dropped, but first you will have to go into it. You can drop a thing only when you have understood perfectly; otherwise you cannot drop it.

Fear exists because of non-understanding. There are a few things that you have not understood and they are lurking in the unconscious. They manipulate you from the unconscious, so you are just a victim. You don't know where they come from. They come just out of the blue, and you are in their grip. When you are in their grip, you cannot do anything; almost helpless.

So first those lurking repressed emotions in the unconscious have to be brought to light... they have to be made conscious. Once they are conscious, they start disappearing. It is just as if I give you a lamp and tell you to go inside the room and search for where darkness is. So you take the lamp - otherwise how will you search in the darkness? And then you go into the room with the lamp but you cannot find the darkness, because when the light is there, darkness is not.

So the whole problem - not only for you, for every human being - is how to bring the unconscious into the light, into the conscious, or how to take the conscious into the unconscious dark basement of your being. Once darkness is penetrated by the light of consciousness, it starts disappearing.

And things like fear, hatred, jealousy, which haw made their abode there in the darkness, can exist only with the darkness. They love darkness... they live. in darkness. They feed on it. They are like the roots of the trees. If you bring them into the light, they start dying. They survive only in the dark womb of the earth.

So there is nothing difficult in it... it is simple. But you will have to go through a few groups, mm?

This group - Encounter, which we are meeting today - will be helpful. So be here for a few weeks.

One has to work upon oneself; time is needed, patience is needed. It is almost a spiritual searching.

So don't be in a hurry, mm?

If you see a woman and you start trembling, really tremble. Let her also become afraid of you! Don't suppress it and don't say 'What are you doing? You are a man,' and all that nonsense. What can you do? You are feeling afraid so you have to tremble. Tremble... enjoy it.

So whatsoever comes up, allow. For these ten days in the camp, let things surface so that they will be uprooted, loosened. I will take the fear out, mm? Nothing to worry about.

[A sannyasin said that the tension, or what she experienced as a block below her stomach down to the top of her thighs, still persisted.

Osho gave her an energy darshan.]

It is not a block at all. You are feeling it like a block - and this happens very rarely - because when the energy is moving too fast, you cannot feel the movement. It is just as if an electric fan moves very fast; you will not be able to see that there is any movement. Energy is moving very fast - and it is a good indication. You should be happy about it. So don't be worried... but it has to be allowed .

So this is an experiment for you to do every night. Just put this box on your head with both hands, stand, and start. The same thing will happen... you will jump with the energy. Help the energy.

Energy is moving faster than your body... there is a gap. If the body also moves the same way, soon the gap will be bridged and the feeling of hardness will disappear. It is very good, mm?

Do it for three weeks, and ten minutes each night will be enough. After three weeks, stop. Even if you feel it is there after three weeks, it will go.

[A sannyasin says: there was something like anger but it was so deep... something clicked and I was no longer there, I was no longer conscious of it, but I lashed out in viciousness.

And that scares me because I don't feel it's really me, but it's deep inside somewhere.]

Don't get scared... that too is you. It is very difficult to accept it, but inside, man is the whole world - from the lowest animal to the highest gods. Everything is there. Man has tried in history, in many ways, to fix his being, to create a belief that 'I am only this,' and to deny all that has never worked. It has created a very sad state of affairs.

Just the other day I was reading a joke, a jewish joke. The joke says that Jews have dominated the whole history of man. First is Moses who said 'It is all in the head of man' - who tried to explain everything through the head. Then the second Jew, Jesus, who said 'It is all in the heart of man'.

Then there was a third Jew called Marx, who said 'It is all in the belly of man,' and the fourth Jew, Freud, who said, 'It is a little lower than the belly'. And then the fifth Jew, Einstein, who said 'It is all relative'!

But this has been our effort in the whole history of man - to fix somewhere, to say 'Man is this': to say that it is all in the head or all in the heart, or all is economics, or all is sex - somehow to give man a fixation, a fixed definition. That has not worked. Man is all.

Man represents the whole cosmos.

So remember never to reject anything. If you say 'This is not me', then you can never be total and whole. You are rejecting a part which will become a dark corner in your being. It will remain there.

Just by saying no to it, it is not going to dissolve. It will remain there and it will become inimical to you, and it will take revenge. That's how a man goes mad - it was the revenge of certain things that the man was denying.

If you deny love and you remain just in the head and work through the head, and you think that the head is the all and your whole being, then your heart will start taking revenge on you. It will revolt. If you deny sex, sex will revolt. Don't deny anything - that's my whole teaching: don't deny. However hard to accept, it has to be accepted. Nothing can be done about it. You have to accept, and through acceptance it will lose its sting.

So accept... that too is you, and there is nothing wrong in it. That energy has to be absorbed.

Denied, rejected, it will remain there, and some day will erupt on you, explode like a volcano. If you go on denying it, the very denial dissipates much energy unnecessarily, because you have to constantly fight it. It will not leave you at rest for a single moment. Even in your dreams you will be fighting it. Even in your sleep you will turn and toss and fight with it because you are afraid - it can erupt any moment. You have to sit on it constantly, because once you move, the lid will open.

This is how ordinarily people are living. They cannot live because they are not free; they are sitting on certain parts of themselves, and they cannot move from there. You call to them 'Come here'; they cannot come. How can they come? They are caught. If they move, there is fear.

The way to become fearless is to accept all without denial. Hard, I know it... I am not saying it is easy, but that is the only way. And there is no shortcut. All shortcuts have failed.

Don't say it is wrong. Try to understand what it is, and why it is. It is such a new part of you, a wild part. And you are afraid that there may be wild animals in it. But nothing is wrong in wild animals either. They are beautiful if you can understand. If you can learn their language and can communicate with them, you can persuade them to become members of you; you can take their cooperation. Just the language is needed.

Wild animals can be tamed. All animals that you have tamed were wild once. Even man was a wild animal... and still much of him is wild. Tame it. I don't say suppress - tame. I say persuade it, seduce it. I say fall in love with it embrace it, and absorb it. You will be richer for that Anger absorbed, a man becomes vital, potent. Anger absorbed, your life takes a flame. Anger absorbed, vou live not a lukewarm life. You live intensely... and that is the only way to live.

Your torch should burn from both ends. In being lukewarm there is no charm. So accept ... go into it. And you will be very happy once you can bring those wild animals back into your home.

[The Encounter group are present. A participant says: It's hard for me to change... I can't make it....]

Do you want to? If you don't want to, then it is okay. It is nobody else's problem; it is your problem.

If one clings to the problem, it is one's own to decide. If you want to remain resistant, if you like it, love it, then do it to your heart's desire.

But if you want to drop it, then with whom are you playing the game? With yourself! Either drop it or carry it, mm? If you feel that it is something valuable and that is why you are resisting, fighting, not opening; if you think some treasure is there and that you are protecting your treasure, then by all means, protect it. Then who is there to tell you to come out of it? It is nobody's business.

But if you feel that you are suffocating, that it is not a treasure but a dungheap and you are dying in it, and you are living in a darkness and can live outside in the sun, then why? Whom are you resisting? You think it is these people, the group? You are resisting yourself.

Whatsoever one is doing, one is doing with oneself - remember that. So in these two days, you decide. If you think it is worth preserving, then sit in a corner and preserve it, because these people are dangerous! They may fool you somehow, and you may spill your treasure - and once it is spilled, it is spilled milk. You cannot gather it up again.

But if you think that this is foolish, there is nothing to protect... you are simply protecting so that you can believe that there is something to protect - and there is nothing; who else can know better than you that there is nothing?... then jump into the middle of these people. Lie down in the middle and tell them to break the ice. Pray to them to bring you out of it. And cooperate. Who can bring you out of yourself if you are not cooperating? How is it possible? Nothing can be done against you, only with your cooperation In the past it was an idea that through hypnosis people can be brought to certain points, insights, certain spaces against themselves - hence the fear of hypnotism. But it is wrong. Even through hypnosis you cannot be brought against yourself.

I have worked long on hypnosis. One of my brothers used to work in an office, and I was against that office. So I tried and tried to persuade him, but he wouldn't listen. That office was crippling him; it was too much. And just rotten work... it was not creative at all. He had much potential an I wanted to bring him out. But he has a clinging mind.

Whatsoever it is, once he clings, he clings. Not only with work. Once he has a dress he will not leave it, somehow with the old things he gets caught.

So one day I hypnotised him. Finding no other way, I hypnotised him. Everything went well, I tested - everything was perfect. Even a needle pricked deep and he could not feel. I talked about many things, because I was aware that if I talked about that office he may come out of his hypnosis immediately. Everything was perfect.

When I saw that he had gone deep, really deep, I talked about the office. He immediately opened his eyes! (laughter) And he said, 'What! I cannot leave that office!' What happened ?

Now hypnotists, psychologists, say that even through hypnosis nothing can be done against the person; nothing can be done. If it can be done, that means there must be some subconscious

support. If a woman is raped through hypnosis, in the beginning the court was giving the decision against the person who raped, but now they have become suspicious. The woman wanted to be raped, otherwise it is impossible. If you cannot take a person out of his office, how can you rape a person? She must be willing somewhere; she must be playing somewhere. She was playing with the idea 'Now I am not responsible. If this person rapes me, good. I can say I was hypnotised, so I am not responsible. I will never feel guilty and nobody can say I am guilty'. On the contrary she can make much fuss. But deep in her unconscious she wants to be raped.

So tomorrow you sit in the corner and decide. Look inside. If you find a treasure there, by all means, protect it. These people are thieves, robbers. I am the greatest robber here! (laughter) Protect your treasure and don't listen to anybody, because once they break the locks the treasure is gone .

If you don't find anything worthwhile there, just emptiness, then for what are you resisting? Come out, and on your knees pray to them to help you.

[A group member says: I have a lot of enthusiasm for the group, but I've been feeling stuck.]

Mm mm... it can happen sometimes. It can happen because of too much sincerity. Whenever a person is too sincere, he becomes serious. He is bent upon doing something, and that becomes the barrier. Because these things happen; you cannot do. At the most you can allow; you cannot do. In fact enthusiasm is not needed. One has to be passive, to allow.

Too much sincerity, too many expectations - that something has to be done and something has to happen - make one tense. That is the tension somewhere near the diaphragm. And when it is not happening, one starts finding reasons why it is not happening: 'Am I not enthusiastic enough?

Because everything is being done and nothing is happening; maybe I'm not enthusiastic enough.'

That comes to the mind. That is a rationalisation.

If you are running hard and not reaching the goal, the mind says 'Run a little harder. You are not running hard enough'. But the possibility is that the goal can never be reached through the running, harder or not. There is a possibility that the goal can only be reached when you are standing, because the goal is where you already a!e.

Enthusiasm is not needed. Enthusiasm is a feverish state, and one cannot remain enthusiastic for long. It cannot be a natural thing. It is a fever; it comes and then goes. Never rely on any fever.

Inspiration, enthusiasm - these are all feverish states.

So that has been your whole pattern in the past. You want to do, you are a doer, and you don't know how to allow things to happen. So the mind says 'More enthusiasm, more hard work'. But that is not the problem. In fact no enthusiasm is needed.

The mind says 'Be more sincere'. When you are really sincere, it means you are after something too much - like religious saints and old men - too much after something, bent upon it. They will not leave a stone unturned. They will not allow God any rest. They have to have God in their hands almost possessed, obsessed. That is not my idea of spiritual growth. These people are neurotic.

Out of a hundred holy men, ninety-nine have been neurotic. Rarely one percent have been really holy men.

So drop all idea of getting anywhere. There is nowhere to get to. As I see, you are already there.

You may take a little time to see it, but everybody is already there... born there So don't run. From tomorrow work slowly, passively, allowing whatsoever to happen, but not asking for anything. And these two days will help you to see much about yourself. When this block disappears you will not feel stuck.

One feels stuck because there is so much desire and it is not being fulfilled... frustration. Drop the desire. Be released from the desire. Simply enjoy. Not enthusiasm, but enjoyment.

Simply watch what is happening. Participate in it at ease, with no effort. And you will be perfect, passive, and in a let-go - and things will start happening. They always happen when you are not there waiting for them, expecting them, forcing them to happen.

All that is beautiful and true happens on its own accord. It always surprises you, mm? So just relax, and come back after two days and tell me how you feel.

[A group member said that he was afraid to open and expose himself, and seeing others doing so made him even more afraid. He felt he just didn't have the courage.]

It takes courage... and a little fool-hardiness. You must be too clever! (chuckling) I have got you!

(laughter) So for these two days, be a little foolish and see, mm? Because courage comes easy when you are a fool. It is a problem for clever people - too calculating, intelligent; thinking what to do and what not to do; how much it is going to pay, how much it is not going to pay; what is the risk.

They waste time. Be a fool !

Fools have achieved things which clever people have never been able to achieve.

Saint Francis used to say 'I am God's fool'. Jesus looked foolish to people. All people who have attained to something have appeared foolish to others, to the so-called worldly-wise. But foolishness has a wisdom of its own.

For what are you afraid? At the most these people can call you a fool. So tomorrow you write on your forehead 'I am a fool' (laughter). Then they can see you are a fool, so what to do? Then you go on.

That will help, mm? Let us see.

[The youngest member of the group, aged 14, says: I am really scared in the group a lot of the time.]

No, don't be gentle to her - that won't help. Because if you are gentle too much with her, she will feel separate. No child feels good when you are too gentle, because that shows that she is a child and not part of you. A child feels very happy when you behave as if he is grown-up. Even if you hit him hard, he will accept it. And he will feel grateful that you accepted him; that he is equal to you.

That is a problem with children - everybody is protecting them and patronising them. They feel that they are not yet accepted in the society of grownups.

So that may be the cause why she is feeling a little that she is not into it. For these two days forget that she is [a teenager and accept her grown-upness. And she is grown-up now - she has been to Goa (laughter), so she is perfectly grown up! You don't need any more qualification for a grown-up.

Goa-returned, mm?

In the old days in India, when India was under British rule, that was the greatest qualification:

England-returned. For what one had gone, nobody enquired (laughter).

She is Goa-returned, so accept her and don't treat her specially. She will feel happy for it and grateful, and things will start moving. Tomorrow they start moving! They have already started!

[A group member, who is also a therapist, says he realised how manipulative he was: I've just been stuck for so many years - yoga techniques and karate techniques.... I feel now that I'm becoming less ambitious. I'm dropping into becoming more ordinary.]

Very good, mm? That is the only way to become extraordinary - just to be ordinary. And all those people who are after being extraordinary, are simply ordinary people.

Once you understand that there is nothing to prove, you relax. Not that you stop doing things. In fact for the first time things start moving on their own. An ambitious person is a destructive person, because his real motive is somewhere else.

Once ambition drops, compassion enters in. You will go on doing the same thing, but not for your ambition. Because you love it, you do it. And once you are not ambitious, you will see that your work has become very very graceful. It attains to a dignity, because there is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. One moves gracefully. If there is no ambition, there is no point in manipulating people.

Then techniques can be used, but you don't use people for techniques. Then means are ends, ends are ends. And everything is clear.

People are ends, they are not means. That's the difference in ways of looking at people. A politician looks at people as if the are means to achieve something: power, prestige position. Ambition is politics... the very roots of politics. They may look at people as means; use them as steps, moving on their heads to go higher and higher and higher. This is inhuman - politics is inhuman.

A religious man looks at people as ends. They cannot be used. Love them, help them, celebrate them. Celebrate with them... enjoy them. But there is no question of using them in any political sense. Then all that you have learned, karate or whatsoever, you share with everybody. It can be helpful.

Technology in itself is not bad, but it should not become the goal. It should be kept in its place. Man remains the highest goal, an end in itself. Nothing is higher than man. Man is the ultimate goal.

When you look at man with this religious vision, then everything that you know is good. If you forget this vision, then whatsoever you know is poisonous. That's how, through knowledge, atom bombs are created. These are all means but they have become ends.

So remember.... This is a good insight, and each group is going to give you many many insights, mm? because when you are a leader of a group, you stand on a different pedestal; you have to.

You are going to help people. You have to be more concerned with the technique, and you have to maintain that you are the leader. Directly, indirectly, you don't mix.

When you are a participant, you are in a totally different situation. You don't have any burden; you are not doing anything. Your eyes are clearer and you can see what is happening. You can relax.

So participate in all the groups, and by and by learn how to be a leader and a participant together.

When the leader is needed, be a leader. When there is no need for a leader, be a participant. A continuous movement, a rhythm, and you will feel very very relaxed. To be a leader is really to be mad, because continuously you cannot relax... you cannot be human! You have to remain higher than everybody, and holier than everybody, and you have to continuously maintain that. It is a very very tense posture.

So if you can relax continuously while leading a group, and if it becomes like breathing - in-breathing, out-breathing; one moment you are a leader, another moment you are a participant - you will come out of the group very very relaxed, fulfilled. And you would have enjoyed these two things together:

the insight of the leader and the insight of the participant. From both sides... you have eaten the cake and you have it also.

[A group member says: I haven t been participating in the group very much... I don't trust my feelings, and I'm not really in touch with what's happening.]

Almost nobody is. People have lost their roots in the earth. People are up-rooted. So don't be worried - this is how it has happened to the whole of humanity. Now there are very very rare people, accidents in fact, who somehow have survived from the calamity that civilisation is, who are still rooted and have a touch with the earth and who have their grounding, who can feel their feelings.

Otherwise everybody just thinks. If you love, you think that you love - it is not direct. You don't feel that you love; you think that you feel that you love. But it always goes from the thinking - and that thinking is a barrier, a buffer. It absorbs everything and does not allow anything.

But this is the first point when you come to understand that you are not in touch with your feelings.

Once you understand this then something is possible. So go on working.

Be more aware, in touch. Try to expose yourself, because nothing is at loss; you are not losing anything by exposing yourself. You may gain, but you cannot lose because you don't have anything.

The whole effort is in a way, ridiculous - you are saving something which you don't have, and I am trying to help you to drop something which you don't have.

You just cling to the idea that you have it. Once you drop it you will be simply surprised that there was nothing there; you were not holding anything. You will laugh at the whole ridiculousness of it.

Hence the insistence to drop it - so that you can see that there is nothing. If you go on clinging and clenching your fist, you will never be able to see that the fist is empty.

So try for these two days, mm?

[A group member says: I feel a lot of love for the group... it's just getting better all the time.]

Very good, mm?

It is very easy to feel love in a group because everybody is so loving, and everybody is giving so much, sharing. It comes easy to feel love. The problem arises where everybody is closed, uptight, non-giving, not open. And that's how society is.

Everybody is closed. Not that they don't want to love. They are hankering for it. They are waiting for somebody to come and break their ice, but they are waiting... others are also waiting. Everybody is closed in his own monad-like life... windowless... waiting for somebody, a messiah, to come and open them. But nobody comes, because others are afraid that if they go, you may reject them.

There is every possibility.

Your closedness gives the feeling that you will reject, so nobody comes close... everybody is defensive. And it is the same with you: you are afraid to go with, or to mix with anybody, because who knows - he may reject you. It is better to be closed than to be hurt and rejected.

So people choose that - a life that is without love. They have chosen out of calculation. The calculation is this: that if you don't move towards anybody, nobody can reject you - so you will never be hurt. Right - you will never be hurt, but you can never be happy either. This is what is happening in the world. Everybody has become an island, and all bridges have been dropped. It is very easy to feel love in a group because everybody is open, but you will not find the world outside so open.

So remember, a group is just a situation to see how people really are. This is the real face of all people. If they are given a chance they will be open, loving, sharing. So whenever you come across somebody who is not open, try to open him; help him to open. Don't be afraid that you will be rejected. At the most you can be rejected... accept that too. It is worth risk-taking. Knock at the door. The other may just be hiding behind it, waiting for somebody to knock. He may be defensive; he may try not to open himself. Push the door... help him come out. The real face of every person is just this that you are feeling in the group.

In the group you feel that people are naked, nude. They are without clothes... without armour...

without defenses. They are as they would have been if they were not destroyed in their childhood.

They are as they would like to be, but the world does not allow them. In the group they are putting aside their masks and you are seeing their real faces. That is the reality about everybody.

Every human being is hankering for love... seeking... searching - but afraid, so waiting. Never be deceived by people's masks. That's the training of the group. These are the same people who are in the marketplace... the same people all around. They are the same people but they gathered courage... they tried to come close. They tried to be nude and vulnerable, and when one becomes vulnerable, others also gather courage. It is a cumulative phenomenon, mm? That's why it is easy in a group. It becomes easy... it becomes infectious. When you see that everybody is open and nobody is worried, nobody is hiding, nobody is seeking any sort of hypocrisy; everybody is so simple and innocent and open; accepting and allowing you to come in, welcoming, don't miss this opportunity.

Feel the real face of man. This is the real face of man. Don't think that this is the real face of [group leader or the therapist], or this and that. This is the real face of man. When you go on the street, watch. Behind very facade, you will find the same real face. And feel real love, mm? so the whole world and all situations become group situations. The world really can become a paradise. Only love has to be allowed, allowed unconditionally, to flow.

Love has to be made like an ocean that surrounds everybody and melts everybody's island... opens everybody's heart and door of their innermost core.

So whatsoever is easy in a group will not be easy in the outside world, mm? The group is a special situation. From that take a lesson... Learn about the real face of man, and don't be deceived by masks, deceptions. Insist... and try to find out where - because somewhere the real man must be hiding. Love is the very quality of your being. That is what is meant when Jesus says 'God is love'.

It is not an accidental attribute. It is not something that you can take off and on. It is you. Not that man is loving, but man is love.

So look into each face deeply to find the real face, to find the original face. And never be deceived by deceptions. Whatsoever the outer shell, by-pass it, and tell the man 'You cannot deceive me. I know your real face. I know a god is hiding behind you, and I trust in your being a god. I don't believe in all the nonsense you are imposing on yourself. And you will help him to become more and more open.

The more you help others to become open, the more and more open you will become, mm? Spread the disease far and wide!