Chapter 2

Anand means bliss, niyati means destiny - bliss destiny. And that is everybody's destiny: the destiny of rocks, of trees, of animals, of birds, of man, of stars. We arise out of bliss; that is our source, and we are searching for the source again. Everything moves back to its own source because only back in the source is there rest. When we are away from the source we are in misery, because we are foreigners wherever we are. Only at the source are we no more alien; we are one with it.

The source is the destiny too: then the circle becomes complete. The goal is not different from the source: the beginning is the end too. And always remember that whatsoever we are searching for, seeking, must be the source; that's why we are seeking and searching for it. We must have tasted it some day or other, otherwise the search is not possible. How can one search for something which one has not known? The search starts only when we know.

Psychologists say that the search for god is nothing but the search for the womb, and they are on the right track. They may not be able to figure it out completely but they are on the right track, because in the womb the child is utterly restful, absolutely relaxed. There is no tension, no worry, no responsibility; the child is one with the mother, the mother is his universe. And everything is supplied: even before the demand arises, the supply is there. The ordinary economic law does not function yet, that first you make the demand, then the supply follows; and between the demand and the supply there will be struggle which you will have to work through. In the womb the supply comes before you demand, so everything is so utterly tranquil and at peace. That, the child has experienced for nine months. Those nine months are an eternity for the child because he has no time concept. They are nine months for us who are outside, but for the child it is long, an eternity, as if it is forever and forever that he has lived in that peace, in that home.

Outside the womb he misses the home and is homesick. Out of that homesickness religion arises:

the search for god, for moksha, for nirvana. This is nothing but the search for the source. One wants to go back to those golden days when one was at one with existence and there was no separation.

This is the meaning of the word 'yoga': union, a re-union; and that is everybody's destiny. If we don't attain to it, we live in hell. We live a life which is worse than death and we don't know exactly what life is.

Start searching for those blissful moments. They are still there in the unconscious; deep in the recesses of your being the memory is carried. When one enters into meditation those moments start surfacing. That surfacing is known as satori, as samadhi. That memory comes to the surface of the mind and it is so alive that it is not like a memory; it is a reliving, not a remembering. For a few moments one is lost again. One is no more worried, no more a mind, no more a future. All has disappeared.

When those moments are released by the unconscious one is overwhelmed by them. They will be lost; again they will come and will be lost, and one has to go on searching and digging deeper and deeper. When one has really struck the very source of one's being, then it becomes a natural state.

That is the goal, the destiny. You can call it god, you can call it bliss, you can it truth - whatsoever appeals to you...

[A sannyasin says: I feel very scared and also a lot of love, and uh... I'm trembling!

That's good, a good indication, replies Osho. Love is always frightening; that's why people have decided to be unloving. But without love there is no life; only with love is there life. Life demands a price, it is not free of cost. That trembling and that scaredness is the price to be paid for life. Those who understand this invite danger.]

To be with me is to be in danger. I am unpredictable, and to be with me is to live in a wilderness.

Nothing will ever be certain again; all certainties will be gone, all securities will be gone. You will have to manage moment to moment, day to day. But that's how the whole universe is managing:

moment to moment and day to day. There is no planning in existence; it is unplanned, hence it is beautiful. An unplanned life has tremendous beauty because there is always some surprise waiting in the future. The future is not just going to be a repetition: something new is always happening and one can never take it for granted.

The secure people live a bourgeois life. Sannyas is against a bourgeois life. A bourgeois life means:

getting up at seven-thirty, taking your breakfast at eight, at eight-thirty catching the train to the town; back again at five-thirty, taking your tea, reading your newspaper, watching tv, then having supper, making love to your wife without any love, and going to bed. Again the same thing starts the next day. Everything is settled and there is no surprise: the future will be nothing but the past repeated again and again. Naturally there is no fear. You have done these things so many times, you have become skilful. You can do them again.

With the new is fear because one never knows whether one will be able to do it. One is doing always for the first time, so one is always shaky, uncertain about whether one is going to make it or not. But in that very thrill, in that adventure is life - aliveness, let us say, rather than life, because life has also become a dull and dead word - aliveness, the flow.

So it is a good indication that you understand what you are getting into. It is love, it is life; it is danger - it is death too. The master has to be all: life and death, day and night, summer and winter, all...

Lovely and ferocious, delicate as a flower and hard like a rock. These polarities have to meet in the master because only between these polarities will the disciple grow.

So a good indication, mm? nothing is wrong in it. That's how things are; you are understanding them rightly. But there is no way of going back. If there were only fear and no love, I would have told you to go back, because then there is unnecessary trouble; why take the risk? But if love is there then there is no going back. Love knows no going back. It moves ahead; in spite of all difficulties it moves ahead. It is never repentant. And whatsoever happens is good because love is good. Fear will lurk only on the boundaries. Deep in the heart will be love; just on the periphery fear will lurk. If I see fear in somebody's very core then I help him to go, because he will be unnecessarily living in torture. It will be a kind of masochism for him to be here.

I am here to help you towards transformation: I am not here just to become a torture to you; torture is not a value. But I am not saying that in transformation there is no pain. Pain in itself is of no value, but when pain serves transformation it has great value. So at the core of your heart is love; just on the periphery is a lurking fear. That is very natural; accept that too.

[A sannyasin says he never knows what to do with his anger. He has done many groups, but it still comes up.]

And do you think it is always anger or does something else hide behind it?...

It is not really anger. Only on the surface does it look like anger. Deep in your being you are so full of energy that you don't know what to do with it; that's why it takes the form of anger. You have great creative potential. It is creative energy which is not being rightly used; it becomes sour.

So you cannot change it by doing anything with anger. You can do Encounter and you can go into anger and you may enjoy it a little bit, a little release will come, but within days it will be gone and you will be the same again. If it were just anger then Encounter would have helped you immensely.

It appears like anger; it is not. Anger is a negative energy and you are suffering with positive energy.

When you don't know what to do with it you become angry; then you find excuses, any excuse will do. Those excuses are not very important either but you have to find an excuse: that you are angry because of this. You find a rationale for your anger, because without a reason for the anger you will not be able to forgive yourself; you will think you are going crazy. And really you are sitting on a great energy which can become a great ecstasy.

Put your energies into creativity. Forget about anger as a problem, ignore it. Channelise your energy towards more creativity. Pour yourself into something that you love. Rather than making anger your problem, let creativity be your object of meditation. Shift from anger to creativity and immediately you will see a great change arising in you. And tomorrow the same things will not feel like excuses for being angry because now energy is moving, is channelised, is being sublimated, is enjoying itself, its dance. Who cares about small things?

Out of one hundred people suffering from anger, near about fifty percent suffer from too much creative energy which they have not been able to put into use. Their problem is not anger, but they will go on thinking for their whole life that their problem is anger. Once a problem is diagnosed rightly, half of it is already solved.

So jump into work here, now put your whole energies into work and do at least one meditation: either Music in the night or Kundalini. And for two, three months simply watch; enjoy your work, don't avoid any work. Whatsoever comes on the way, pour your whole energy into it as much as you can, don't withhold. Within three months you will see that anger has simply shrunk. Sometimes there may be flare-ups but that is not a problem. Right now it is a constant thing there, and it is just boiling energy.

So this is your home now, you have come home. Put yourself into work: the problem will be gone.

[Another sannyasin asks about love.]

Love has to be understood.... (a long pause) You have never attained to a peak of love and there is a great longing for it. You have been in love but it has never been outlandish, it has never been fantastic, it has never been far-out. It has been lukewarm. It was not like a fire that consumes. You were in it but you were not destroyed by it; you managed yourself. You have been clever in it, you have not been a fool. And only fools know what love is; only they, because love is a kind of madness.

If you are too clever, you can allow only so far and then you stop. Your whole mind says, 'Now this is too much. Going beyond this point is dangerous.' Love knows only one experience which is satisfying, and that is to go to the very peak, to the ultimate peak, even once. Then there is a great change in energy. To know love once at the climax is enough; then there is no need to go into it again and again. It simply changes your whole being: sexuality disappears, and when sexuality disappears one becomes sensitive. Sexuality is not very sensitive; it is very crude, it is raw: it is not a very refined state of being. That raw energy is still there.

So I would like you to be less clever. In the days that you are here, forget about cleverness; be more muddleheaded. That's what Lao Tzu says: I am a muddle-headed man. When everybody is clear only I am unclear; when everybody seems to be intelligent, I am stupid.

What he means is that he does not calculate about his life: he lives it. He lives like any animal, like any tree, like any bird. He lives it simply, without figuring out what it is and where it is leading:

anywhere is good, even nowhere is good.

In the days that you will be here, put your mind aside. It will be difficult, but it can be done, mm?

Hundreds of my sannyasins are doing it, so you can. This is one of the crucial problems for the modern mind: putting cleverness aside. You need to be a little more wild, and here it will be possible, mm? I have so many wild people; they will help you. And going through groups, go totally wild. Don't miss this opportunity!

That will bring great innocence to you, that will make you ready to jump into a great love. It need not be with anybody in particular but it should be just a passionate love - even for life, for god, for me, for existence, or for any human being; or for painting, poetry, dance, music, drama, anything - but a great passionate love that becomes your whole life, in which you are so totally absorbed that nothing is left outside: so you and your love become one. That will be the transformation for you.

Fear is there but don't choose fear. Those who choose fear destroy themselves. Let the fear be there; in spite of the fear go into love. Because of fear man has become so clever and cunning. It is out of fear that the so-called religions - Christianity, Hinduism, Islam - exist. It is out of fear that

education exists, it is out of the fear that nations exist. It is out of fear that arms and the atom and h-bomb exist. Man has lived only out of fear; from the atom bomb to god, all are out of fear... hence there is so much misery in life, because people are living out of fear, not out of love. They put love aside and live according to the fear. Fear becomes the dominant factor, the guideline, the map.

Let love be the map, put fear aside.

One has to put one thing aside: either love or fear, that is the choice. And the choice is exactly whether to be or not to be: with love you are, with fear you are not. With fear is death, with love is life. Choose love. With fear you have chosen death and you are already dead. Choose love and you have chosen immortality; love never dies, love knows no death. That's why they say that cowards die one thousand deaths and the really courageous man knows no death, not even once. The body will die but his passion will not. His love will be there, his poetry will go on, transcending death. His song will float beyond death. He will defeat death.

You have come at the right time: something is going to happen! Good!

[A sannyasin asks about his work in the ashram: I get into conflicts with a lot of people. Sometimes it's very silly.... I just feel that some days I give off a lot of negativity. I get a response from that, then I get hurt very easily.]

You start getting negative, then they react, then you feel hurt?

You start the process of being negative, it seems?

Mm, that's a good insight that you have understood; then it can be dropped, there is no problem. It is very difficult to drop it when you think that 'they' start it; then you cannot do anything. That's what everybody goes on doing: throwing responsibility on the other. Then you are helpless, because it is up to them whether they stop or not. But your insight is perfectly true; you are honest and you have seen the point that you start it, they react, then you feel hurt.

Just see the point that your negativity is your negativity. They should not be victims; they don't create it in any way. You should not let your steam off on them, because they are innocent, they have not done anything to you. That's why they react, and when they react it hurts - not because they react:

it hurts because you started the process. It is rebounding onto you; everything rebounds. If you want flowers to shower on you, present flowers to people; if you want abuse, then abuse them. They always return the same: this is the law of life.

One has to remember that the people who are associates at work are not at all concerned with your inner life. That is your work to do; they have their own inner life to work out. They have their negative moods, they have their personal problems, anxieties, as everybody has, just as you have. But when you are in a working situation with somebody you need not bring that in, because if they start bringing in all their negativities and you start bringing in all your negativities, it will be a non-ending process. One has to simply see it.

If you are feeling negative, do something. For example, write out a very very negative thing and burn it. Go to the therapy room, beat a pillow and throw it. Go to the Music group and have a terrible

dance! (laughter) You have to work it out; it is your problem. By throwing it on other people you complicate it; rather than dissolving it becomes more complicated. They react, then you react; and there is no end to it, it goes on ad infinitum. Then tomorrow they will come with the same attitude:

that you have been negative, that you have hurt them, and you will have the idea that they have hurt you. Then you are both carrying wounds and you are ready to explode again.

You have a very very responsible job and many people are associated with you. You have to protect them from others and even from yourself. I have told them to surrender to you, so you have to take care. Because when I tell somebody to surrender to somebody else, the real responsibility is with the person to whom they are surrendering. Surrender is easy but you, to whom they surrender, become more responsible. And this is going to be the way of working things in the new commune:

everybody who is working there has to surrender to the immediate chief and the surrender has to be utter. But the responsibility falls on your shoulders because then you have to take care of them.

They are very vulnerable, they are very helpless: they have been told to surrender and they have surrendered; now you cannot throw your negativity onto them.

You can shower your love. If you cannot do that then at least be polite. If you cannot do even that then at least don't be negative. And your negativity you have to solve on your own.

Once in a while it is good to call your people, whosoever is working with you, and enquire of them if you have been negative to them, if they are feeling hurt. Because sometimes one may not know that one has been negative. Small small gestures, just a word, just a silence even, can be hurtful; the way you look can be hurtful. So once in a while call them and ask their forgiveness. Tell them, 'Every time I call you, you have to be true. Just tell me, because I am a human being and sometimes things can go wrong from my side and I have to put them right.'

For your personal problems, go to the therapy room or to one of the meditations or to the river. I know they are there, but they will disappear; there is nothing to be worried about. But this strategy has to be followed. Nobody should suffer your negativity, otherwise your work will become a kind of encounter and it will be very very burdensome.

And what is happening in your love life now? - because I see the problem must be there. It is always somewhere around love that the problems are.

[The sannyasin says he is living with his girlfriend:... I think we have a very beautiful relationship When we need something outside we go get it, both of us.]

Very good! That is a good understanding. Live together and let this understanding grow: that whenever you want to go outside, you can; if she wants to go, she can. That will be helpful for your living together. It will create more intimacy. If you can understand, casual affairs always create more intimacy; if you don't understand then your marriage is finished. A real marriage knows how to use even those casual affairs for the benefit of the marriage.

So be true, be loving, and whenever you feel, be free and let her be free. When love can join hands with freedom it has great beauty, in fact only then is it beautiful; otherwise it is ugly, it is nauseating.

Very good; continue.

But for your negativity, start working it out personally, mm? don't throw it on your colleagues. And once in a while call them all. If they have something to say, listen to them, like a wise man!

[The sannyasin asks: What about the people above me, the ones I have to surrender to?]

You have to surrender totally. You have to do the same; yes, you have to do the same. And soon they will be also asking and calling you - just wait. Things are getting together, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin says: The man who committed suicide, (see The Sun Behind The Sun Behind The Sun) was a very close friend of mine, he lived with me. I was very shocked and I was very angry, and now when I think about him with love, that's when I really feel sad.]

I understand. There are many implications in it. A suicide brings up many things; many things surface in those who had been in love with the person who has committed suicide. The first thing:

it reminds them of the fragility of life, of one's utter helplessness, of life's arbitrariness. Life starts looking more like an accident, and that stirs up much anxiety. One can feel angry because the person who has committed suicide has created so much anxiety in you about your own life, about your own being, about your own meaning. What meaning is there? And there seems to be no protection: in a single moment of madness one can commit suicide. [He] has committed suicide:

you can do it, anybody can; you start feeling afraid of yourself. If it can happen to [him], why not to you? Just a moment before he was as perfectly normal as you are and now the whole world will call him abnormal, mad.

[Osho recounts how, after William James visited a mental asylum and saw one of his friends as an inmate there, he never really recovered; for the next twenty years until his death he was continuously haunted by the memory of the experience.]

Suicide is an even bigger problem than madness, because a madman can come back, but one who commits suicide is gone, gone forever. You will never meet [him] again; and just a few days ago he was here and one never thought about it. So life starts taking on the colour of an accident, arbitrariness, meaninglessness, and that creates fear. One feels angry: 'Why did he do it to me?'

He has not done anything to you, he has simply committed suicide. But it feels as if he has done something to you. Why? And you cannot do anything about that because the man is gone. You cannot do any harm to him, so you feel impotent You would like to fight with him, you would like to ask him, 'Why?' - but now there is no answer, he is there no more. So he has made you helpless even in that way: you cannot even fight.

When we love a person he becomes part of our being. That's exactly what love is: becoming parts of each other, becoming members of each other. So when a person dies, a part of you dies with him. It is not simply a suicide of [him]; it is a partial death of [you] too. He has taken a part of you, the part that he has put inside you, that had become involved with you; he has taken that away. Now there is a blank, a hole; it hurts. So when you go back to the flat it hurts more because everything reminds you of it.

If death is natural then one can accept it; because what could poor [man] have done? One can forgive a natural death, mm? because he would have simply died; what could he have done about

it? But he has committed suicide: he has done it to you. He has taken part of your being, he has destroyed you partially. He has not only committed suicide: he has murdered you. Just see that murdered part, and then there is rage.

And the third thing: when you love a person, death reveals the fact that you never loved enough. You could have loved but now there is no opportunity. And you never loved enough; nobody ever loves enough. That hurts and creates guilt, that now there is no possibility even to ask his forgiveness, to say, 'I never loved you as I should have. I wasted time, I never hugged you totally, I never held your hand. While the time was there I never sang a song to you. You must have been longing for it, you must have been hungry for it. And who knows? - if I had loved you, you may not have committed the suicide.' These problems are implied in it: 'Who knows? - if I had loved the man, he may not have committed suicide? Maybe I am responsible because I didn't love him enough.'

So somehow deep down you can't forgive yourself for not loving him enough.

All these things and many more.... Try to see them, try to understand them. And don't be in a hurry to get rid of your sadness: you have to live it, you have to suffer it. And nothing is wrong in it; it is part of love, friendship, or whatsoever you call it. That's how we come to know, understand, observe, grow. That's how life brings different visions to our minds and how our consciousness ripens. So don't be in a hurry to get rid of your sadness, otherwise it will come again and again. Just let it go in a natural way; let the time pass. Don't do anything. When you feel like crying, cry, and when you feel like being angry, beat the pillow, shout at [him] and have a good encounter with him. He will not be answering from his side, but you can still do it; you will be alone but it will still be helpful.

But let it pass naturally, on its own; just time is needed.

And don't do anything. You can do many things: you can change the flat, mm? - then he will not be remembered, but then something will linger. You can make another friendship, fall into another great love and replace this one. But then something inside you will always feel guilty, will always remain sad and it will remain like a poison. Don't be in a hurry! Time heals: time is a great healer, and one should not disturb the process, one should not speed it up in any way.

It hurts, so it hurts! Naturally you are sad. Don't make a problem out of it. Pass through this sad night and it will be a great enrichment to your being.

[The Shraddha group is present. One participant comes to say goodbye.]

And what about your sannyas, mm? Why are you repressing the desire?... You are, and it is not good to repress a desire. (laughter) It creates neurosis if you repress a desire. Go as a sannyasin!...

You were going to commit a sin; now you have avoided it, mm? To repress anything is a crime: it cripples the soul. It gives more attention to fear than to love, and that is what sin is. To take more note of fear is sin, to take more note of love is virtue. And always remember to take more note of love, because it is through love that one reaches to higher peaks of life, to god. Out of fear one cannot grow. Fear cripples, paralyses: It creates hell.

All the paralysed people - psychologically paralysed, spiritually paralysed, I mean - live life in hell.

And how do they create it? The secret is that they live in fear; they only do a certain thing when

there is no fear, but then there is nothing left worth doing. All that is worth doing has certain fears around it. If you fall in love there is fear because you may be rejected. Fear says, 'Don't fall in love, then nobody will reject you.' That is true - if you don't fall in love nobody will ever reject you - but then you will live a loveless existence, which is far worse than being rejected. And if one rejects you, somebody else will accept you. The people who live out of fear think more of not committing mistakes. They don't commit any mistakes but they don't do anything else either; their life is blank.

They don't contribute anything to existence. They come, they exist - they vegetate rather - and then they die.

Never be afraid. Take risks and listen to the heart. Even if sometimes it says to do mad things, do them! Only then will you live a life of thrill.

Prem means love, samira means breeze - a love breeze. Love comes like a breeze: it comes when it comes. So when it comes, dance with it. Never say no; say yes to it and go the whole way. Be loving and be a breeze.

Breeze is a symbol of freedom, of an unpredictability. It is also the symbol of a life which is not worried about destination, which is not worried about having a goal, achievement, but is a sheer enjoyment of the moment. Mm? look, this breeze has come....

It cannot be created, it comes when it comes, but you can dance with it, you can enjoy just as the leaves are enjoying, and then it is gone. Then there is silence - enjoy that silence.

The sound and the silence, the movement and the stillness: enjoy both and remain free like a breeze, not going in a particular direction. North is as good as south, east is as good as west; all is good, all directions are god's directions. Wherever we end we will end in god, so there is no need to worry.

People who have goals in the mind are always worried, always trembling, afraid:'Is it right to do this thing? Will it help to achieve the goal? Am I going astray? Am I on the right path?' They worry so much, they think and brood so much, that they stop living, they stop breathing.

Don't be worried about the destination; there is none. Existence is herenow, it is not going anywhere.

That is the message of a breeze; and love is a spiritual breeze.

And come back; now I can order you to!