Enlightenment is just a sudden lightning just a vision that Yes! This is so!

[A sannyasin asks about her relationship which she thought was very open, but her boyfriend recently said he was pretending sometimes, and he has other desires. She feels very sick about this.]

I understand. That's why people have completely forgotten what a open relationship is. They have become closed... they have become zombies. And that's why all the charm in life has disappeared.

In a closed relationship, you go on pretending hut you never say. You feel interested in, infatuated by other women, by other men, but you never say - you hide the fact. The closed relationship is a very unnatural phenomenon.

If a man feels interested in you, that means he is interested in woman, otherwise why should he be interested in you? So if he finds some beautiful woman passing by . . . he is interested in woman, that's why he loves you... if he feels a beautiful person passing by, how can he avoid feeling a certain desire for the woman or for the man? I am not saying that he should go to her, but there are only two possibilities: either he comes and says it to you... that is natural, should be so, and you should love the man more for that!

... or he can pretend. He can feel that you feel hurt, so he be-comes a liar, pretends that you are the only woman in the world, that no woman attracts him at all. And remember, he can not only pretend it - he can even manage it, sincerely, not to look at any other woman. But one day you will suddenly see he is no more interested in you either, because if he is not interested in women, why should he

be interested in you? You simply represent a woman; you are a personification, an incarnation of womanhood - nothing else.

So this is the dilemma. Either a relationship has to be open - then it is very windy and storms come, and sometimes it rains and sometimes it is very cloudy because there is no roof, and you are sitting under the open sky. But there is beauty too, thrill too. There is a kick in it - a real, alive thing. So you see both the things.

I know your problem. You feel jealous - that too is natural; so say it! There is no need for you to pretend either. You must be pretending! Mm? you feel jealous and you say, 'No, I don't feel jealous.'

Then again you are doing the pretension work.

Simply say, 'Good, but I feel very jealous. And when I am saying that I feel very jealous, I am not saying that you have done anything wrong - I am simply telling you my mind! It is still there - I feel very jealous.'

And that too is natural! It is as natural as a man becoming desirous oP other women. That too is natural - a fear arising that if some other woman becomes too much of an infatuation, he will move away from you. Then you feel that you may lose him. Then all worries arise... and you don't want to lose him! You love him, and you don't want to lose him, so jealousy arises. But don't try to pretend that you are not jealous. Otherwise you will create a problem.

Remember that if you are jealous, you are jealous - you have to say so. But do it in such a way that the other is not made to feel guilty. He has not done anything wrong. What can he do if a beautiful woman passes by, and suddenly just in that moment he feels attracted? True of him that he comes and says so to you. Now you also have to be true. Don't be afraid!

You are not saying that he is wrong when you say that you feel jealous - you are simply saying that this is how you feel. He is perfectly okay, and you are thankful that he was true and sincere and that he told you. Tell him to never pretend - even if you feel hurt, he should never pretend!

Because pretension kills love. Hurts, love can tolerate as many as possible. Hurts are nothing - in fact they make love even deeper; each hurt brings a new life - but pretensions kill. So if you pretend that you are not jealous, on the surface you will say, 'I love you', and deep down you will hate; deep down you will want to take revenge. And you will take revenge in many ways. Then you will be in a split.

My suggestion is - let it be really open. If you are jealous, then you are jealous, and if he felt infatuated, he felt infatuated. What can you do? Human beings are very helpless. You understand his limitations, and he understands your limitations.

Now the second possibility is to make it closed - then there is every security... but then it is dead!

Then you are caged! There are two alternatives: either he pretends that he never looks at any other woman, and when you are not there he's very happy.... In fact when you are not with him, he is very happy that he feels a little freedom. Whenever you are there he is a little depressed, so he becomes a hypocrite. You have killed the man. And how can you love a hypocrite? How is a hypocrite going to give you any happiness?

.... Or the other possibility is that he may be a religious person - that is even more dangerous...

more than the hypocrite. He may be a very sincere person, a serious person: he not only pretends, he tries to do it. Then he can do it. He Gan close all possibilities of being interested in anybody, but then by and by he will lose interest in you.

It is as if you force somebody only to breathe when you are with him. You will find him dead sooner or later, because when you are not there, what is he going to do? He cannot breathe! So for twenty-three hours he cannot breathe, and for one hour he can breathe only when he is with you.

That's what we are doing about love. We say, 'Only love me, and for twenty-three hours, no love, no breathing. And then one hour, pour down all your love, breathe as much as you want to breathe!'...

It creates a neurotic state!

Very good that it is open. Good that it hurts! You also have to be open - I don't feel that you are open. That is creating the trouble. You also be open, and you will also feel attracted to men. It is natural. And if you don't feel attracted, that too is good. I'm not saying that you have to! Then maybe that is natural to you. Every-body is so different that there can be no golden rule for everybody.

But be open, and try openness, because openness is far more important than your love, and if openness is dropped, everything is dropped. Even love will disappear - it will not prove of much help. But if openness is there, only then can love grow in it. Openness gives the space for the love to grow.

It is going to be difficult... challenging. It is not going to be all roses. But nobody is saying that it is all roses. Love is a difficult situation, and everybody needs to pass through it. So keep open, and continue, mm? And whatsoever happens, just say it, express it. If you are feeling sad, be sad! What can you do? If he cannot do anything, then what can you do? If you cannot do anything, then what can he do? If you accept him, he accepts you... and he accepts you as you are; you accept him as he is.

This is the way it should be here with my sannyasins. Otherwise you can get married to him and have a christian marriage and be happy ever afterwards. Mm?

So don't kill it. Let it remain open. If it exists, good! If it disappears, that too is good - but let it remain open.

[A sannyasin therapist says: The power that I have - the beautiful power that I have - becomes so unwillingly destructive. I don't want to have the compulsion to enter into things or become destructive towards.... ]

The problem, as I see it, is not as you see it. The problem is that you don't accept yourself. You can call it compulsion or you can call it something else - but you don't accept yourself as you are. You want to improve yourself - and there is the core of the problem.

Improvement is not possible. Improvement is a very false notion. It has never happened... it cannot happen. By the nature of things it is not possible. Nobody ever improves, because everyone is already that which one can be, so one has to relax and accept it. If that is your pattern, then that is you.

Once you accept it, things will start changing. And I don't say they will improve - I say they will start changing. Change is a totally neutral concept. In improvement there is greed, in improvement there is ego. In change.... It is just like summer changes, and then it is rains, and rains change and it is winter, and seasons change - but there is no improvement.

The whole western mind is basically caught up with the concept of progress. Evolution is there, but there is no progress. Evolution is also not a right word, because that too gives an idea as if something is evolving into a higher state. Nothing is going anywhere - everything is where it is.

In the east we have the concept of circular motion... circular change. The wheel is the eastern symbol. That wheel is on the indian flag. It is a buddhist concept - very meaningful. In the west you have a linear concept of life - in a line: evolution, progress, improvement. Things are getting better!

Nothing is getting better, nothing is getting worse; things are as they are. Things have always been the way they are, and they are going to be the way they are. You can get very much worked up and worried if you carry this concept of progress.

So on the social level in the west, there is the concept of a social progress, and on the individual level, improvement - how to improve yourself. In fact in the american book market so many books are available on how to improve yourself and how to succeed and how to be this and that, that one is simply surprised. In the whole of the east, for five thousand years we have not created a single book on how to succeed and how to improve and how to win friends and influence people. We have not written a single book! We think that the whole existence is circular.

You are not caught in anything, because the very idea that you are separate from this pattern is wrong. You are this pattern...! You are this that you want to get free of.

You are creating a difficult thing which cannot be done. How can you be free from yourself? It is you!

It is as if a rose wants not to grow any more roses, and the rosebush comes to me and says, 'Osho, I am caught up in a compulsion - I always grow roses!' Mm? what nonsense! It is not a compulsion - it is the way you are.

So I will say to the rosebush, 'With my blessings, go on growing bigger roses - as many as you can grow - and forget all this nonsense! You are not caught up in anything. This is you.'

Once you realise this fact, and the idea to improve and become better is dropped, suddenly you are free. To me, to become absolutely free of improvement, to be totally free of all nonsense - of growth, improvement, going somewhere, reaching high altitudes, siddhis and powers, and occult and esoteric things - is to become en-lightened. Once you are finished with all that nonsense - it is ridiculous - and once you say, 'This is what I am - If I am a rose-bush, I am to be a rosebush, so why not be happily a rosebush? Why become sad? And why become neurotic and go to a psychiatrist's couch ? I am a rosebush. God intends me to be a rosebush, so I will be a rosebush. Now I will happily be a rosebush' - there is no problem, because there is no division.

My suggestion is: simply be yourself. Don't bring in any categories, values. Once you see the fact that this is what you are, suddenly all problems disappear. Problems are created, manufactured, home-made. You weave and spin them. If this is the way things have been happening, this is the way they are going to happen; simply let them happen.

[The sannyasin answers: But I see that other people get hurt - and they happen to be the people that I love the most.]

You can tell them that this is the way you are. Never pretend that you will not hurt them. From the very beginning make everything clear - that this is [you], and you grow many rose flowers, but there are many thorns. So they should not be deceived by your roses; thorns are also there. Sometimes you hurt very much, and you are destructive. Now it is for them to choose. Be open!

Again the problem arises because we go on pretending that we never hurt, that we are very loving, that we are very kind, compas-sionate, that we are buddhas. Then suddenly one day you hurt.

Then you feel guilty, because first you created an image - which was a false image; now your image has fallen - you feel guilty. You want to keep that image always there high on the pedestal. Why?

Simply make it clear... let it be declared! To everybody that comes to you - a friend, a lover, people who are in any way related to you - let it be declared that you are this way; if they choose to relate with you, they choose with your totality. Yes, there are good things and there are bad things in you.

Sometimes you are very angry, and very destructive. And see what happens.... It will do miracles.

Those who love you will love you more, because this sincerity creates more love. This openness makes you more worthy. And then there is never any problem. If you hurt, they know that you have told them, and you don't feel any repentance for it, because this is the way you are.

A man who is totally accepting of his own being never repents - never! Because for what to repent?

[The sannyasin answers: I'm always told in these situations that I don't know my own power.]

But again you are always on the power trip. Nobody knows! How can you know? Who can know?

Relax, and then the power is released. You are tense - the power cannot be released; you don't allow any opening for it. And the power is not yours - you are the tension. When you are no more there, the tension is gone; the tight knot is not there. The power is there, but power has nothing to do with [you]. Power is nobody's property. Power is simply power. It is god's or you can say it is of the whole. It is nothing to do with you. You are the knot.

So unknot yourself! Simply accept that this is the way you are - and in that acceptance the knot starts opening, because now there is no point. You are no more worried about it. Then power is, but power is not yours. I cannot say that it is your power, and you don't know your own power. It has nothing to do with you, it has nothing to do with me - it is simply power. It is the energy of the total.

When you become a vehicle, it flows. It is not flowing because you are creating so many barriers for it; you are creating so many blocks. And this is the greatest block - that you want to improve, you want to become better, and you want to become more powerful. Drop all this!

In the name of spirituality much nonsense goes on. In the name of spirituality there is hidden politics, and the ego continues in subtle ways.

What I am saying is very simple, and yet very difficult. Simple, if you understand it directly - difficult if you start thinking about it, if you start brooding on it. What I am saying is so simple that if you

listen rightly and you don t bring your ideas to interfere in it, you can become enlightened this very moment! Because enlighten-ment is not something that you have to achieve somewhere in the future. It is just a lightning, a sudden lightning... just a vision that, yes, this is so!

Can't you see the point? The point is simple! Intellectually it is not simple; existentially it is very simple. The point is that you stop all efforts to improve yourself and simply say, 'This is how I am - sometimes very sincere, and sometimes very cunning, and sometimes tike a child, and sometimes like a devil - this is how I am.'

And I am not saying that you brag about it, because why brag? When you say that you are both there is nothing to brag about. You simply open your heart - 'This is how I am.' Tell to your friends, your lovers, your students, that's the way you are and start being yourself with no idea of any improvement. One year you give to me. One year be just the way you are. And whatsoever happens, let it happen! What can you lose? What have you got to lose?

One year simply be whatsoever is. If you are contradictory, be contradictory. Be true moment to moment - don't worry about being consistent, because our devotion should be towards truth, not towards consistency. If you are consistent, you become a liar, mm? Because you say to a woman that you love, you love her tremendously, and you will love her your whole life - but remained her that this is the moment's assertion... this moment this is how you feel. If this moment is going to be your last moment, then there is no problem. But the next moment is coming; you don't know - nobody knows - how you will feel in the next moment.

So when you are making an assertion that you will love her forever, declare simultaneously that this is this moment's feeling - next moment you don't know. Be humble about it, helpless about it. You would like to love her forever, but what is the next moment going to bring? Nobody knows. And you have no power over the future. How can you promise?

So this is not a promise. This is just the expression of this moment's heart. This moment's feeling is expressed - that if this moment is going to be your last moment, you have loved her and nobody else... but the next moment? The next moment will decide.

So be consistent with the moment. But if you are consistent with the moment, next moment you may not be able to be consistent with your past. That I call devotion to truth - whatsoever truth is in a certain moment, you are with it. When that moment is gone, it is gone. If it comes, that's good. If it doesn't come, good.

For one year simply be this way, and then see what happens. Changes will happen - I don't say improvement. Changes will happen - tremendous changes will happen. And I don't think that you will fall back. That one year will be enough. You will never be the same again. But at least one year's time is needed, so things get roots in you.

[The sannyasin answers: What device do you have for me to keep reminding myself of that all the time?]

If you can understand this moment, enough! Again you ask about how to remember it all the time, how can you manage it. Just understand in this moment, and that understanding will flow into you.

Whenever you can remember, good. Whenever you forget, good. If you forget in a certain moment, then forgetting is the truth of that moment; trying to remember will be forcing something. So forget!

When you again remember, remember. You follow me? Otherwise you have brought in your old problem again: now how to remember this?

If you forget, you forget - what can be done? If you remember, you remember. But if you have understood the point, it will be there like a subtle remembrance inside you... a very subtle light which will remind you. It will whisper - it will not shout in your ear. Sometimes you will forget - but nothing wrong in it. Forgetfulness is as much a part of the human mind as remembrance. So don't try to do the impossible - that you have to remember continuously - otherwise you will go mad!

Forgetfulness is needed as much, as remembrance. Just for one year, relax. And whenever you catch hold of yourself redhanded again planning to improve yourself, relax. Take the locket in your hand, remember me, have a good laugh, and forget about that improvement and the plan and the projection. Soon you will relax. And in the days you are here, make it a point: meditate, dance, but with no idea of improvement... no idea of going anywhere. Just be here and enjoy. Good!

[The vipassana group was at darshan. Osho asked one of the leaders how it had been. He said that there had been much noise from the outside, but it had, in fact, acted as a stimulation.]

It can be... it can be. The biggest vipassana monastery is in Rangoon, just in the marketplace.

One american psychoanalyst went there to participate in a vipassana group for three weeks. He was dreaming that the monastery would be somewhere in the hills, in the woods, and with streams running around, and exotic birds and animals. Then his taxi arrived in a very dirty marketplace - as dirty as can be. You cannot compare with poona - Poona is nothing! Rangoon is far more dirty. It is one of the worst place in asia. Only calcutta can compete with it, nowhere else.

So when the taxi arrived, he got out and he asked, 'Where is the ashram?' They said, 'This is the ashram!' His heart sank. He thought, 'It is better to escape!' He would have to meditate for three weeks in such noise and turmoil, and in such a dirty place! But the next plane would not be leaving for three days, so he said, Okay, for three days.... At least I should go in and see the master.'

When he went in he was even more puzzled, because many monks were doing the walking meditation, and almost two dozen dogs were fighting just in the middle (laughter)... and barking!

It was evening, and almost one thousand crows were settling on the trees in the monastery, and it was such a mess that he said, One will go mad for three weeks here!' But for three days he had to be there, so he said, 'Okay, for three days I should try.' And he tried.

After three weeks he wrote that it was wise to choose that place, because after one week one starts feeling as if the market does not exist. By the second week the dogs and the crows did not matter, and by the third week one was as alone as one can be on everest - just alone.

So it is not always really that disturbance is a disturbance - it is your attitude. If you think it is a disturbance, it is a disturbance. If you think, 'Okay, it is there - let it be there!' If you accept it, it is no more a disturbance. In fact, it can become a field, and your silence can become a figure. Against the noisy field, you can have the feeling of your silence, more clear, crystal clear. It is just as you write on a blackboard with white chalk: the contrast can give you a very very penetrating experience.

And always remember, distraction is always in the attitude. You think 'This is distracting' - then it is distracting. If you accept it, you say, 'This is the world, and the world goes on - it is not going to become silent and quiet for me. If I am to be quiet, I have to be quiet. My silence is something that I have to do within myself - it has nothing to do with outside things.'

And the second thing to remember: vipassana is not a concentration. In concentration, everything is a distraction. When you are trying to concentrate, narrowing your mind, anything can become a distraction, but vipassana is awareness. It is not concentrating on anything exclusively. It is all inclusive. It is just awareness. Awareness knows no distraction. That is the beauty of awareness.

[Osho asks a participant what he would like to do next, and he replies "No group!... Well, I'm thinking of repeating it, but after some time.]

You should repeat, mm? It has been so good, you should repeat. And soon I am going to give a group a name: 'No Group', so whenever somebody says 'No Group', he becomes a victim again!

(laughter) What do you think about this? (chuckling) The 'No Group' - will be very good, mm? Good!

[Another group member says he feels confused: in meditation he has glimpses of bliss, but his personality gets more monstrous: I've experienced this before, and this is what bothers me - it seems like I've confronted this before.]

I think one or two groups more, mm? Things are surfacing - that's why you are feeling so much.

They will disappear.

... One has to confront many things many times. Because life is really not so simple - it is very complex. There are layers and layers and layers. And one has to confront the same things many times - on different layers, but the same thing. Sometimes it happens that you will see that the ego has disappeared. And on another layer, digging deep, it is there again, in a subtle form - but it is the same problem. Again it disappears; work, and it disappears. Again one day suddenly you find, on another layer, it is still there. The work has to continue.

Actually there are almost seven layers to each problem that one carries, because these are the seven layers of the mind itself, so those problems are reflected in all the layers and joined together.

Do a few groups more, and don't be worried Mm? There is nothing to be worried about.

[A sannyasin, who had been admitted to hospital with para-typhoid the day after his initiation, is leaving for the west. He says: I learned so much in just being here... and it's crazy, because... I wasn't here (laughing). But it all seems to happen when it's supposed to happen.]

My observation is that it happens to many people after sannyas. They immediately fall ill - and it has something to do with sannyas. The very idea of dropping your past identity - the very idea of getting out of your past, moving in a discontinuous way - disturbs the whole body. The whole being is uprooted... because the past is our grounding. And becoming a sannyasin, taking some new path, not knowing where you are going and what is going to happen, is crazy. It is not sensible at all.

Sannyas is not sensible at all. It is irrational. It is almost like falling in love. Mm? one is afraid, and still one is pulled in. It disturbs the whole body, the whole mind. And. the body has to readjust to it.

Fever, diarrhoea - things like that - are almost common after sannyas.... And then the mind goes in a great negative darkness. The mind struggles hard to keep contact with the past because the mind is the past! And the mind creates a thousand and one new problems.

It will say, 'What are you doing here...? Have you gone mad or what? What are you doing here? For what have you become a sannyasin? What is going to happen here? Nothing is going to happen here - go home! You have fallen ill - that's all that you have got and you are suffering, and it is not fun!' The mind will create all the negativities - that too is a part of it.

Once that negativity has passed, once the body has settled, a totally new kind of positivity arises in which sannyas is just a gesture... in which sannyas is not a commitment... in which sannyas is not felt as if you are imprisoned in something - rather, you are freed of something. But that positivity comes only when one has passed through the dark night - and you have passed through the dark night.

If you want to go home, you can, but my suggestion is that this will be the right moment to be here.

If you can be here for a few days in this positivity, much more will become possible. You can go, but immediately the moment you reach home you will start repenting - 'Why have I come back? Why could not I have stayed there?'

It is up to you. I am not saying stay here, mm? I am not saying that. But you have passed the dark point, and now is the time to cut the crop. Now something more is possible. Now you will be more in tune with me, because that which was a barrier between me and you has dropped from the body, and you have passed through that negativity; it is settling. It will settle - it will take a few days more, but it will settle completely. And when it is settled, you will have a very new feeling of your being - just as one comes out of the bath, feeling very fresh and young. That moment is going to come any day.

So I will not insist that you stay, mm? because I never insist for anything. Any insistence becomes a bondage. This is just a suggestion that if you stay, if you can manage to stay, if you can resist this temptation just now to go away, it will be very very enriching. Otherwise you can go - you will have to come back, because the moment you reach home you will start feeling that your home is here.