Darshan 14 August 1976

Deva means divine, samarpana means surrender; surrender to god, surrender to the divine. It means total surrender - and that is your way and your path. You are not supposed to do something about it. You are just supposed to allow god to do something to you.

We just have to be in tune with the whole... just like floating with the river, not swimming against it.

So relax. I see a certain tension in you. So relax more and take life easy. Don't be serious about it. To be serious about life is to miss it. Become more like a child - accepting, delighting, enjoying small things.

God is not somewhere far away. He is just very close by. One has to learn how to look at the nearest, at the immediate, at the closest. So do small things as if they are devotion....

[An indian sannyasin, here on visit from kenya, said that she was concerned about what she felt was her overprotective attitude to her eighteen-year-old son. He also felt he was overprotected and that he was not allowed to do those things that other boys of his age were doing. She added that he had fits occasionally, but apart from that, there were no other problems.]

It will be good if you send him here because I will have to talk to him. The problem is that if you feel your overprotection and too much love has damaged him, now this too much caring about him is again part of your being too protecting. Now you want to protect him from damage. And if protection has damaged him, then this again is the same game. So I have to understand him and what exactly his problem is; whether there is really any problem or it is just your overprotection which still thinks there is a problem.

Overprotection always creates a problem, but underprotection also creates a problem. And there is no way to know which is the balance between the two; there is no way. If you underprotect, he will be angry and say, 'Why didn't you prevent me from doing those things which were not good to do?'

This is an eternal problem. It has nothing to do with you. If parents protect too much, one day or other the children are going to say that you repressed them, you didn't allow them things which others were doing. They have a grudge, and parents feel very miserable because they always wanted to help them, and now this has happened. Now what to do? If parents are underprotective the children feel they are not cared about, that nobody bothers about where they are going, what they are doing; nobody cares about them.

And both have been tried. It has almost become a fashion in world history that one age tries one thing and then there are problems, so the next generation tries another thing, and then there are problems. This way the swing goes on moving from right to left, from left to right. Too much protection creates repression. Underprotection allows a vulnerable child to move into a world which is ugly and where a thousand and one things are happening which are easy to learn and will be very difficult to unlearn.

So parents have been eternally in trouble about what to do. Whatsoever they do turns out wrong, and it is very difficult to find a balance, because how to draw the boundary line? The problem becomes more complicated because one boundary line for one child may be the balance, and the same boundary line for another child may not be the balance because each child is so different from another; each child is so individual.

So don't feel guilty. There is no need to feel guilty about it. The problem is bound to come; you cannot avoid it. You can avoid being a parent (a little chuckle), but you cannot avoid the problems that arise out of being a parent. It is part of a responsibility, a great responsibility. So the only thing possible now that you are alert, is to first send him. And send him alone - that will be good; don't come with him.

If repression is the question, it is not very difficult; you can release it. In fact if indulgence is the question, it is more difficult to undo it. Repression simply means that energy is there, throbbing, and has lost direction, so how to bring it out? It is very easy. Energy is there. It is just that we have to remove the lid and the vapours can be released.

A greater problem arises when a child becomes indulgent. He may learn drinking, he may learn smoking, he may learn some perverted sexuality, and then it is very difficult to bring him back, because now it is a question of unlearning. It is not only a question of energy being released. So you should be happy that you have not made this mistake. And only two mistakes are possible, so you have done the lesser evil.

There is nothing to be worried about, but educated parents become very worried - and particularly in this age when freud and freudians all over the world have taught that the parents are the culprits.

So people are reading this, and the whole climate is against parents. They start feeling, 'Something must be wrong with us, with what we have done. Now what to do?' But you are still thinking in terms of what to do. But you will be the doer - and that is the problem.

So I will see him and then I will decide what to do. It may simply be that you need not do anything.

Simply leave him as he is. Sometimes non-doing does many things which doing cannot do. Simply say to him, 'Now you are of age, we are finished. Whatsoever we could do, good or bad, we did.

There was no other way. Now you are free to do whatsoever you like.'

[The sannyasin answers: A fortnight before I came here that is exactly what we told him. He's been much happier.]

That's better... because if you start doing something to undo what you have done, again you will be doing something. After a few years, again he will say that you have done this to him. It is something in the human mind that if he himself goes to hell, it is good because he has chosen it on his own accord. If you force him into heaven he will never be happy about it, because somebody forced him.

Happiness cannot be forced. A forced happiness becomes unhappiness. A chosen unhappiness becomes happiness. So just tell him that now he is eighteen he is to move on his own. And don't keep spying on him. It is difficult, I understand; it is very difficult. Parents love their children, that's why it is difficult. You care about him so you will be worried about what he is doing, but allow him.

In this world nothing wrong can be done. At the most one can waste one's energy and life, that's all.

You may not be able to do good, that's possible, but nothing wrong can be done. So become less afraid about that and let him do his thing. Within six months he will be fed up with whatsoever he wants to do. And whenever it is possible, send him and let me see what can be done.

[A sannyasin therapist who is leaving said he had a very strong drive which was driving him to go back and do certain things.]

Go, and go without any reluctance. Go happily. Go totally.

And I can understand. There are things which drive a man and which are below your understanding, deeper than your understanding, underneath your understanding. They come from sources which you have not become aware of within yourself. So trust them. If you start fighting with them, your superficial layer will be fighting your deeper layer, and that creates tremendous anxiety.

Whenever it is a question between the deeper layer and the superficial layer, let the superficial layer surrender to the deeper. And the deeper can never be within your grasp. You cannot hold it in your hand. It is bigger than you. Only by moving in the direction in which it is pointing will you come to know it and understand it.

So simply go. The only thing to remember is to go totally. Don't think in your mind about what you are doing, and whether it is right or wrong. Drop that conflict. Whatsoever you feel an urge to do, do it. And the urge is not destructive, it is pure, so there is no problem. The urge is not immoral, it is moral, so there is no problem. The urge is religious, and you will be able to know from where that urge is coming only by fulfilling it.

Trusting your own unconscious will give you tremendous self-confidence. You will become more rooted, grounded, and your unconscious will be sending messages to you more and more. Those are the messages of your destiny. Avoiding them, you will always be in misery. Fulfilling them, you will become more and more happy.

Happiness is nothing but to do that which you are destined to do - and your unconscious knows what you are destined to do. It goes on helping you, giving you hints and messages in your dreams, in your fantasies: 'Go this way, do this.' But your reason has become too dominating and it doesn't

listen. It says, 'Unless something is rational and unless I understand it, I'm not going to just float with this unknown source. Who knows what it is? Who knows from where it comes? Who knows whether it is good or bad, from god or devil?' Reason goes on trying to control it and hence a conflict arises. And reason is most superficial.

So whenever you see that some deep urge is knocking at your doors, listen to it. One should befriend the unconscious. One should come to friendly terms with the unconscious. Watch your dreams, watch your desires, and go deeper into your dreams and into your desires. Find out deeper layers and you will be coming closer to your being.

Simply go - and with no hitch, no hesitation, because if you go with hesitation, then by the time you are back in the states, you will start thinking of poona. You will start thinking of me and your mind will start confusing you saying, 'What have you done? You have come here. What is the point? You should have been there.'

I will call you. Your unconscious on its own accord will start giving you hints as to when you need to be here. Just leave yourself in your unconscious hands. Just listen to the intuitive part of your being and not the intellectual part. Listen to the feminine part, not the aggressive part. That's what we mean when we say to listen to the heart and not to the mind.

Once you start befriending it you will be tremendously benefited, because it will show you each moment, each move. And it is always right because it only considers your deepest desires, it only considers your destiny. It has no other considerations. Reason has a thousand and one considerations.

You fall in love with a woman.... The unconscious has no other consideration except one - that somehow the woman fits with you, somehow she complements you, somehow she makes you whole; that's the only consideration. But for the mind there are a thousand and one considerations:

whether she is rich, whether it is economically good, whether she belongs to a good family, whether it will be politically good, whether she is white or black, christian or hindu... a thousand and one considerations.

The unconscious has only one consideration and that is whether she fits with you or not. If she fits with you. she may be a mohammedan, a christian, a hindu; it doesn't make any difference. She may be rich or poor; it doesn't make any difference. Educated. uneducated - it doesn't make any difference. Reason has all the considerations. This is something to be understood - that reason never considers the basic thing, the most essential. and it considers all non-essential things.

Seeing into your unconscious, I feel it is good that you go, but go totally.

[The sannyasin then asks: Can you tell me a little bit about my work - what I should be doing back there? I don't even know where I am going. I'm just going.]

Simply go there. For a few days don't decide anything. Meet friends and see what can be done.

Don't carry a plan in your mind. That never helps to solve anything and it creates many complexities.

Because when you have a plan, you try to fit everything with your plan - which is not going to help you. Rather, go and see the situation, and let the plan arise out of that situation.

Talk about me, take the tapes, talk about the work that is going on here, and feel what you can do... and things will start happening. They always happen - and when you don't have a plan, they happen easily because you don't have something to fix; your plan is flexible.

Have you heard about procrustes' bed? It is a greek myth. This man, procrustes, was very rich and he had a very great palace in the hills, in a lonely spot... very beautiful. Travellers sometimes would pass and would be enchanted. He would invite them in and they would be happy to stay.

But there was a problem. He had a bed, and any guest that would come, had to sleep on that bed.

Procrustes had an obsession that the guest had to fit with the bed. So if the guest were smaller than the bed, he had men pull, stretch the guest to the size of the bed - and the guest would die. Or if the guest were bigger than the bed, he would cut the legs or head off so the guest would fit the bed. It was almost rare that somebody would fit the bed and would come out of his palace alive. Otherwise guests would simply go in and never come out again.

Many people do the same with life. They have a certain plan and they try to fit life with it. It never fits.

Simply see a situation and then let the plan arise out of it. You have to do my work. That's a general idea, not a plan - just a general directive to start some centre there for meditation, for therapies, to help my work, to help many people. There are millions of people who will not be able to come here - and I am not going anywhere, so my sannyasins have to go. Just help people to meditate, and if you help them, there is a possibility that some day they may be able to come here.

Once they start meditating they are bound to come here one day or other. They will find their own way. You have just to initiate it, just give them a little taste of what meditation is. This is a general directive. The plan has to arise there if you go - and I feel it is good that you go. But still, you have to feel your own unconscious and do whatsoever it says.

[Another sannyasin says: I was wondering if you could give me some hints about life in the university and with the family because I'm going back sometime next week.]

It will be different - and it will be very good. It will give you new insight. Many things happen when you go back, because here you live in a different milieu. You will be going alone, the milieu will be left behind and you will enter into a totally different world, a different atmosphere. That will make you more sharp, centred. It will be a challenge, and you will have to respond more consciously.

People will be arguing with you. They will think you are mad or something. People will think you have betrayed your religion, your country or something. You will have to be very very patient to understand what they are saying and to help them to understand what you are, where you are. And these things bring everything into focus.

[The sannyasin asks for a particular meditation technique. He likes the kundalini and nadabrahma.]

So then continue the kundalini and the nadabrahma, and one small meditation that you can start doing in the night before you go to sleep.

[Osho described the meditation technique he had given to few evenings ago (see august 12th), but added to it another stage. After five minutes of saying 'ah!' then a further five minutes of saying 'aha!', bhagwan said to add a further five minutes of 'ahoo!', saying ... ]

The english language is acquainted with the two - 'ah!' and 'aha!' 'Ahoo' is not part of the english language, but that is the third step in the same series of sounds. It is a state of gratitude, of thanksgiving. 'Ah' creates silence, 'Aha!' creates joy, and 'Ahoo' starts giving thanks and expressing gratitude.

[Osho also said it would be helpful to burn incense through the meditation ... ]

Use the same incense every night. That enters into your bio-memory and it starts triggering things.

So just burn the same incense every night, and never bum that incense at other times, otherwise you will lose track. Let it be associated only with this meditation.

[A visitor said that she had done primal therapy in the west for the past two years and was unsure as to whether to continue it or not. Osho said two years was long enough ... ]

... In fact in the west they try to make every process too long, because every process has become a profession, so the longer it is delayed, the more profitable it is to the therapist. So psychoanalysis can go on for five, ten years, or even twenty years. One can go on and on.

By and by the patient becomes addicted. He forgets his own problems; therapy becomes his problem. Now it becomes an addiction. Nothing may be happening through it, but the person cannot live without the therapist and without the therapy. A dependence arises, because the whole western thinking is economically based and everything becomes a business. There is no need. It has put you on the right track. Now you can work on your own. And sooner or later everybody has to work on his own. Any sort of dependence is dangerous.

Do a few meditations here, but even if one suits, that's enough. There is no need for many meditations. One has to find the right technique that fits you, goes with you. And the right technique is that which makes you joyful, makes you more energetic, refreshes you, rejuvenates you. You feel more alive, more celebrating... a sudden joy overflowing, for no reason at all. Then the technique is fitting you and there will be no hard work with it; it will be almost effortless. And when things are effortless, they are beautiful. Effort makes things ugly. Any strain makes things ugly.

So the only technique that is going to help a person is a technique which he can do without any effort and without any strain, the technique which he can play around with. It is not like work; it is just like play. So work on all these five (meditations that happen during the camp).