Darshan 17 August 1979
Prem Lyn. Prem means love; lyn comes from a German word "lindy"; lindy means serpent. It is a symbol of wisdom. The serpent power is our intrinsic power. It is called serpent power because it is coiled up like a serpent at the root of our being. It can uncoil, and the uncoiling of it is the real growth. When the serpent uncoils and starts rising upwards and reaches the highest center in your being, that meeting of your energy at the highest center is ecstasy, samadhi. Wisdom blooms there.
Because of that the serpent became a symbol of wisdom all over the world.
Prem Lyn will mean loving wisdom. Wisdom can be cold too. If it is cold it is dead. It has to be warm, it has to be loving, only then is it alive. So one should not seek wisdom alone; one should seek wisdom and love together, so love keeps wisdom alive and wisdom keeps love away from foolishness. Otherwise love alone is blind; love alone is bound to fall into stupidities. Wisdom alone is cold and dead; love alone is foolish. Both together and the highest reach of human consciousness is achieved.
Anand Hoschy. Anand means bliss; hoschy means woodland.
Woodland represents solitude, silence, nature, and bliss can be attained only through solitude. One has to learn how to be without thought... and it is not difficult. In the beginning it appears impossible but once you have come to know the knack of it, it is the easiest thing in the world: one can simply put the mind on and off. And once you know how to put it off and on according to your own will, you have become the master. And only the master can have bliss, not the slave.
And solitude is naturally... natural; noise is created by human beings. In nature, even if there are sounds, they are not noisy. They have a certain melody, a certain music. Natural sounds are not maddening. Yes, there are sounds: the wind passing through the trees and the sound of running water, the birds singing and the clouds and the lightning. There are millions of sounds in nature, but
they seem to be so harmonious that they don't create a disturbance; they don't distract you. They are not destructive. But the noise in a marketplace is destructive. It is maddening. It is insane and it drives people insane. It has no rhythm. It is really a conflict, a war.
So solitude is a natural phenomenon. It is already inside your being; one just has to go in a little bit more and it is all over existence.
Befriend trees, mountains, rivers, lakes; befriend the sun, the moon, the stars; befriend animals, birds, and you will be coming closer and closer to God.
My God does not reside in the temples and in the churches: he is another name for nature.
Prem Peter. Prem means love; peter means rock.
Become a rock of love, because only on the rock of love can one raise the temple of life. Except for love, wherever you make the temple, you are making it on sand. It is bound to collapse sooner or later. It is a false house: just a blow of the wind and it is gone.
People make houses on the foundation of money, power, prestige - and all those things are momentary. They are like sand: they can slip from underneath your feet any moment. One moment you are famous and the next moment nobody knows anything about you. One moment you are rich and another moment you are a pauper.
If one really wants to make a solid temple of life, something eternal, then love has to be the foundation. That is the only possible foundation - there is no other. Hence my whole teaching is based on love and in love.
Anand Donna. Anand means bliss; donna is a feminine form of lord. Your full name will mean let bliss be the master, let bliss be the lord.
People are searching for bliss, but unconsciously. Everybody is searching for bliss, but unconsciously, and because the search is unconscious you can never arrive. It remains haphazard, blind, and you go on moving accidentally into paths which don't lead to bliss.
Life is short and alternatives are millions. Unless one becomes a very conscious seeker of bliss it never happens. One has to put oneself totally in the search. One has to make a single goal of bliss - not one goal in many other goals, not just one item on your shopping list. And not even the second item on your shopping list - the first and the only one. Seek very consciously, and one can avoid all the pitfalls, all the ways that lead ultimately into cul-de-sacs and then one has to return and all the time is wasted.
And if you go on moving in wrong ways, you become accustomed to moving in wrong ways. If you go on choosing wrong ways, the possibility is more that in the future also you will go on choosing wrong ways. And when I use the words "wrong way" I mean that anything chosen unconsciously is wrong. It has nothing to do with the way. Consciously chosen, even the wrong way is bound to lead to God; unconsciously chosen even the right way is wrong. The whole thing depends on your consciousness; your consciousness iS very decisive.
So from this moment let your search become very conscious. Whatsoever you do, do with a clear vision that it is going to bring you bliss. If it is not going to bring you bliss drop it; don't do it. If you can see that it can bring misery to you forget all about it; don't waste time. If you know in the past that it has been bringing misery to you, don't go on hoping against hope that some day it will not bring misery and will bring bliss. It can't.
And whatsoever brings even a glimpse of bliss, take the hint: go deeper into it, go more into it, go more with it, flow with it. Don't miss any opportunity. Whenever there is an opportunity, recall it, remember it, rejoice in it. If you start rejoicing in small glimpses of bliss - which happen to everybody - then they start happening more and more. You start creating a magnetic force in you which attracts that which is blissful. You become a positive magnet.
People function like negative magnets: they attract misery, they attract miserable people. The world is full of darkness and light, full of love and hate, full of joy and sadness; the whole thing is what you attract, to what you become more vulnerable, available, inviting, welcoming.
Sannyas is a welcome to bliss, an invitation to God: "I am ready - now you can come! You will not find me asleep. I will remain awake and wait. I can wait indefinitely, and I will wait patiently, but I will not be satisfied by anything else except the ultimate bliss." Once this decision sinks deep into your heart... And that's the function of the Master: to go on hammering on you so that it goes on sinking deeper and deeper into your heart. One day, when it has penetrated your very core, the seed has reached the right soil. Then in the right time, in the right season, the sprout will come and the flowers and the fruit.
Deva Myra. Deva means divine; myra means fragrance, perfume - divine fragrance.
We are born with the seeds, with the potential, but only with the potential; it is not yet actual. It has to be actualized. The whole life is a process of self-actualization.
The child is only a seed, but the misery is that millions are born as seeds and die as seeds. Growth never happens to them. They think that to be born is enough. They take life for granted - which is utterly erroneous. Life has yet to happen. What you think right now is life is only an opportunity for real life to be; hence Jesus says, "Unless you are born again ,N He is not talking about rebirth after death; he is talking about rebirth before death. Unless this life is used to grow another kind of life the fragrance remains hidden. The flower never grows, the spring never comes, and life remains empty, hollow, meaningless.
Sannyas is a process of helping you to be reborn; it is a rebirthing. But remember, rebirthing is possible only if first you are ready to die. The seed has to die first, then the plant starts growing; the death of the seed is the birth of the plant. The death of the ego is the beginning of the soul. Die as you have been up to now so that I can help you to be reborn as God means you to be.
Sannyas is both a death and a resurrection. It is a cross: on one side you die, on the other side you are resurrected. That is the whole meaning of Jesus' crucifixion; it is a parable.
The parable says... I call it a parable; I don't call it history, because history cannot contain such great truths. Only parables, only myths, can contain great truths like this. The death of Jesus is the death of the ego. The death of Jesus is the birth of Christ, and between these two, three days pass. Those three days are very very symbolic; that means that there are three stages of rebirth. That means it is going to happen in three stages.
The first stage is what we know as sex, the second stage is what we know as love, and the third stage is what we know as prayer.
Your life energy has to move from sex to love, from love to prayer. These are the three days, and if these three processes are fulfilled one is resurrected, reborn. The fragrance is released, and the release of the fragrance is the fulfillment. Then one lives meaningfully, significantly, then one can face God with great gratitude and thankfulness.
Deva Gloria. Deva means divine; gloria means glory - divine glory.
Man is not just man. Man is far more: man is divine too. Man has the capacity to go beyond himself.
Ordinarily man is just a ladder: we have to pass beyond it, we have to climb up the ladder, but we are not the ladder. Or we can use another simile: man is a bridge, and we have to pass across it.
But our real nature is divine. To remember it constantly is of immense help, because that very remembrance slowly slowly crystallizes into a realization.
Remember again and again that, "I am not the body; I am not the mind; I am not my feeling, my thoughts, my memories, my past, my future." Don't get identified with anything.
In the East we call that method neti neti, neither this nor that: I am neither this nor that. Go on negating. When nothing remains to negate, when only "I amness" remains... you will be surprised to know that the moment only "I amness" remains, I also evaporates. Ultimately only amness... that amness is our real self; that is God within us.
When Moses asked God, "My people will ask 'Have you really seen God? What is his name?' what am I to tell to them?" God said, "Tell them that 'I am' - that is my name. I am that which I am - that's all that can be said about me."
It is a tremendously significant message. This is how one realizes God within oneself: I am that which I am; all else is gone. All that remains is a pure amness, a mirrorlike quality which reflects all without getting identified with anything. That is the suprememost bliss and the suprememost truth.
Satyam Giovanni. Satyam means truth; giovanni comes from Hebrew, John. It means a gift of God - truth, the gift of God. Truth is not a conclusion arrived at by the human mind. Truth is a gift given by God, and never to the human mind but to a totally different state: a state of no-mind. Truth happens in the state of no-mind. The mind is a barrier. One has to rise above the mind.
If you rise above the mind God descends into you as a gift. And truth is not something that God gives to you, truth is another name of God. He enters in you, he becomes one with you. That meeting, that merger, is inexpressible. No language is adequate enough to say anything about it; it is a taste, an existential experience. Hence truth remains unstated. Many have known it but nobody has been able to say it, and it is going to remain so: truth will be known again and again but will remain unexpressed.
The point to remember is that mind is not a help but a hindrance in the way of truth. It is because of this that meditation becomes important. Meditation is nothing but helping the mind to disappear, making you capable of slipping out of the mind at least for a few moments. But those few moments decide your whole life; they transform you totally. You can never be the same again.
Anand Kaba. Anand means bliss. Kaba is the most sacred place of the Mohammedans, their most sacred temple; it means temple. A temple of bliss, a sacred place of bliss - that's what our heart is.
The kaba is not outside; the kaba is within. The temples that we have made on the outside are all false. We are somehow consoling ourselves with those toys. The real temple is in our own heart, but to enter there, great courage is needed. To enter into an outside temple no courage is needed; only cowardice is needed. The more you are a coward, the easier is the entry into the outer temple.
In fact only cowards go there - people who are afraid, frightened, of life, of death, of everything.
Their god is nothing but a creation of their fear, a consolation, something to hang onto, somebody to depend upon. They can't stand on their own; they need crutches. All their religions and all their religious rituals are nothing but crutches, and those crutches keep them crippled.
The real temple is in the heart, but only daring people can enter there. Why?
First you have to be alone there: no priest, no crowds, no Hindus, no Christians, no Mohammedans - nobody. At the last moment even your own ego leaves you. Even your own shadow leaves you; you are left utterly alone.
Edmund Hillary, standing on Everest, was not so alone. At least his ego was there, his whole mind was there, and the world was not far away. Even the first man who walked on the moon was not so alone; he was connected with the earth, constantly in touch with the earth and with the crowd and with the people. But the man entering into his own heart's cave is absolutely alone. All has disappeared. The world has evaporated. The body is left far behind. Even the ego, which was so close, is thousands of miles away. Certainly guts are needed to enter into your own inner temple. It is like death, but fortunate are those who can gather that much courage, because they are the only ones who know what real life is.
Be one of those courageous ones, those fortunate ones.
[A sannyasin has a pain in her hips. Osho had previously suggested she see a doctor about it. Now she says it did not help, and she feels she should do something herself about it, but she doesn't know what.]
Now you are asking again! That will not be doing by yourself. Either you do something by yourself or listen to the experts, and whatsoever they say, do. I don't think you will be able to do anything by yourself. It is better to listen to the experts. It will take a little time - don't be in a hurry and don't be impatient.
Going back there you can just take all the reports from here, show them to the experts - and there are far better experts there - they can be helpful. But you will not be able to do anything on your own; you may mess up the whole thing even more.
Learn to trust people. These are the opportunities when one learns. When you go to a doctor it is an experiment in trust, because he may poison you! When you lie down on the surgeon's table, it is an experiment in trust; he may kill you! He may not want to kill you, but something may go wrong:
to err is human. But these are good opportunities to trust!
[A sannyasin who is an artist is visiting. He says: I came back to get some feeling for my paintings and to try to get more vision in my inner eye.]
Many more... many more visions will be coming to you.
Because paintings can either be from the mind or can be from somewhere else. When they are from somewhere else, when they are not from your mind, when you cannot really sign them as yours, then they have something of tremendous beauty. When they come from the beyond they are divine, they are sacred. That is the distinction between the sacred and the profane art.
The profane art is human. It is entertainment. It can't soar very high; it remains within the field of gravitation. But there are a few things which have happened - for example, a Taj Mahal or the temples of Khajuraho or the Zen paintings, Zen haikus; they are not from the mind. They come from somewhere else, and because they come from somewhere else, the painter, the poet, the musician, the sculptor, are just vehicles, instrumental, mediums.
Meditation will make you a medium. Just give a little more time to meditation: just sitting silently, doing nothing, just waiting for something to arrive - not even actively searching for it but just waiting, just waiting for the guest to knock on the door. One never knows when the guest is going to come.
So go on sitting in meditation every day, whenever you can find time. Don't make it a ritual, don't make it formal. There is no need to make a fixed time for it - just whenever the feeling comes. In the middle of the night sit on your bed doing nothing, sitting silently, and you will be surprised: slowly slowly you start becoming a passage and many things start flooding you which are not yours. You had never thought about them, never dreamed about them. They have a different color, a different shape, a different taste, a different texture, which is not of your mind.
And then art becomes sacred. Then art is worship. Then there is no need for any other prayer. That is your prayer, and it is far more valuable than the prayers that priests go on doing in the temples, because it is creative. If God is the creator then the only way to participate in his being is to be a creator. Create something, and in a small measure you start overlapping the boundaries of God; he starts overlapping the boundaries of your being.
In the past religion became very uncreative. It even became very destructive, because it became life-negative, life-denying, world-denying - and if you are world-denying you can't be creative. Then what is the meaning of a painting? If the whole world is illusory then your painting is just a reflection of a reflection. Then what is the meaning of poetry? - all nonsense, because the whole world is illusory! Then what is the meaning of love?
Religion became more and more world-denying, life-negative, and naturally, all creativity was lost.
And whenever a religion is no more creative, it is no more a religion. It has lost its soul; it is only a dead body, a corpse. You can go on worshipping it for centuries but nothing is going to happen through it.
What I am doing here is bringing creativity back to religion. I would like painters and poets and musicians and all kinds of people who have some idea to do something. I would like my whole commune to be in a passionate, creative love affair with existence. Then whether they pray or not, whether they believe in God or not, doesn't matter at all; they are religious, they are holy people.
[A visitor says: I never felt so warm here!]
Just be aware! Be a little watchful, otherwise sannyas is just around the corner! That's what happens when one starts feeling like becoming a sannyasin! But I will give you enough rope! It is going to happen. That's why I can give you enough rope: sooner or later it is going to happen.
You belong to me and to my people. So think over it!