Darshan 18 August 1979

Deva Marc. Deva means divine; marc means war - divine war.

There is a constant war between the evil and the good, between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, between that which brings you down and that which uplifts you.

One has to be very conscious in choosing sides. And it is an every moment affair. When you become angry you have chosen evil; when you are loving, you have chosen good. When you choose no, you choose the evil; when you say yes to life you have said yes to God.

Remember from this very moment: always choose that which is good for you and good for others.

Choose creativity. Become a blessing to existence, because that is the only way that we can persuade God to become a blessing to us. That's the only true prayer: becoming a blessing to everyone - to people, to animals, to trees, to life in all its forms. If one remains consciously alert, slowly slowly the art is learned; slowly slowly it becomes just natural.

The day when doing good becomes natural is a great day. The day when you need not choose, when it becomes spontaneous, is the day of enlightenment.

Satyam Elke. Satyam means the truth; elke means noble.

It is truth that makes one noble - not birth, not race, not country, not religion, but only truth. One who knows what is, really becomes an aristocrat, because he becomes part of the chosen few. Very few people have known the truth; millions and millions live only in lies. Their lives are projections of dreams and illusions. Their minds are constantly weaving and spinning hallucinations. They live for power, money, prestige - which are all illusions, just soap-bubbles. They may be there for a moment,

they may shine in the sun for a moment, they may even look beautiful like diamonds, but then they are gone.

They can't give you eternity and they can't give you a real foundation for life. But very few people try to know the truth, because to know the truth means you will have to renounce all your lies, and that needs courage, because all that we have are lies. To renounce all that for something that is not known yet is very risky. Who knows whether there is something like truth or not? And risking that which you have for that which may be, may not be, really needs guts, an immense trust in truth.

Whatsoever it is, one thing is certain: there is some truth in existence. The whole existence is not just a falsity. Even though what we know about it is false, the false also needs some support from the true, otherwise it cannot stand on its own. And at least one thing is absolutely certain: that the knower is true. The known may be false, because in the night you have dreams, in the morning you find they were false. But one thing is certain: the knower, the dreamer was not false. That is impossible. Dreams can be false but not the dreamer.

Hence the seeker first has to go into his own being. To know the knower is the beginning of knowing the truth. And it is worth risking. It brings grace, beauty; it brings nobility. It really makes you, for the first time, worthy of being called human. Otherwise man is only another species of animal; only by knowing truth, by becoming a Buddha, a Christ, does man transcend animality, go beyond the animal. And the moment you transcend the animal you enter the divine. Humanity is only a passage between the animal and the divine.

And to be touched by the divine is to become noble, is to really be an aristocrat, because then you become part of the small company of the Buddhas. Anybody who has any sense of dignity will take the challenge and will go in search of the truth, because except that, everything else is just meaningless, rubbish.

Ma Dhyano. Dhyano means meditation. In English and in all the western languages, the words that can be used for dhyano fall short; they don't express its reality.

Meditation only hints at it; it does not express it totally, but that's the closest word that can be used.

Meditation gives you a feeling as if you are meditating upon something, as if there is an object, and you are meditating on it - meditating on a flame, meditating on God, meditating on the sunrise; but there is an object. The word "meditation" implies an object, and that's the difference: dhyano does not connote any object. It is simply a state of inner silence: no thought, no content, no object. One simply is.

There is nothing to be known, nothing to be felt, nothing to be contemplated upon, nothing to be concentrated upon, nothing to be meditated upon. The whole mind has to be put aside. One is simply the silence, the stillness which is left behind when the mind becomes quiet. That is dhyano, and that is true meditation. It is a very natural state. It does not need any effort. All that it needs is understanding, watching.

Concentration needs effort. Meditation in the western sense also needs practicing, but in the East we have come across a space which needs no effort, which is already ours. Just as inside the rosebud there is space, so inside you there is a beautiful space - utterly quiet, calm, cool. We have not to create it; we have only to help the bud to open. And once the bud opens we will know the space; the space opens up.

All the methods that we are using here are nothing but techniques to open the bud, to help the bud to open so that we can know the inner silence, the inner space, the inner peace.

I am giving you a very small name, but it contains the whole secret of all the religions; it contains the experience of all the Buddhas. If you can have even a taste of it, just a drop of it will be enough to transform you.

So start sitting silently with closed eyes. Just being, not doing anything: no mantra, no chanting.

Thoughts will go on passing; let them pass, watch. They will come and they will go; watch them coming, watch them going. Just like the breath comes in and goes out, just watch the breath too.

As silence grows you will start hearing the heartbeat; watch that too. As the silence deepens, only the watcher remains.

That is meditation: when only the watcher is there and there is nothing to watch. Then the watcher turns upon itself, then the watcher watches itself, then the witness witnesses itself. Then the observer itself becomes the observed too. That is the pinnacle, the highest peak, that human consciousness can reach. Beyond that there is nothing. Beyond that the same silence, the same coolness, the same bliss, continues forever.

Deva Prabhakar. Deva means divine; prabhakar means the sun, the source of all light.

Just as there is a sun outside, there is a sun inside too. Man is a miniature universe. In this small body all is contained. Man is a map of the whole existence. And if you move inwards you will find the same infinite sky there - with the sun, with the moon, with the stars - because when you start moving inwards you are for the first time entering into your own reality.

People live outside themselves, hence their life remains unreal. They are not even acquainted with their reality. They don't know how vast they are; they don't know their divinity, their glory. And because they go on living outside themselves they remain paupers, beggars. And the misfortune is that they contain treasures within themselves. Their life remains that of darkness when inside there is infinite light.

But rarely do people turn inwards. Why? Why don't people turn inwards? Even though Buddha says, Christ says, Socrates says, "Know thyself," they listen but they don't follow. There must be some fundamental reason for it, and the reason is that in going in, first you have to pass through a death. And that creates fear.

You have to pass through a death because you have created a certain image of yourself which has to be dropped: that image you have accumulated from the outside, from others. You cannot carry it in. There you will have to go utterly empty-handed; you cannot carry anything in from the outside.

You cannot carry any image - not even your name. You cannot carry anything from the outside to the inside, and that is the fear: because all that we have is from the outside, we cling to it.

So we listen to the Buddhas and we say, "Maybe they are right, perhaps. One day, I will enquire into that inner reality too, but not now - tomorrow." We go on postponing and we never look into the fear, into why we postpone. The fear is that we feel that we possess something, and it will be lost if we go in. In fact we don't possess anything and all that we possess will be taken away by death. It is better to drop it by your own self, voluntarily - at least in that there will be a dignity - and go in.

Die to the outside and go in. Let your image be shattered but go in, because there you will come across the real. And once the real is known, you will laugh at the whole ridiculousness of clinging to false images, of clinging to things which meant nothing, of clinging to possessions and to people - just to avoid going in.

Going in has two steps The first is a death of all that you have known about yourself, death of all that you have been up to now. And if you are ready to die, to allow this total death, a rebirth follows and you become aware of your real self, of your immortality.

Prem Asho. Prem means love; asho means hope.

Love is the only hope. It is only because of love that man finds it possible to reach God. If there were no love there would be no religion, no prayer. If there were no love there would be no art, no poetry, no music. If there were no love there would be no beauty, no friendship. All that is valuable in life comes through love. Love is the source of all that is nourishing. Ultimately love becomes the door of God too. In its purest form love is prayer. And to know what prayer is, is to know God.

God cannot be known by any proof; God can only be known by a praying heart, a loving heart. It is not a logical conclusion but an existential experience of total love. When your love spreads all over, when it knows no limitations, when it is not bound to this person or that person, to this object or that a object, when it is unbounded, when it is like a flood .,i overflowing in all directions - you have known what God is.

God is love overflowing. To be flooded with love is to be flooded with God, hence I say that love is the only hope, otherwise everything is hopeless.

[The new sannyasin had previously written to Osho about her sickness, and says: I'm very ill and I'm taking drugs... the vegetarian food is making me weaker... ]

Don't be worried. Have you seen Doctor Sardesai? (she nods) Just follow his instructions, and be vegetarian; don't be worried. Only in the beginning will you feel a little weak, but that's not much of a problem. It will help, finally it will help.

Forget that small disease. Mm, now I have given you a bigger disease - sannyas! And the only way to get rid of small diseases is to be caught by bigger diseases! If you have a headache and somebody puts a fire in your house, the headache is gone. When the house is on fire, who can afford to feel a headache? Mm? Your disease was just a small thing; now I have given you something bigger.

Forget all about it. Just take the medicine, take whatsoever is needed medically, but don't pay much attention to it; it is nothing to be worried about.

And one thing is certain: before you die, you will know something deathless in you. That much I can promise to you, and that is the only thing worthwhile.

But move to the vegetarian food, mm? Even if you feel a little weaker in the beginning - and you will - finally it will purify the body and purify the blood. It will help. Do only meditations which don't tire you, and do a few groups.

I have given you a few groups....

But remember that: don't exert yourself too much. Just in the beginning... Once these two, three months have passed, then you will be out of danger. And I think you will pass through this danger; don't be worried.

There is hope... ]

[A sannyasin is returning because her father is dying of cancer. She says she feels relieved he is dying... and is afraid of herself.]

It is good, because he must be suffering. It is good. Nothing to be worried about. It is a relief. If he dies it is good for him.

... Don't be afraid. Just go there and be by his side in his last days. Just be very meditatively by his side - silent, prayerful - and help him also to be very silent, accepting, relaxing, resting. Tell him not to cling to life at all. That is the only problem: when death comes, if you start clinging to life you miss the whole beauty of death. Death is a beautiful experience - in fact, the most beautiful. If you can go into death rejoicing, dancing, you will transform the very quality of death; death will become a door to God.

So just tell him this from me: death is there - use the opportunity. Be more silent... and you be more silent around him, that will help. Don't be worried, and don't start feeling guilty that you are feeling relieved. It is perfectly good to feel relieved, because it is going to be good for him.

Once a body is in such a shape that it creates only anguish, anxiety, then it is a burden. Then it is better to be free of it. He will get another body - fresher, newer. It is just as you change the model of your car... and who cries and weeps for the old car? One feels relieved!

So go and don't be worried.

[A sannyasin says she has to return to her children in the West and explain to them that she has found here what she has always been looking for, and that she is coming back here.]

I will be with you and everything will be settled....

Everything will be managed; just go and everything will settle. Nothing to be worried about.

Always trust life and trust existence. If you don't trust, then anxiety arises and anxiety does not help. If you trust, you remain more cool and calm, and out of your coolness and calmness there is clarity, and out of clarity, whatsoever you do is right. When you become anxious you become unclear, confused. Then whatsoever you do out of confusion creates more confusion.

So trust life, remain calm and quiet, and know that deep down that everything is going to be all right.

And you will always find that it is so. This is my whole life's experience, and not only my own but the experience of thousands of my sannyasins moving in the same way, trusting in the same way and finding that life cares, that existence is not neutral, that it is not indifferent and cold, that it is very warm towards you, that it wants in every way to help you. It is just that when you become too anxious, you lose contact.

Go - everything will be right - and then come back soon!

[A sannyasin, leaving, says: I am very confused sometimes. I'm afraid of it.]

You should be happy that only sometimes are you confused! People are confused all the time! It may be that because you are confused sometimes you know that you are confused. People are continuously confused, so they are happy! They don't know what confusion is and what is not confusion. At least you are aware, you know!