Darshan 1 September 1979
[Bliss is what we are after, Osho is saying.]
Even if people are seeking God, they are seeking in order to find bliss. If by finding God you find a state of misery, you will not seek God. Hence God is not really the goal of the search but only a means to attain bliss. If truth gives you pain and hell, you will not seek truth either; because truth brings bliss, tremendous bliss, it is sought, but the essential search remains that for bliss. It has to be remembered; it has been forgotten again and again.
Once in a while a Buddha comes, reminds people, and they forget again. They again start searching for God, truth, et cetera, and in that, the original real search is lost.
Philip does not mean much; it comes from a root "phil-hippos" - a lover of horses. But horses are good people any way... and you can love them! In fact all animals should be loved, because they are om family. We belong to them and they belong to us. Man should lose this egoistic idea that he is superior, higher, utterly unique and different from other animals; he is not. We belong to the same spectrum - we are different, certainly, but not higher. This existence does not believe in hierarchy.
Existence is pure communism. We are all equal - unique yet equal, different yet equal.
A man without bliss is not really born yet, he is still in the womb and in the darkness of the womb.
It is only with bliss that we are really born, born in God, and then life has light, it radiates. Then it is bright, then it is a noontide. And in darkness all kinds of fears exist; they are bound to exist. With the light happening, all fears disappear, all sadness disappears, all evil disappears.
That's why evil has been painted as black, why death has been painted as black. The moment the flower of bliss opens in you, all death, all evil, simply disappears, is not found at all. One starts living a totally new kind of life, a life in which one is absent and God is present.
[Anand Sharno, surrendered to existence.]
Bliss is possible only when we are surrendered to existence. It is not possible with an ego; the ego is the root cause of misery. If one wants to be blissful one has to sacrifice the ego. That is the meaning of sharno: surrendering the ego.
The ego is a false entity; you are not really losing anything by surrendering it. It is a disease. By surrendering it you are becoming whole, wholesome. By surrendering it, you are coming to be your true self. The ego is a false self, it is a pretender, but we have become attached to it too much. Our society teaches us to be egoistic. Even modern psychology goes on perpetuating the old nonsense that the ego has to be strengthened. They think by strengthening the ego, they are helping the individual. They are destroying, not helping him. The ego is the death of the real self. The death of the ego allows the real self to express itself.
Surrender the ego and bliss is yours. Just by removing the ego, the bliss starts flowing. It is our very nature. We are made of the stuff called bliss.
[Sat Annie - true prayer: Yes, there is such a thing as false prayer.]
... And the pseudo is very prevalent because it is cheap, it costs nothing. The true prayer demands much from you. It demands surrender, it demands a state of let-go. The false prayer is parrotlike:
you simply repeat a certain formula given to you by the priests, by the parents, by the society, and you go on repeating it every night. It becomes only a habit.
If you don't repeat it you feel you are missing something. But although you go on repeating it for years you never get anything out of it. When you don't do it, the feeling certainly arises that you are missing something, because an old pattern is not fulfilled and mind is very mechanical. If you miss anything, the mind goes on goading you: Do it! The mind feels completely at ease if everything goes ritualistically. The mind is very ritualistic and all the religions have become ritualistic because of the mind, the domination of the mind.
True religion is not a ritual. It is a feeling, it is love.
Prayer is not something that you can do; it is something that you can be. Prayer is not an act but a state of being. It simply means to be so utterly silent that God can speak to you. The untrue prayer means that you speak to God; the true prayer means that you listen to God. The difference is tremendous.
Become a true prayer.
[Be a follower of Christ, not a Christian, Osho says... ]
... Because Christ has nothing to do with Christianity. Christianity is something totally different than what Christ stood for. Christianity is closer to the people who crucified Christ rather than being close to Christ himself. It is again the same priesthood, the same establishment, the same vested interest.
Rabbis in new garments have become popes now - the same people who murdered Christ.
Christina means not to be a Christian in the ordinary sense, but really to be in love with the state called Christ. It is a state of consciousness. What in the East we call Buddhahood has been called Christhood in the West; they mean the same thing.
Each one has the potential to become a Buddha or a Christ. And following a Christ does not mean following Jesus, remember; following a Buddha does not mean following Gautam Siddhartha, remember. Following Christ means the way that leads from unconsciousness to consciousness; it is the same - whether you follow Buddha or Christ or Krishna, the way is the same, the bridge is the same. Unconsciousness has to be transformed into consciousness. One has to become more alert in one's life. Every act should not be mechanical, but full of consciousness.
Even small, ordinary acts of every day life should be full of awareness. Bring awareness to your acts and you will be moving towards Christ - not by going to the church, but by becoming more conscious, more aware, more watchful, so that inner sleep can be dropped, so that metaphysical sleep can be thrown out of you, so that you can become awakened, really awakened.
What we know as waking right now is not much of a waking, it is a kind of sleep with open eyes.
The moment you have tasted something of Christ, something of Christ-consciousness, your whole life becomes a dance of bliss. That is the only proof that you have been on the right track: if your religion makes you sad and serious and somber, know perfectly well that you are going away from God, because God is nothing but celebration, a continuous celebration.
[Bliss is the experience that makes sovereigns of us, that makes available to us the kingdom of God, but we turn our backs on it, Osho said later in the evening.]
We are rushing away from it. Our whole endeavor is extrovert, and God is within. We seek bliss in every possible way but we never find it because we always seek it somewhere where it is not; and we never look inside, where it is.
The moment one turns in, the moment one encounters oneself, the moment one starts feeling oneself, being oneself, bliss arises, and immediately one is no longer a beggar; one becomes a king.
This kingdom of God is within you. Once it has been found within, then you can find it in the without too. Once you have seen inside yourself, then you can see it inside everybody else, everywhere.
Even in the rock you will find God. Then the texture of the rock becomes the texture of God. You will touch the rock with tremendous respect. Then the whole existence becomes divine. But the first thing, the most fundamental, is to attain to bliss. And it is not difficult, because it is already there. It needs only a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn. That's what sannyas is all about.
[Jaap-Willem - a decision of the heart that "God is the protector."]
Once this resolution has happened, life loses all tensions, all anxieties; anguish simply becomes impossible. The whole anxiety is that we have to protect ourselves. The world is vast and we are so small - a tiny leaf in the storm. How can we protect ourselves? And then there is always death.
Each time somebody dies the remembrance strikes deep down in your being that sooner or later you are going to die. How can you protect yourself against death? - nobody has ever been able to. Life has a thousand and one insecurities, nothing is safe. The man who is not aware that God protects, lives in a nightmare.
Sannyas means the beginning of the resolution that 'q am already protected," that "God is my security," that "God is my safety," that "Even in death he will take care," that "I have nothing to fear,"
that "I can go in the dark because he is always with me; I am never alone," that "I can be alone because I am never alone; he is always there, a silent presence."
This is trust and this is sannyas and this is prayer and this is meditation. This is the essential core of all religion.
[Osho talks about love born of meditation... ]
Without it, whatsoever you call love is not love, it is something else - masquerading as love, camouflaged as love, wearing the mask of love - but it is not love, it cannot be love.
Unless meditation has happened in your heart, love cannot be true. It may be a disguised lust or just a way to avoid your aloneness, or just a method to keep yourself occupied, or a power trip to dominate the other, or an ego fulfillment, that "I am loved," that "I am needed," that "I am not useless,"
that "I am fulfilling a certain purpose in existence." It can be a thousand and one things but it can't be love.
Unless meditation prepares the ground, the seed of love cannot sprout. Love is a child of light; but where will you find light? It only comes out of meditation. Meditation gives you light, enlightens you, fills you with light, and in that light-filled heart, for the first time, a great longing to share your joy arises. That is love.
It is for the sheer joy of sharing, for no other motive - then it is true love. And true love is a fulfillment; the untrue love is always a frustration.
[Truth is a gift and something one receives not in the head but in the heart.]
It has nothing to do with logic; it has something to do with love, certainly, but not with logic at all. Only into a loving heart can God pour down his gifts. Not a very skillful, talented mind, but an innocent, childlike heart - that is the basic requirement to find truth.
The philosophers don't find it, can't find it. It is found by the mystics. Mystics are like small children:
they can't argue, they can't prove, but they can dance, they can sing, they can love, they can laugh - and these are the true qualities of a religious man. The philosopher remains empty - full of words, certainly, but words are just hot air. The mystic is full, the mystic has plenitude. He is not full of answers but full of joy, not full of solutions but full of mystery, and truth is a mystery. It is not an answer, it is not a solution; it is a paradox. And it always comes as a gift. One has to be ready to receive it, and the only preparation that is a must is love.
[Anand Amito - immeasurable bliss.]
Bliss is always immeasurable. Happiness can be measured, it can be defined, it has a certain weight, it can be weighed. And it is always definable because the opposite is just close by - unhappiness. Unhappiness defines your happiness. Your happiness is just like an island in the sea of unhappiness. But bliss is not an island, it is the ocean itself, unbounded. And that is everybody's search: knowingly, unknowingly, we are all longing for it. But if we unknowingly long for it, we may move in wrong directions. If we knowingly long for it, consciously long for it, then there is a possibility of achieving it.
It has happened to people: it has happened to a Buddha, it has happened to a Zarathustra, it can happen to you - because Buddha, Zarathustra or Mohammed are not in any way different from you; they are made of the same blood and bones and the marrow. If it can happen to a single person in the whole of history, then every other person is entitled to it. One may achieve it, may not, that is up to him, but the door iS available.
Sannyas is a conscious effort, a conscious longing, for bliss. Each step has to be taken methodically and each move has to be made very deliberately. Life is short and unless we make our efforts consciously we are bound to lose this small opportunity. The opportunity is small because life is fleeting every moment, going out of your hands, and death can happen any time. Tomorrow may never come, this may be the last day, so one has to be very alert and very total, only then is bliss possible. But it is possible.
And a man attains to manhood only when he attains to bliss. Without bliss a man is just so-so, lukewarm. He can be called a man because he physiologically resembles a man, but spiritually all is emptiness. This emptiness can become full of the inexhaustible, of the immeasurable.
I have opened a door here - now it is for the courageous ones to enter into the temple. Let your initiation into sannyas be an entry into the temple, not just a formal thing but something of the heart.
And I can see, it can be a total revolution in your life. Don't miss this opportunity, because these opportunities are rare. Only once in a while is there a Buddha, and only once in a while is there a commune around the Buddha, and only once in a while, through the Buddha and his commune, the dhamma, the ultimate law, becomes available to the world.
[Awareness is the way, bliss the goal... ]
Bliss is the other shore; awareness is the small boat.
Become more alert. In the beginning it is difficult because our habits of being unconscious are very deep-rooted; they create all kinds of resistances. But even if for a few seconds you can be alert, that's enough, that will help you, because those few seconds will become of such beauty and such joy that you will long for more, that you will hanker for more, that you will be thirsty. There will be a great appetite for them, and slowly slowly, more moments, then minutes, then hours, then days...
When awareness becomes so natural that one doesn't need to make any effort for it, then one should rest, then one should relax. Then one should know that one has arrived home, because there is nothing more to be achieved.
A fully aware person attains to bliss. Our effort, howsoever hard it seems in the beginning, becomes every day easier. And when we have attained to bliss, then we can see that our effort was nothing compared to that which we have attained through it. Our effort was very tiny, and we have found such a treasure, inexhaustible... such a treasure that nobody can take away from you, not even death.
It is through awareness and only through awareness that Jesus becomes a Christ, a Siddhartha Gautama becomes a Buddha. Whatsoever names they may have given to the path, their meaning is awareness.
Jesus says again and again to his disciples: "Watch, beware." Beware means be aware, remain alert - and they go on falling asleep, even on the last night. He says to his disciples, "This is the last night. I am going to be caught. The enemy is very close by. I will pray to God - this is my last prayer - and you remain alert, don't fall asleep." But they all fall asleep. He comes again and asks them "What are you doing? You have fallen asleep. I have told you to be awake... this is my last night!"
He is trying to use that last night as a device.
"The Master is going to die - can't you even be aware in such a situation, when your whole house is on fire?" Jesus goes into prayer, comes back again, thrice he comes back from his prayer, and all the disciples are fast asleep, snoring. Again and again he wakes them up, but they don't take the hint: they think that this is just his way. He has always been talking about, "Be aware, be alert, be watchful" - now this is a new trick, that this is the last night. But it was the last night. It is always the last night, because any moment death can destroy all the time that you have been hoping, thinking, you have.
Buddha uses the word "mindfulness", sammasati, but he means the same, awareness.
Watch each act, watch each thought, watch each feeling. The awareness has to be three- dimensional: action, thought, feeling. This is our inner triangle, and if you can watch all the three you will find the center. When you stand exactly in the middle of the triangle you have arrived.
This is the goal called nirvana or God.