Darshan 20 July 1978
Nirvana means the ultimate enlightenment, the state when the ego disappears, when man is no more separate from existence - not even a thin curtain separates him, not even a transparent glass separates him - when all separation disappears. That meeting with the total, that merger with the whole, that melting into the absolute, is called nirvana.
The literal meaning of the word is beautiful, one of the most beautiful words. Literally it means blowing out a candle. When you blow out a candle, the light disappears and you cannot say where it has gone. You cannot show any direction - to the east, to the west, to the north, to the south; it has simply disappeared. It has not gone anywhere, it has not moved into some other place. It has gone out of existence. It has moved into nothingness. It is no more.
Exactly like that flame of the candle, the ego disappears. You cannot say where it has gone - it has not gone anywhere; it is no more. When the ego disappears, all is silence, because all turmoil, all noise, is of the ego. And when the ego disappears there is no longer any possibility of any anguish, anxiety. There is nobody to be anxious in the first place. One feels oneself as pure emptiness, and that pure emptiness has a fragrance to it.
Subhasha means fragrance. The fragrance of inner emptiness - that is the full meaning of your name. The ego stinks. The fragrance is always of the non-ego. The more a person is not, the more fragrant he is. The more he is absent, the more fragrance is present. That's the fragrance of a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna. But it has no centre to it - it happens only when the centre is no more.
This paradox is the whole story of religion: that you are for the first time only when you are not.
[Osho explains the meaning of the word Babu:]
This word is one of the most ugly words possible. It really means 'one who stinks'. 'Bu' means bad smell and 'ba' means with - with bad smell. Babu means with bad smell.
It is not an Indian word. It was used by Britishers for the Bengalis. When the Britishers came to India and became the conquerors, their first contact was with the Bengalis. The Bengalis eat fish so much that they smell of fish. So they started calling them 'babu' - with bad smell... fishy! It was a word of abuse, condemnation... but it happens sometimes in the life of words that their meaning almost changes to the opposite. The Britishers were the conquerors, they were the masters, and the people who were associated with them, the Bengalis, became next in importance to the masters.
Naturally, because they associated with the conquerors. they became very very important, powerful, so slowly slowly the word lost its basic meaning.
It became important, it became a word of respect, but originally it is an ugly word. So forget all about it!
[Osho explains the meaning of rasendra.]
Ras is one of the names of god; literally it means divine juice. God is a taste on the tongue. It is not a word, it is a taste. It is not a theory, it is an experience. One has to drink it to know about it. It is like wine: one has to become a drunkard. This juiciness is the intrinsic quality of god. God is not dry logic but wet love. God is not like a desert but like an alive river.
Rasendra means god of the divine juice. And in no other country has such a name been given to god, because the god that Jews conceived was a very angry and jealous god... ready to punish, ready to throw people into eternal hell for small mistakes. Adam had not committed such a great mistake. In fact he did something very natural: I he disobeyed the father. Every child does it, every child has to do it, otherwise a child will never grow. The child has to rebel. Through rebellion he attains spirit. Against whom to rebel? He has to rebel against the father. This is the only way he will become strong. If Adam had not rebelled against god he would have been spineless. Man would not have been born. Then Adam would also have been one of the animals. Animals are animals because they never rebelled; they are still obeying. Man's glory is that he can disobey.
But the Jewish god is an angry and jealous god. He could not forgive - not only could he not forgive Adam: he has not even forgiven man yet. Generations and generations have passed; he still carries the wound. The Christian god is a little better, but it is the same god - a little more polished, a little more decorated, a few touches here and a few touches there, with a better painted face. But if you look deep, if you scratch him a little bit, you will find the same jealous person inside.
But in the East we have conceived a totally different kind of god. The god is not a father-figure here - he is a participant in the game of life. He is a partner, a friend, a lover, a beloved. You can conceive him through love. He is a god of joy and celebration; the flute is his symbol. He is a god of dance.
He is a very juicy god. That is the meaning of rasendra!
Deva Ruparahi. It means: on the path of divine beauty.
Deva means divine, ruparahi means: on the path of beauty. And beauty is far more significant than truth. Truth is a logical concept - beauty is sensuous. Truth becomes a thought - beauty is a feeling.
God should be conceived of as beauty rather than as truth. And god should also be conceived of as beauty rather than as goodness. The moment you conceive of god as goodness, you start becoming very self-consciously virtuous. You start cultivating a character, and a character is always a false thing; it is intrinsically pseudo.
A real man has no character. He has conscience, but his conscience is not cultivated by the society; his conscience is his own consciousness. I appreciate the French language because you don't have two words for conscience and consciousness - you have only one word; that's beautiful.
Consciousness is conscience, should be conscience. Just your own awareness should become your conscience. And a man of awareness need not cultivate a character. A character is a substitute for consciousness. Because you are afraid you may not be conscious in a certain situation, you create a mechanical character around yourself. Even if you are unconscious, the character will save you.
If you are really conscious there is no character; your consciousness is enough. If a challenge arises you will be ready to respond to it. Character is a dead thing; consciousness is a flow. Consciousness is always moving with the situation, so one never loses contact with life. But character is a dead thing hanging around you; it cannot grow. It is not like a tree - it is like a car, it is a mechanism. It belongs to the past, and life goes on constantly moving. Life is movement, process, and character is a dead thing, like a rock around your neck. It never allows you to be truly responsive... it never allows you to see what is the case. Even before the question is asked, the character goes on repeating the answer. Character means a ready-made answer for situations which have not even arisen yet. So a man of character is always falling short. He is never authentic, genuine - he can't be; he is always false, pseudo. He is plastic, synthetic. That's how the world has become so hypocritical. Instead of character, consciousness is needed.
If you think of truth as goodness, you will create character - you will try to become good, naturally, obviously - but if you think of truth as beauty, you will create sensitivity so that you can feel beauty more. You will create a sensate heart, a sensuous body, so you can be thrilled by everything that touches you. A really sensuous body can get into tremendous orgasmic experiences by very small things. Just the wind blowing strong and you are standing naked on the beach - if you are sensuous, if your body is not dead and dull, if your body is not plastic, if your body is not surrounded by a character armour - just the wind playing with your body, massaging your body, will give you a tremendous thrill. You will feel aliveness, you will be vibrant. Or swimming in water or just lying down with closed eyes on the cool sand, feeling its touch, its coolness, its smell....
Once truth is dropped, once goodness is dropped, and only beauty becomes your religion, your life starts taking on a new orientation. Again things are wonderful, again things are mysterious, again the existence is permeated by something unknown, unknowable. And that's what religion is all about: to give you a taste, a feel, a touch of the unknown and the unknowable.
My approach towards religion is that of a poet or of a lover or of a child. This is the name for you and the message is there - decode it in your life. Become more and more alert about the beautiful and you will come to know that in beauty is god. Feel more and more beauty and you will come closer and closer to god.
Truth will take you to theology, philosophy, and goodness will take you to the churches and to the puritans and to the people who are constantly having long faces and the look of 'holier-than-thou'.
Beauty will take you to nature - it will not take you to the saints. It is a misfortune that very rarely are our saints beautiful people. It will take you to the animals, to the birds, tot he oceans, to the mountains - and these are the real temples. Through these you will come to know, in an existential way, that god is.
[The new sannyasin says he has tension in the right side of his face connected with losing reality and contact with people. Osho checks his energy.]
It has nothing to do with the face itself, but it has something to do with the brain. The right side brain, the right hemisphere of the brain, is not functioning as rightly as it should. The left side is functioning perfectly well. But this is the situation with almost everybody - it is just that people are not aware of it. You are very sensitive and you are aware of it, that's all.
The right side brain is connected with the left hand. It is the part of the mind that intuits, feels, loves, poetises; it is the feminine part, the mysterious part. The left side brain is connected with the right side hand. It is logic, it is mathematics - it thinks, it doesn't feel. That is over-developed but that's how it is with everybody. The whole society is working to over-develop the left hemisphere...
because it pays! It makes you more efficient, more mechanical, more dependable, more reliable. It is the right hemisphere that writes poetry, paints paintings, composes music. It is non-conformist and very illogical, irrational. The society is very much afraid of it. For thousands of years it has been repressed.
And that's my message in your name: I would like it to function now, and once it starts functioning you will have a new lease of life and vitality. That's why sometimes you feel the paralysis type of thing on the face, but it is happening inside; it is not on the surface.
Do a few groups and then take shiatsu and acupuncture. Before you go, things will be changed.
[A sannyasin, who is leaving says: I have much to resolve and I want to remain creative while I am doing that.]
That's right. In fact only through being creative can things be resolved. To be creative is to be without problems. Problems arise out of not being creative. The energy that needed to be expressed in creativity becomes stuck, and then problems arise. A creative person knows nothing of problems; his life is a constant flow.
Nothing blocks his flow. There are so many people with so many problems, but all the problems can be reduced to one single problem - that they have chosen a lifestyle that is not creative. And to choose a lifestyle which is not creative is to remain miserable.
Only creators know what joy is. Joy is a function of creativity. Millions of people want to be joyful but they cannot be because they never think of creativity; they only think of searching for joy. They become pleasure-seekers, but the pleasure goes on eluding them. They will die unfulfilled. Joy comes to people who are creative. They need not go in search of it - it comes of its own accord; it is a gift from god.
Life goes on resolving its problems on its own. One need not resolve them. One has just to be creative and everything resolves itself of its own accord. And then that resolution has a beauty to it - it has a different quality. When you resolve something, you somehow manage, you patch things up.
Sooner or later the problem will arise again, maybe in a new form, from a new direction,! because it is not really resolved; you have simply covered it up. You are befooling nobody except yourself.
Pour your energies into creativity and problems disappear like dewdrops in the morning sun. And life goes on resolving all that needs to be resolved; you need not come into it. Then life is really a benediction, a pure benediction. One goes from one peak to another peak; one is always moving to a higher and higher plane. And the moment you move from one plane to another higher plane, all the problems that belong to the first plane simply disappear, become irrelevant. If you remain stuck on the same plane you cannot solve them. Try it - and you will be surprised that there was no need to tackle any problem directly. The way is indirect.
You are ready now. Go, be creative. Just be there - things will be moving as they should....