Darshan 31 July 1978

[A mother has brought her baby. Osho reminds her to enjoy being a mother.]

Don't think of it as a duty. One tends to think of it as a duty sooner or later, and the day you think of it as a duty, something dies, something of immense value disappears; the relationship is broken.

Think of it as a celebration. The child is a gift from god. Be respectful to the child... not just loving but respectful also. If there is not respect, then love becomes possessive; if there is respect, how can you possess?

You cannot possess somebody you respect. the very idea is ugly, disrespectful. To possess a person means to reduce the person to a thing. And once the child is your possession, you are burdened.

then it is a duty to be fulfilled, and then mothers talk for their whole lives about how much they have done.

A real mother will never say a single word about doing, and not only that she will not say: she never feels that she has done it. She has enjoyed it; she is obliged to the child. It is not only the birth of the child: simultaneously you are born in a new way, the mother is born. One aspect is the birth of the child; another aspect is that your motherhood is born. The child has tremendously transformed you. He has given something to you; you are no more the same person. There is a great difference between, a woman and a mother.

So just be loving, be respectful, and help him to grow in such a way that you don't hinder him. From this very moment, from the very beginning, one has to be alert about it. And remember not to repeat the same pattern that you have learned from your mother. That is very natural because that's what you know about how a mother should be, and you will repeat your mother's behaviour with him, and that will be wrong. Be utterly new. Forget all that you have learned from your mother; don't follow

that. Be utterly new, respond in a new way. Listen to his needs and respond with a few absolutely certain visions.

One is: give love but never give a structure. Give love but never give a character. Give love but freedom has to remain intact. Love should not be an interference with his freedom. Nobody thinks of the freedom of such a small child, but then when will you think? Tomorrow again he will be small, the day after tomorrow.... In fact the mother never thinks the child is a grown-up person and is able to be free. Never. Because the distance between you and the child will always remain the same. If it is twenty years' distance, it is going to remain twenty years' distance. So from this very moment, from the very beginning, be respectful and give him freedom.

And if sometimes he cries, there is no need to be too worried about it. Let him cry a little bit on his own. There is no need to always rush and to always be on your toes to serve him. That looks like love but in fact you are interfering with his freedom. He may not need milk; sometimes the child simply cries. The child simply enjoys crying - that is the only way to express himself. He has no language - that is his language; he howls, cries. Let him cry - nothing is wrong in it. He is trying to relate with the world. Don't try to console him; don't immediately give the breast to him. If he is not hungry, then giving him the breast is like a drug. Mothers use their breasts as a drug. Mm? The child starts drinking, forgets crying and falls asleep. It is comfortable, but you have started trespassing. If he does not want to have the milk - he is not eager - leave him. Then he will never need any Primal Therapy. The people who are screaming in Primal Therapy are the people who have been interfered with in their childhood and never allowed to scream.

Allow him everything and let him feel that he is himself. More and more let him feel that he is himself; come less and less in his way. Be a help, nourish him, but let him grow on his own. Even sometimes when you feel that he is going wrong, you are nobody to judge. If he is going wrong, according to you, that is only according to you; that is your opinion. He may not be going wrong. He is not here in this world to follow your opinion. ' And it is very easy to impose your opinions on him because he is helpless. His survival depends on you; he has to listen to you. If you say 'Don't do this', even if he feels like doing it and feels very good doing it, he will have to stop because it is risky to go against you.

The real mother will allow the child so much freedom that even if he wants to go against her opinion, he is allowed. Just make it plain to him 'This is my opinion that this is not right, but you are free to do it.' Let him learn through his own experience; that's how one really becomes mature. Otherwise people remain childish. They grow in age but they don't grow in their consciousness. So their physical age may be fifty and their mind is maybe just eleven, ten, twelve, somewhere there; thirteen is the average mind-age of people. That means they stop at that time; and that is the average. In that average Albert Einstein and Buddhas and Christs are included. If you think of actual persons, the mind-age is very low. It comes to around seven to eight; somewhere around seven the child stops. Then he never grows; he simply follows.

Give your love, share your experience, but never impose anything on him. And then he will grow into a beautiful person.

Anand means bliss, neeru means water - blissful water. And the water element is one of the most potential symbols; it represents liquidity, flow. Life should not be solid. It should not be like a rock; it should be more like water. Only then is it life. The more you have flow, the more alive you are.

And water always seeks the lowest place; that's its beauty. It is non-ambitious: it does not go up, it goes down. It docs not try to reach to the mountain peaks; it goes to the valleys, to the darkest, to the lowest.

Jesus says 'Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of god.' The water represents the meek, the humble. Jesus again says 'In my kingdom of god, the last should be the first and the first should be the last.' He is again talking about the water element but not directly. But Lao Tzu talks directly - he calls his way 'the watercourse way'.

Be non-ambitious and all is yours. Yours is the kingdom of god. The ambitious simply go mad.

Ambition is the beginning of madness; it is ambition that drives people neurotic. It is ambition that drives the whole world into futile directions. The non-ambitious can rest, the non-ambitious can simply sit, meditate. The ambitious cannot clo that - the ambitious cannot think of meditation at all. He is constantly restless, he is constantly in tension. He is always in the future. He is never herenow. For that, ambition has to disappear. And water represents the non-ambitious quality.

Think of being humble, meek, a nobody, a non-entity. That makes one a sannyasin. That is really the ultimate drop-out. Then you are no more in the crowd, competing, fighting, being violent with each other. And only then is love possible. How can a competitive man be loving? - that is impossible.

How can the ambitious have love? - that is impossible. He can pretend but he cannot really be a lover, and only lovers know that god exists. Only in moments of love is god revealed.

So meditate on the water element; find out - it has infinite qualities, and all its qualities are beautiful.

Anand means bliss, sunito means virtue. Bliss is virtue. Nobody has said that before. There have been many definitions of virtue, but never has virtue been defined as bliss. To me, all those definitions are lacking. All those definitions say something about the symptoms but not about the very central core of it. Bliss is the very soul of virtue. A blissful man is virtuous without any effort on his part. He cannot be anything else.

A miserable person is bound to create misery for others, because we can do only that to others which we are doing to ourselves. If you don't love yourself, you will hate everybody else in the world, notwithstanding what you say to people. You say 'I love', but that will be just hypocrisy. If you cannot love yourself you cannot love anybody else.

Everything has to start with you. If you condemn yourself, you will condemn the whole world. If you think yourself worthless, you will also think everybody else worthless. And if you are miserable, you will give your misery, you will pulsate your misery all around you, and that is sin. Then one becomes a broadcasting station of misery.

To me, the definition of virtue is to be in such a state of joy that joy streams forth from your being all around you... like the fragrance of a flower or light spreading from a lamp.

Don't try to be virtuous; if you try to be virtuous you will become miserable. That's why your so-called saints look miserable: they are trying to be virtuous. Just do the opposite: try to be blissful and virtue will follow like a shadow. Be selfish and you will become altruistic. I teach utter selfishness, because all that is great arises out of it. One has first to take care of oneself, and then naturally one starts taking care of others.

So remember that if you are virtuous without being blissful, you will be a calamity - to yourself and to others. And if you are blissful, then there is no need to care about virtue - it follows on its own.

And you will be a blessing. Be blissful and you become a blessing to the world.

[A sannyasin says: When I was here last time, much happened. In between I moved closer to you although there were doubts. I came in contact with a Gurdjieff school and started to work with the school, but I felt like a guest and not like a member.]

No, it will be heavy for you - it won't suit you. It is good work, but it depends... It can suit a few people only, and it won't suit you at all. It is heavy; its whole function is in creating a friction in you, and through friction, creating energy. And it, is a long, arduous trip. A few people reach through it but very few, and the journey is a torture. I don't believe in journeys which are torture, even if they lead to the goal.

My whole effort is to make the whole journey so beautiful that the goal is not something separate from the journey but just a natural culmination of it. It is not separate from the journey - not that the journey is all hard work and the goal is all joy. The journey has to be as joyful as the goal; the waiting has to be as joyful as the meeting. And when both are possible, why miss one? The journey has to be as tremendously joyful as the goal itself. Heaven should not be there somewhere far away; heaven should be spread all along the way.

I don't feel that you are a person who will be benefitted by Gurdjieff work, no. A little bit is good - you became acquainted with it and it is good.

But if you can reach to god dancing, then why reach crying and weeping and with wounds?

Deva means divine, homa means sacrifice - sacrificed to the divine, utterly dedicated to god. And knowingly or unknowingly you have been searching your whole life, groping in the dark - but groping for god. And whether you grope in darkness or in light makes no difference; groping is significant.

The very desire to know, to see, is enough. Even if one never moves a single inch, god starts moving towards the person if the desire is intense, if the desire has a kind of totality in it.

You have desired long; now the time has come to make it total. It has been in the dark up to now; now it can be with a lamp in your hands.

Sannyas is a lamp. Initiation means that from now onwards I will search with method; the search will no more be haphazard. It need not be zigzag any more - now you can go straight.

Jesus says 'The way to god is narrow and straight'. It is the shortest distance between two points, and it is narrow because only one can pass through it. Crowds don't reach god - only individuals, only people who dare to be alone.

Meditation is the art of being alone.

[A sannyasin asks about his being alone. He avoids love relationships. Part of it is misery and part he likes very much. Osho checks his energy.]

The time is not yet right for you to be alone; wait a little. But the time is coming. Right now if you move into a relationship it will be good for your energy. That does not mean that you need not enjoy a few moments of aloneness. You can be in a relationship and yet enjoy a few hours absolutely in aloneness. Then there will be no division. Then both your sides will be fulfilled.

What you have been trying is to do one thing: either to be in love and forget aloneness or to be alone and forget love. Your energy needs a little more experience of love; then you will be able to transcend it. You will very easily be able to go beyond relationship. Go on meditating, go on being alone, but still relate, love. Both sides have to be fulfilled.

Ultimately aloneness remains; all disappears, all has to disappear. That too does not mean that when you have really become absolutely alone and absolutely happy with your aloneness, that you will not be able to love. In fact, for the first time one becomes able to love; then love is no more a need, no more a kind of dependence. Then it is pure sharing. Then it is not relationship; it is friendship. Then you have attained something that you want to share with people.

But right now if you try to be alone, you will become dry, desertlike; you will lose aliveness. You will become a Catholic monk or a Buddhist monk or if the worst happens, a Jaina monk. I would like you to first go slowly into relationship. It is a must. One should always pass through it; one should not avoid it. If you avoid it, then something will always remain missing in you... some experience that was needed and has been by-passed. A part of you will remain ungrown, and that is very dangerous. That will go on persisting and will go on dragging you back into the world.

My observation is to let all experiences be lived - leave nothing unlived. Good, bad - everything has to be lived so that one day you are simply finished with it all - and then one is alone! Aloneness is our absolute reality. But then it has purity and then there is no desire to fall back, no hankering, no division.

[A sannyasin who has just arrived wants to leave again. She says: I'm afraid to be alone. I'm afraid that I'll get all blissed out and then I won't want to be with my man and I'll leave my kids.]

If that fear is there, it is better not to go. Because that fear inside you is going to create trouble for you. That means the desire to run away from your man and from your kids is there. It may be unconscious - here it may be becoming conscious; but it is better to be here and to know it consciously and drop it consciously! Otherwise it will remain there like a wound inside and it will go on growing; if nothing is done for it, sooner or later you will have to drop out of the relationship. .

Some fear is there, some desire is there, because fear is never there without a desire. You want to hide it, you don't want to know about it - that's why you are escaping - but it is always good to know something if it is there, because if you know it, it can be dropped.

Nothing can be dropped from the unconscious directly; only from the conscious can things be dropped or changed. Everything has to come through the conscious, only then is there a possibility of dropping it. People go on carrying such fears and desires inside, and then one day those desires take possession. How long can you repress a desire? The more you repress, the more powerful it is becoming. One day suddenly you are so powerless against it, and you have given power to it, that the only way is to follow it.

It is better to be here, to pass through a few groups. Let it surface. And I am here; don't be worried.

It can be taken away from you, it can be uprooted. It has to be uprooted, otherwise your man and your kids are in danger. You are escaping so that you need not face your unconscious, but it will have to be faced, and here it can be faced fast. There it will take months and years, but by that time it will have spread all over your being like a cancer, then you will not be able to do anything about it.

You will have to follow it.

I don't think that there is any need to drop your husband or your children. This desire can be dropped, this fear can disappear, and then for the first time you will really be able to love. Otherwise this fear is always there like a poison - how can you love? And you will always be afraid of it. You will remain half-hearted in your love; it will never be total. It can't be, because it will only be conscious and the unconscious will be against it, and the unconscious is more vital. It is nine times bigger than the conscious, so whatsoever is in the unconscious finally wins; the conscious is doomed to fail. All these groups, all these meditations, are processes to bring all the weeds from the unconscious into the conscious.

If you want to preserve them, that's okay - your decision - if you want to drop them, you can drop them. But become capable of both and you remain the master, otherwise you will be just a victim.

But Still, if you want to go, you can go. My suggestion is: if you really want to save your relationship and your kids, don't leave but go through a few groups, mm?

[A sannyasin says she feels as though something has opened inside her which she doesn't understand.]

You cannot... and you need not. It is not something that can be understood. It is something that only has to be experienced. Trying to understand means trying to grab hold of it through the intellect. It is something beyond intellect, beyond the reach of the intellect. The intellect is impotent in understanding it.

This is far greater and far vaster than intellect. To try to understand it is just like trying to measure a great ocean with a teaspoon: it is not possible. Simply drop the whole project of trying to understand it. It is a great blessing - that something beyond intellect is arriving. The opening is in the heart; the intellect has no way to reach there.

Enjoy it... experience it. When it is too much and you cannot contain it, dance, sing, explode into it, but don't try to understand it.