The unfamiliar has to be invited, the unknown has to be loved...

[A sannyasin who is leaving says: I'm a horrible kid, she says, embarrassed - I'm always wasting everything!]

Stop doing that, because it is wasting a great opportunity; you are not wasting anything else but your own opportunity. Life is very precious and these moments may not be repeated. Sometimes the door is open - one should use the chance to get in....

[A sannyasin couple with their child are present. the woman says she is afraid of everything.

Osho says: All fear is basically the fear of death. Once you accept that death is part of life, the fear disappears. If you simply start accepting whatsoever is the case, great love arises... not only that one loves life; one can even love death, because death is the peak of life; it is the greatest orgasm.

Do you enjoy your sleep or not?

She nods a yes.... ]

Death is the great sleep - mm? when you have just a small sleep, for few hours you disappear...

and how beautiful it is in the morning! In death one goes into deep sleep for a longer period, and one comes out of it rejuvenated: a new life starts. If you accept death, death is not the end of life but the beginning of a new life. Then the whole perspective changes.

Start accepting it - it is great! And this time it will happen... this fear will go away. Good!

[Her son is fast asleep on her lap - Osho looks at him.]

Mm! fast asleep! This is how one should love death too! Now he is not afraid; sooner or later you will make him afraid: your fear will start entering him. So before he becomes infected by your fear, drop it! Mm? Good....

Deva sampitta - divine togetherness, divine integrity....

Ordinarily man exists like a crowd, in fragments - one part going this way, another part going that way. That's why there is no progress, no evolution, because one part goes on annihilating the work of the other part. By one hand you make, by another you dismantle: with love you create something and with jealousy you destroy, so man remains in a mess.

There is great energy available to every human being, but something can be created only if it functions in an integrated way. If one is together only then can one arrive somewhere - body, mind, soul, all should be together - but ordinarily we are taught conflict. The soul is going its way, the mind is fighting the body, the body is fighting the soul. It is always a war, hence there is no peace, no silence.

This word 'sampitta' means togetherness.

[Deva sambodh - means divine awareness. Osho says, Awareness can also be wrong. Many times we think we are aware but we are aware in a very very wrong way.... ]

For example, when you are self-conscious, you are aware but you are aware in a wrong way. The emphasis is on the self and not on consciousness; then it becomes wrong. You become nervous, you are afraid. You start wearing masks, you start pretensions: you become pseudo.

The emphasis should be on consciousness and not on self. A really right awareness is unselfconscious. It is consciousness but it has no self-consciousness in it: the self is missing, the self is simply not there. When awareness is without self it is right - then it is called sambodh.

When it is with self then it is wrong - it is ill, sick.

[The new sannyasin says she has done hypnotherapy and tantra - the latter was difficult for her.... ]

You could not relax in it? That's what my feeling is. You are too self-conscious, and when one is self-conscious one cannot relax. That self becomes a tension: it does not allow you to be true and authentic and sincere. That's what my feeling is... otherwise everything is right. Once this shell of the self is broken the bird is ready to come out and fly into the sky. And the shell is not very strong either - it has a very thin layer which can be broken very easily. So with just a little effort you can come out of it. It is not going to be a very arduous thing, it is not going to be a very uphill task because I don't see that you have a very strong ego, just a fragile ego but very sensitive.

So tantra may have been a little difficult because you have to lose your self-consciousness in it, you have to become utterly spontaneous. You have to forget the body, the mind, the divisions of body and mind. You have to forget all the old concepts of the moralities, the religions... and they all clamour inside the mind saying that this is wrong and that is right and this should not be done.

But it is good that you did it... soon things will change.

[Osho suggests that she do the intensive enlightenment group followed by encounter.... ]

Encounter, I hope, will do the work, mm? - and the shell will be broken. Once it is broken you will find such beauty and such joy arising in you that you cannot even imagine it... you have not dreamt about it.

[To a newly arrived sannyasin Osho says, Much is going to happen! You are ready for many things.

Just remain available, open, indefensible... don't defend! That defensiveness is the only barrier.... ]

God is not happening to many people because they are defending themselves, and how can god happen if one goes on defending oneself? We have created so much armour with which to defend ourselves: we don't allow love to happen, we don't allow prayer to happen, we don't allow surrender to happen; we don't allow anything to happen. Our whole life structure is fear-oriented: just defend yourself and go on defending; one day death comes and one is finished. All defence leads to death.

Nowhere else, and meanwhile one loses all possibilities of life.

Life is for those who can remain in a kind of indefence, in a kind of vulnerability, in a kind of openness.

All that is needed is that much. Mm? don't cling to security and don't cling to the known. The unfamiliar has to be invited, the unknown has to be loved and the stranger has to be allowed to become your guest - then one starts growing.

With the strange, with the unknown, unfamiliar, is growth. With the known and the familiar and that with which you are acquainted, there is no growth: there is only repetition... and a repetitive life is a dull and stupid life. Live dangerously, live non-repetitively - only then do you live!

So here, become part of my family, forget the whole west. Relax, remain open and let things happen.

The mind may come in many times to defend you; put the mind aside. Say that if death comes it is okay but you will not defend.

Once defence is dropped all problems disappear and life takes on a new quality - the quality of joy, celebration, ecstasy....

[A sannyasin, who is very esoteric, asks about her relationship - they had a higher plane relationship and never did work out their sexual problems. She wonders if they should be together.... ]

Yes! The higher plane finally comes lower! Wherever you start, finally you come to the earth - that's how relationships go! You can start in heaven but finally you will descend to earth.

So it will be difficult because you are really a spiritual person... it will be difficult for you to come to the earth! Mm? With occult bodies it is okay but with the real body it will be difficult! But if you can go into it, it will be a good experience, because this body is as good as any other body - mm? those subtle bodies and astral bodies are good, but this body is good too. So don't have any condemnatory attitude about sex. If you have a condemnatory attitude then please don't go into it.

Just from the very beginning say, 'I am not for it', but don't go into it with a condemnatory attitude otherwise you poison the whole relationship from the very beginning.

One should go into love with great reverence. You will be surprised from where this word 'reverence' comes: it comes from the same root as venereal disease. Veneration, venereal, reverent, reverence

- they all come from the same root. The original meaning was love, 'venereal', but love can go very high; then it becomes reverence. It is the same thing, flying: it becomes respect. When it settles back on the earth it becomes love; love and respect are two aspects of the same energy.

So I can understand your problem, mm? - it was reverence, the relationship was of respect, and now it is settling on the earth and becoming venereal so you are a little puzzled. But the body is also as divine as the spirit... and sex is as spiritual as anything else! This is what I call a total perspective of life, balanced.

If you can go very very joyously and reverently, then go into it, otherwise it will not be good. Just tell him 'I respect you - you are a holy man and I have always looked towards you as a master. Now, this is impossible.' It is very easy to move from the lower to the higher - the so-called lower; for me there is nothing lower. It is easier to move from lower to the higher. It is difficult to move from the higher to the lower because one feels one is falling down, but that is just an idea. I don't see that there is anything wrong... but you have to decide.

If you have a small poison inside and you see that this is not good then don't go into it, because with that idea you will never be total in it; it will never flower. And when it does not flower you will feel more depressed and you will say 'I knew from the very beginning that this is bad. Now it has led me into this frustration.' It is self-defeating if you go with the idea that something is wrong; then it will prove something is wrong because whatsoever idea we carry becomes a thing sooner or later.

If you can go with great prayer and respect, only then go: never enter into the shrine of love without respect. Otherwise, just tell him that this is not for you - he can find somebody else. You decide, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin body therapist says that one of the people who took part in their encounter group in the West was sent to a mental hospital a month later and then committed suicide. She felt shocked initially but has recovered now except that whenever she thinks about it she feels depressed.... ]

Nothing to be worried about it, mm? Things happen! The person was going to be mad, whether he was in the group or not won't make much difference because you cannot drive a person mad unless he is carrying madness in him: you cannot create madness. Can you drive me mad?

You cannot create madness - madness is there: the person must have been carrying it like pus, a great wound. Your group touched the wound, scratched it: the pus started coming out. You have not created it but you made it possible for the man to know his reality. And the suicidal instinct must have been there. Nobody can commit suicide, nobody can be persuaded to commit suicide unless the instinct is there, unless the idea is there, very deep-rooted.

Things happen only because they are going to happen. The very idea that you have done something is wrong - it is an egoistic idea - but remember it when something positive happens; then too remember it. If somebody attains a satori in your group don't feel that you have done great things.

Yes, that was also going to happen!

So never take the credit for good and never take the credit for bad, otherwise you will not be able to work at all. One should continue working, go on doing whatsoever you feel is good. Whatsoever happens is god's responsibility.

This idea, that you are responsible, is a very egoistic idea... and ordinarily people think this is a very religious idea. It is not! People think [you are] a very religious being: the man became mad and she is feeling troubled by it; how much she feels for him! And you don't feel an iota, you are not worried about his being mad: you are worried because you have driven him towards madness. You are worried about your self-image! It is not that you are worried about his suicide; you are worried that you have some responsibility in it.

Just see exactly what your worry is. It is your self image: you are afraid you have fallen short. Mm?

this man went mad so you are a part in it. This man committed suicide so you are a part in it... and how can [she] do such things? She is a great do-gooder!

Just drop that idea. What can we do? Go on doing whatsoever you feel - that's your thing to do. Whatsoever happens, happens. Once this is understood, then no self, no doer, starts being accumulated. Otherwise, good and bad - many things will happen! If you start taking credit for good and credit for bad, you win be constantly in anxiety and you will never know a single moment of peace. Accept it - that whatsoever happens is god's responsibility.

This is one of the most fundamental things for all those who are helping in my work in any way to understand: you should not become the doers. Do - but just be the vehicles.

And what is wrong in being mad? Are you thinking that the people who are not mad are very happy?

We have very tacit concepts in the mind, that people who are not mad are naturally very happy.

So what is really wrong in being mad? Who knows? - that one month may have been the only month of joy that he knew. Almost always mad people are happy people - you will not find normal people so happy! This may have been the only time of his life when he was unworried and happy.

So what is the point of living thirty years if you are unhappy? It is worth choosing one month of being happy.

And why should one consider suicide wrong? These are just concepts. We have accepted the idea that life - whatsoever it is, howsoever it is - is good: it is not so. There are a thousand times when life is not good.

Just think if Adolf Hitler had committed suicide in 1930: would it have been bad or good? It would have been perfectly good! And if [you] had helped him to commit suicide the world would have been benefitted! Or you can think about benito mussolini!

Nothing as such is wrong, nothing as such is good. Sometimes suicide is good and sometimes life is good; who are we, and how to decide? So don't bother about these things - just leave it to god; it is so complicated. Mm? if the man were alive he may have committed a few murders - then?

[Osho says there is a sect of Jainas in India that don't believe in doing anything for anyone - even giving a dying man a drink of water - their rationale being that no one knows what might happen out of their action. If that man later commits a theft or murder, then the crime is on their heads too.]

Now you will be afraid whether to lead a group or not again because somebody can go crazy. There is no need to be afraid, otherwise you will destroy your own life.

It is your joy that you make a certain thing - the encounter group - available to people. If people choose to be benefitted by it, let them be. To some people life will be enhanced, to some people life may not be enhanced.

There are millions of people in millions of situations: it is a very complicated affair and nobody knows what will lead to what. So one has to surrender everything to god and one goes on doing one's own work.