Darshan 14 April 1977
[A visitor says: I have come here with an open heart... and I wish to know.]
Good - the heart is ready for many things and very very hungry for something to happen. Not only open, but waiting too - and nothing has happened for the whole life.
You have come into this life with a great thirst for something to happen. The thirst has always been there in the corner. Sometimes you have forgotten it, sometimes you remember it, but you have been feeling that something is missing. You don't exactly know what it is, you don't know where you can find it, you don't know what you have to do about it. It is a very happy situation - very few people are so hungry. But just hunger won't help. It is a must, it is needed, but it is not enough: something will have to be done.
The food has been prepared, and all the ingredients are available: the flour is there, the water is there, the salt is there, but you will have to mix them - and make chapatis. Everything is there!
[The visitor says: I was a student of Gurdjieff's teachings for five years.]
Very good! That is the best thing that is available to the west. So you have come to the right person now. After Gurdjieff there is no way except me, so that's perfectly good!.... Very good, but now something more is needed.
[The visitor says: At one time I saw god - that was when I first met Gurdjieff... and I know it is the only way for me to walk. What can I do to go back?]
There is no going back, and there is no need to go back. You have to go forward, not back.
And that experience that happened was just a glimpse, otherwise it would have transformed you utterly. It was just a glimpse - it happens sometimes.... Meeting a person like Gurdjieff, sometimes it can happen. Something is just triggered off in you, the very presence functions like a catalytic agent... but it was not your thing, so you missed it.
It can happen many times with somebody....
There is a sufi saying that two persons were travelling in the night. One had a lamp, another had no lamp, but while they were both walking together both paths were lit. The path of the one who had no lamp was also lit, and he was very happy. He never bothered about any lamp - what was the need?
But then they came to a crossroad, and the man who had a lamp had to go his way. Suddenly there was darkness. Now the other man suffered very much. He started crying and weeping, saying, 'Why didn't I learn how to make a lamp? Why didn't I ask that man how to light a lamp? My own lamp - even if it were small - would have been better, but I never thought about it. I was thinking that everything was going so well, so what was the need? The path was lit - but now' ....
So it happens many times: if you come to a man who has his inner light burning, sometimes suddenly a door opens and your path is lighted and you see all that you could not even believe a second before - it is there! But this is not your lamp, so this will become a memory and will haunt yoU. Again and again you will think about how to go back. There is no going back, there is no need to go back. You have to go forward. You have to attain to your own light; and that can be done. There is no possibility of going back, and even if there were, the same experience wouldn't satisfy you any more. It would just be a repetition - it wouldn't give you that thrill: the thrill was in the novelty of it.
Now the same experience is not going to give you any joy. You will say, 'This I know - but what more is there? What is new in it?' And if it is repeated a few times you will get bored with it: you will not call it an experience of god any more.
One has to go forward, and each day there are new experiences. God is so eternally new that you never have the same glimpse again. He has so many millions of aspects that each day you can have a new vision - so why bother about the old? There is no need.
Be here for a few days, do the camp, do a few groups, and then if you can come back for a longer time it will be very helpful - then come back for a longer time.
[The visitor answers a question from Osho: I wish to become a therapist.]
That's very good. That's good work, mm? It may not help the patient but it will certainly help you!
You will become more understanding. Helping problem-people, one starts understanding one's own problems. Helping neurotic, psychotic people, you start seeing your own neurosis, psychosis.
It may be helpful to the patient, may not be - that depends on the patient - but it will certainly be helpful to you, and it will be a support to your inner work.
Prem means love, ashoka means a state of no misery. It is a Buddhist word. And Buddha never says that the ultimate state will he of bliss, he says it will be a state of no misery - he always uses the negative. There will be no pain, but he never says there will be happiness - for a certain reason....
He has come to know - he has observed thousands of people and he has come to feel - that the moment you say that there will be happiness, people become greedy; and greed is one of the barriers to attaining it. If you say that there will be great bliss then desire becomes aflame - and when the desire is there you cannot attain that bliss. So he dropped the words 'bliss, happiness, joy, delight', he dropped all the positive. He said 'Ashoka: there will be no pain, there will be no suffering.'
He says that's all he promises, that there will be no suffering. That's a beautiful attitude, mm?
because that doesn't help your greed. Otherwise you start thinking of god, heaven, paradise, and a greed starts to arise; it is very subtle. You want to be, to possess, all that is available, and that very ambition will be the barrier, because only a non-ambitious man can attain. When there is no desire, you attain.
So ashoka is a beautiful word, and it is a name of one of the greatest emperors of the world. He was a follower of Buddha and he tried to spread Buddhism all over Asia, and in such a way as no other religion has spread - with no sword, with no military, with no army, with no bribery either. He just used to send messengers with deep love, with deep meditation, to go and meet and mingle with people, to let people feel his disciples' energy. If the people became interested in that energy they would start meditating. Nobody else has ever done that.
Buddhism was spread all over Asia, and spread with such love - nobody was converted forcibly; it was a real conversion of the heart.
... And love is a state of no suffering.