Darshan 15 April 1977

Deva means divinity, divineness, and siddhen means one who has arrived. And that's my basic teaching and basic message, that we are not to go anywhere, we are already in the state, we are already there, we have already arrived. There is nowhere to go; we just have to see where we are.

The difference is only of being aware or unaware. If you become aware then you suddenly recognise that you were already there where you have been trying to reach.

One is born as one should be - nothing has to be added and nothing has to be improved. And nothing can be improved. All efforts to improve create more mess and confusion and nothing else.

The more you try to improve upon yourself, the more you will be in difficulties, because the very effort goes against your reality. Your reality is as it should be, there is no need to improve it. One simply grows in awareness, not existentially.

The situation is as if you have not looked into your pocket and you think you are a beggar, you go on begging, and in the pocket you are carrying a valuable diamond which can give you enough treasures for your whole life. Then one day you put your hand in the pocket and suddenly you are an emperor. Nothing has changed existentially, the situation is the same - the diamond was there before, the diamond is there now: the only thing that has changed is that now you have become aware that you possess it.

So all growth is growth in awareness, not in being. Being remains exactly as it is: a Buddha or a Christ, you or anybody, have exactly the same state, the same space - but one becomes aware and becomes a Buddha, the other remains unaware and goes on begging and remains a beggar.

Your name, 'deva siddhen', means that god has already been attained, that god is our reality, that we are in god and god is in us. We are not to go anywhere else; the treasure is within.

[Osho suggests the new sannyasin, who has done groups in England, do some groups while he is here.... ]

The first group you do is Sahaj, it means spontaneity, and the second group you book for is Vipassana. Vipassana is a Buddhist meditation, mm? very different from the groups that you have done. Sahaj and Vipassana are contradictory: Sahaj leads you into deep uncontrol and Vipassana gives you a great discipline. And if we can manage both the polarities, balance arises. If you can be as uncontrolled as you like and as controlled as you like or as the situation demands. then there is freedom.

There are a few people who cannot control themselves - that's not good. There are a few people who cannot be spontaneous, they control too much - that too is not good. A real man is free, either to control or not to control. He will look at the situation and respond accordingly; he has no fixed idea.

So do these two groups first, Sahaj and Vipassana, and then by and by I will give you other groups, mm? While you are here much has to be done.

Prem means love and shakya is one of the names of Buddha. He belonged to the Shakya clan so, particularly in Japan, he is also called Shakya.

[The new sannyasin says he has been involved with Subud for seven years: Initially I had quite a few experiences through it, quite different ones as well. It's been very quiet for the last year, or so it seems.]

No, it has been good; it has purified your system and now much more is possible. Subud is very good in purifying the system. We collect many subtle poisons which can be released very easily through Latihan. In fact there is no other way to release them than through Latihan. They are not physical, so yoga cannot be of much help. They are not even psychological, so therapies also cannot be of any help. They are more astral.

So Latihan is very good for cleansing the body, but there it ends. Then one feels quiet and one feels a subtle calmness, but that cannot be the end. One starts feeling that one is missing something - in fact more so than before, because those poisons were there before and you did not have clarity to see things. Now you have more clarity, naturally you will feel that you are missing.

A clouded mind never feels that it is missing anything, it is not aware at all. So whenever you pass through such a system as subud, one day or other you will feel that the system has done something, but now what?

And it is not yet a perfect system - it is just a beginning, and it cannot be perfect in the very nature of things.

There are two systems in the world, two types of systems in the world, because there are two types of masters. One type is like Bapak Subud for whom it happened suddenly. He was not preparing, in any conscious way at least, not in this life at least - it simply happened out of the blue. So he knows the end result, and he can figure out a little about the process; but he was not consciously working for it, so there is no scientific procedure.

For example, for Patanjali it is a totally different thing. It did not happen suddenly out of the blue: he was working consciously for it, step by step. He knows the whole path, so he can give you the whole map. If you are somewhere he can immediately figure out where you are and what is needed to be done now and what will help you to go ahead. You are never stuck, because the whole system is available; the person himself has passed through it.

It is as if a man walks upwards towards a peak, goes through all the difficulties that a mountaineer has to pass, makes his path, finds it, many times goes astray, again comes back, many times encounters a dangerous situation, and then one day he reaches the peak. This is one way.

Then another man takes a hop by helicopter to the peak. Now, this second man cannot be of much help. Maybe he has seen a few things from the helicopter, so he can help you to proceed - but the man who has been walking the whole way will be of tremendous help.

And there are two types of systems, because this phenomenon happens in two ways: either you have been consciously working for it and then it happens and you can see immediately that your work has concluded in it....

Sometimes it happens that you had been working in your past lives but you are not aware of that in this life. It is as if only a small thing was missing, so you could not attain in the past life. Now just by accident that missing thing falls in line with you - suddenly, just a small thing was missing: it is there, and it happens. Now you are jumping onto the peak - and you don't know how you have come to this point, so you can help a little bit but not much.

That's the problem with Subud, mm? - it happened suddenly. For Mohammedans and Christians and Jews, the concept of one life has become so fixed that they cannot even look into their past lives; the very idea is sacrilegious - as if you are going against Islam or against Christianity if you start working that way.

If Bapak Subud had been a Hindu or a Buddhist, things would have been different. On the day it happened, the first thing that would have come to his consciousness would have been: 'Now I have to look backwards, go backwards, and see how I attained' - because nothing really can be accidental. Even things which appear to be accidental cannot be accidental; they must have a cause-effect chain. So if he had been a hindu or a buddhist or a jain, the first thing would have been to connect with the past lives, to go back immediately.

Even in small things Buddha goes back - in very small things he immediately goes back. For example, a man took sannyas, became an initiate. He was a very rich man's son and he had lived in tremendous luxury and then got fed up with it. One day, listening to buddha, he became thrilled with this idea.

But it was just a fantasy - as people fall in love, people fall in love with masters too, but then the honeymoon is over. So after three or four days the honeymoon was over and the young man started thinking what nonsense he had done! Mm? he had been living in comfort, in luxury, with beautiful women, riches, everything, and now he was just a beggar and he had to beg for his own food and had no place to stay. At night, ten thousand monks were staying around Buddha. People were sleeping everywhere, and it was so noisy that he could not sleep the whole night - he had never slept with so many people!

He was a young man, so he had a place just on the outermost area; the elders were in better spaces.

The fourth night, he became very much disturbed and thought, 'Let the morning come and I will say to Buddha "this is not for me. I cannot sleep - so many mosquitoes and no space and people go on coming and going."

The next morning he came to Buddha. Buddha looked at him and he said 'So, again the mosquitoes?' The man said 'What do you mean, "again"?'

Buddha said 'In your past life too, because of mosquitoes you could not meditate... for such small things.' The young man was suddenly shocked; he closed his eyes and the scene opened, he was transported into his past life. He could see that he had become a monk, but the mosquitoes were too disturbing - they are the oldest enemies of meditators - so he had left. He opened his eyes, bowed down to Buddha and said 'No, no more! This time, no! I am going to stay!'

So in India we have been looking back about small things, mm? because nothing is accidental.

Each thing is so connected, it is almost a chain.

So Bapak Subud missed one thing - he could not go into the past, his mohammedan conditioning became a barrier. There is no other life, so, finished; accidental, just grace.

In fact there is nothing like grace - not that grace does not happen, but it happens according to the laws of cause and effect. It is not something extra that happens, no. One has to pass through a cause-and-effect chain and come to a state where grace can become possible. But the grace is not just an eccentric idea of god, so that it happens to anybody. A great preparation is needed - one has to become the right vehicle for it.

So, good; Latihan has done much good for you. And my own feeling is that every seeker should pass through Latihan. It is of tremendous importance, and now much can be done.

[The new sannyasin says: I've got a small pottery at home - my wife and myself do a little. But it's very new and it's quite difficult to make a living out of it.]

It is difficult, but it is very good for your inner centering. Pottery is one of the most valuable things that I would suggest to anybody to do. So even if it is difficult to get a living out of it, continue it and by and by make it your whole job. Even in you have to keep yourself in difficulties, it will be very good.

[A sannyasin described a traumatic incident with another sannyasin: I said she could stay at my place. I was just trying to be very loving and open and then one day I cam home and she was trying to commit suicide.]

Mm, she is mad!...

That can shock you and can disturb your energy.

[Osho gives her a close up energy darshan.]

Your energy is good, nothing to be worried about. She must have disturbed you - she can disturb people, she has a very weird vibe.

Now, always remember that it is not yet possible for you to be open to everybody and to be vulnerable. One has to be very cautious. One day, when you have become really strong enough, then you can be open to everybody - there is no problem - but right now it can be very disturbing.

You yourself are very tender and soft; that strength is not there yet so that you can bear all sorts of assaults on your energy. And she is weird....

So next time don't do this. It is better to remain aloof from people right now. When things are happening inside it is better to keep to yourself. If you feel that somebody is really helpful, that his vibration is good for you, it is okay, otherwise not.

[A sannyasin says: I think about sex too much, I drink a little too much. Once you said in a lecture to crystallise your ego, and to me that was to go to the West and get into a rock and roll band. I succeeded, and it's been really terrific.

I just wonder about that life-style and... if it's helping spiritual growth. It's good, it's intense, it's what I want to do, but sometimes I think maybe it's making me more neurotic.]

Mm, you continue it - nothing to worry about. Whatsoever you like, do it! Just one thing one has to remember: never be serious about it, be playful! If things are going well, good; if sometimes they don't go well that too is good - that has to be remembered.

Neurosis comes only when you cannot accept failure, otherwise there is no question of neurosis. It never comes when one is succeeding, one is never neurotic when one is succeeding. When things are going perfectly well, one is at the top of the world, why should one be neurotic? The problem arises only when suddenly you find that you are no more at the top. Suddenly things are no more the way they used to be. You are in the ditch, dark and dismal, and now things are not succeeding.

At that time, neurosis enters. The same energy that was becoming ambition and on which you were riding, turns against you in failure, starts killing you, starts destroying you. And then neurosis arises.

If every neurotic person were to succeed there would be no neurosis in the world. When Hitler was successful he was not mad; nobody ever suspected that he was mad. But in the last moment he himself knew that he was mad - he committed suicide.

If a neurotic person can have his way it will never be found out that he is neurotic - so a few neurotic people are never found out. The problem arises only when you are not succeeding.

One has to be just playful while one is succeeding. Develop that attitude of playfulness. Success and failure is not the point - to enjoy whatsoever you are doing is the point. You are enjoying it - so, good, but be playful. It is a game!

Each success is followed by failure, each day is followed by a night and each love is followed by a darkness. If one can remember this - that this is how things are, polar, and that the polarity changes and the wheel goes on moving.... The spoke that is up will not always be up - it will have to come

down, otherwise the wheel will stop moving. And the spoke that is down will not remain down, it will come up.

Life is a progression, a movement, nothing is static. Now you are young, one day you will be old.

Now you have so many friends, one day you will not have any friend. Now you have money, one day you will not have any money. These things are possible.

If you are playful, nothing is wrong. Then do whatsoever you want to do - just one quality has to be developed: playfulness. To me that is the greatest virtue. Continue, enjoy, and side by side start doing my work also....

Make it an orange group - then it will be my work too: you can enjoy it and the work can happen.

Very good - don't get out of it, be in it. Just be playful in it!

[The sannyasin says: Sex is a big thing for me because I'm married but I don't stop desiring other women.]

No, it is not an exception - it is the rule. A married person is in trouble. It is not a question of your having a beautiful wife, it is a question of her being a wife. All beauty becomes irrelevant. Who wants to love a wife or a husband? A wife is an institution, so is a husband. One wants to love a woman, not a wife - and a woman is a totally different thing. But we are in such a hurry to turn every woman into a wife; then we are in trouble, because the beauty is only when something is not attainable.

When the woman is unapproachable she is tremendously beautiful. When she is in your hands, the illusion by and by fades away; then it is a mirage. Others' wives will look beautiful - that's how the mind functions. That which is distant is beautiful, that which is not available is enchanting, that which you cannot have creates fantasies in you.

If the institution of wife and husband disappears from the world, sex will almost disappear, ninety percent of it. It is the institution that goes on keeping people sexual. It is the institution of marriage that keeps on making prostitutes, keeps on having a thousand and one sorts of professions in the Society. The root cause is somewhere in the institution of marriage - because you are tethered together tied together, and you would like to be free. You feel responsibility and you feel the foolishness also - you have a beautiful wife: why? But it is not a question of why. She is a wife, she is available, she is yours, you take her for granted, that's why.

The other woman is not your wife, and who knows? - she may have some ways of loving which you are missing. Who knows? - there may be something more to love, and maybe your wife is not capable of delivering that or maybe it is not happening between you and your wife and it may happen with somebody else. Who knows? These doubts and these desires go on playing havoc.

I will suggest some groups for you. The first group is Centering - twenty-third to twenty-ninth of April, mm? and the second group is Tantra - the thirtieth of April to the second of May. The third group is Leela intensive - the fifth of may to the tenth of may. These three groups will help tremendously.

Good!

[A visitor says: I want to know why I came. I never meditated or anything before.]

Mm mm. Just close your eyes and raise both your hands. If something starts happening in the body energy you allow it - any trembling, shaking.

Good... very good! Come back. So you belong to me - that's why you have come! You may not be aware, but you will become aware soon. In this life you may not have even thought about meditation, but you have been working through many lives. The work has never been completed, it hangs incomplete, but it is in the unconscious. You are not aware of why you have come and why you should be here at all, but you will become aware soon. Some day suddenly it will surface into consciousness; then everything will fit together.

[A visitor says: There are many voices in me that say I am always doing the wrong thing all the time.]

Mm, I understand. You are not critical, nobody is; it is just that your parental voices are too strong inside. They are critical, they don't enjoy you enjoying your life. So kill the parents, get rid of them.

This critical voice is never yours. Mm? you were a child and the father said 'Don't do this' and the mother said 'Don't do this.' Whatsoever you wanted to do was always wrong. And whatsoever you never wanted to do, they wanted you to do - and that was right.

Mm? so you are in a double bind. The right is there, which you don't want to do - so if you do it, you do it as a duty. Then there is no joy; you feel that you are destroying yourself, you are wasting your life. If you do that which you like, you feel guilty, you feel that you are doing something wrong.

So you have to get rid of your parents, that's all. And it is a very simple thing, because you are now a grown-up - they are not there, it is just inside your own mind.

By 'killing the parents' I don't mean to go and kill the parents - I mean kill this.... This is absurd - just a hangover of the past. You are no more a child: recognise the fact. Take the responsibility into your own hands, it is your life. So do whatsoever you like to do, ant never do anything that you don't like to do. If you have to suffer for it, suffer, but don't do it; do only that which you enjoy. If you have to suffer for it, suffer for it. One has to pay the price for everything; nothing is free in life. Then that is the price.

If you enjoy something and the whole world condemns it, good! let them condemn. You accept that consequence because you like it so much, it is worth it.

If you don't like a thing and the whole world says 'beautiful' it is meaningless, because you will never enjoy your life. It is your life - and who knows? tomorrow you may die. So enjoy it while you are alive! It is nobody else's business - neither the parents nor the society's nor anybody else's. It is your life. And when you die the society will continue, so don't bother about the society.

When you die, only you die - nobody dies in your place. Your death will be absolutely individual.

Death proves only one thing, that each individual is individual. And death is going to be yours, so how can life be of somebody else? You cannot live a borrowed life; you have to live your own life.

Death will be yours - nobody will die for you. So you have to live for yourself; you are not to live a pseudo-life, a pretentious life.

That's all my teaching is: to make you so aware of the foolishness that we go on doing. This is just foolish, a hangover from the childhood. Nobody is there, just a tape inside which goes on playing itself again and again.

[Osho gives her sannyas.]

Now I am giving you a new birth, so you can forget the past and the past childhood and the parents and the way you have lived up to now and the way you have been up to now. Let it be a clean break.

Feel discontinued with the past and start living from this moment. This is your birthday. Forget the old birthday - it has nothing to do with you, because you never lived your life, so it was not your life.

You were playing a role in a story; the script was written by others.

By your becoming my sannyasin, I make you free to write your own story and to play your own role.

I make you absolutely free to do whatsoever you want to do. I don't give you any discipline. I simply give you a love, a respect towards life.

It is your life - you have to be respectful towards it. It is your life - you have to trust it and you have to go with it, wherever it leads. Even if you have to go astray, go. There is nothing wrong in going astray, because only those who go astray come back. Even if you have to commit an error, do it - because only by mistakes do we learn, and there is no other way to learn.

Those people who never commit mistakes never learn anything, they never grow. All growth needs the courage to commit mistakes.

From this moment only do that which you like to do, whatsoever the cost.

[A visitor asks: Many of the meditations done here involve a great deal of physical activity, and I'm wondering about how long distance running is.]

It is very good, really good! If you can do that, it is a perfect meditation. Jogging, running, very good; swimming - anything in which you can get totally involved, lost. Only the activity remains, you are not - the ego cannot function. When you are running there is really only running, there is no runner.

And that's what meditation is.

If there is only dance and no dancer - meditation. If you are painting and there is only painting and no painter, then it is meditation. Any activity which is total and in which there is no division between the doer-and the done, becomes meditation.

Good - if you like running, nothing better. Good!

[A sannyasin says: Sometimes I feel I am not surrendered enough and other times I just accept.]

Just accept that too, mm? Surrender also grows by and by, it also takes time. The first time you take sannyas surrender cannot be total - or very rarely. Sometimes it is total, but very rarely. It is a beginning of surrender. Then it grows; slowly you surrender more and more. The more you understand me, the more it becomes possible. The more you understand yourself, the more it becomes possible.

In the beginning there is a reluctance to surrender - it feels as if you will be losing your personality, your individuality. In the beginning you feel 'Why? Why should I surrender to anybody else?'

By and by, you start understanding that the other is not the other. You are not surrendering to me - you are surrendering to your own future, you are surrendering to your own potentiality, you are surrendering to your own centre. I am just a via-media... through me. I am just a postman - you write a letter and I deliver it back to you. Your letter is self-addressed.

Finally, by and by, you become alert that the surrender is not against your individuality. In fact it will give you real individuality. One day you will recognise the fact that you have surrendered to yourself - I was not there at all. But it was needed in the beginning, otherwise it would be difficult for you to touch your own feet; it would look very foolish. So you touch my feet - that's all just in the interval.

One day you will be able to touch your own feet. Good.