Darshan 17 April 1977

[A sannyasin with her baby, who has a spinal defect, says: She hasn't been well. I think she hasn't decided whether she wants to stay her or not in this world.]

Let her decide - give her freedom.

[She asks: How can I watch all these problems? How can I be aware? It's hard.]

It is hard, but people don't listen to me, so... You take the responsibility, then you... People don't listen to me. If I tell them not to have children they get angry, mm? Just yesterday one woman wrote a very angry letter because I suggested to her that it was better not to have a child - now she thinks I am a monster!

Then it is her responsibility. Whatsoever you feel, do - and even if it is hard, you have to watch it.

What can you do? It is better to be alert from the very beginning. To give birth to a child is to give birth to a thousand and one responsibilities, and one never knows... there are bound to be problems.

When a person is alone there are no problems really. The only problem is that he feels lonely - and that is not a big problem at all, because if one starts being a little alert of that loneliness it turns into aloneness and one can enjoy it. But when a person is alone he feels lonely, he feels he is miserable.

Then he finds a partner, falls in love, this and that. Only when he has got into a relationship does he remember how happy he was before - but now it is too late!

And even if he becomes alone again he will start suffering again from the loneliness - because people's memories are very short; they don't remember. Again he will start looking for a woman or a man; and whenever there is a relationship there is trouble. But troubles don't stop there: once you are related with a man, you start thinking of becoming a mother - then the third person enters

in. Now, the third person is even more dangerous - because the man you choose you choose knowingly, knowing what type of man you are choosing. But the child? - you cannot choose the child. One never knows what type of child will enter you and what is going to happen; it is a blind game. The child comes in. Then one feels it would be better if one were without a child, but now it is too late.

Now be alert next time you start thinking of becoming pregnant. And that's how the mind works. The mind will say, 'Maybe this child didn't turn out very good - why not have another?' And so on and so forth; one goes on wasting one's whole life. And there is no end to it!

Now the child will grow, there will be growth problems, the child will start doing things which you don't like, the child may turn out to be a criminal. Or one never knows, it is unpredictable. One goes on and on, and goes on getting involved.

Keep alert and learn a lesson from it, that these foolish things have to be avoided if you really want to grow, otherwise the whole energy and time will be wasted in these things and growth suffers.

And why do people choose these things? First, they are lonely. So they w ant to avoid themselves, they want to escape from themselves. It is not love, it has nothing to do with love they simply don't want to be lonely. It is an escape. So they find somebody - and that person also is lonely and seeking, searching for somebody. Now two lonely persons meet - it is not going to give any joy; they are too needful. They will exploit each other, dominate each other, be jealous, and always afraid that the other may leave and then again they may be lonely. So they cling to each other, and the more they cling, the more heavy the relationship becomes and the more they start thinking it would have been better if they were alone.

But now they are entangled, committed. They have promised; now it is difficult to go against the promises, so they carry on. Then they start thinking 'Why not have a child?' That child is again a trick to escape - to escape from the relationship.

First you escape from yourself, fall in love, then the relationship becomes heavy. You want to have a child so that you can escape into the child, so you can forget about the husband, so you can look after the child and you can live through the child and you can hope and dream through the child.

That is again an escape.

These are ways how one goes on escaping. So just be alert - whatsoever you have done, you have done, mm? so be watchful. And next time be mindful! Nothing can be done now about the past, but about the future much can be done. Let it be a great lesson not to get entangled unnecessarily. And when you get into any responsibility, think over it, meditate over it. Only get into it with full awareness that there may be problems.

Always hope for the best and expect the worst. And keep both in mind - that the worst is going to happen, is possible: expect it, so that when it happens there is no misery. Hope for the best - because without hope it will be difficult for you to live right now. You can live without hope only when you have disappeared. Then one can live without hope and without frustration, because when you don't hope there is no expectation and there is no frustration. Then whatsoever happens one accepts it.

But right now just be alert and do whatsoever you can do for the child. Mm? it is your choice, and maybe it is something which is going to help you in your growth. So use the opportunity! Always use all the opportunities for growth. There is not a single opportunity which cannot be used as a jumping-board for growth. Now the child is there; the child is not according to your expectations. So learn one thing, that to expect is bad and that the world is not here to fulfill your expectations. So learn one thing and a beautiful thing can come out of it.

Now the second thing. Who knows? - all the limitations that the child has may prove good finally.

One can never say - the handicap may prove good. Just think, if adolf hitler had been born blind it would have been a great blessing to the world, or if he was crippled it would have been a great blessing to the world. But he was not crippled, he was not blind, he had enough energy: the whole world suffered.

So we cannot know the future. Whatsoever has happened, accept it and use it for more awareness, for more alertness. Next time, before entering into any responsibility, meditate, and remember that what you are hoping for may never turn up and something just the opposite may turn up: are you ready to accept the opposite?

If you are ready, then go into it. If you are not ready, it is better not to enter into it. So use this opportunity - and to me, each opportunity can be used.

You are feeling angry: watch the anger and analyse the anger. Enter the anger and try to find why you are feeling angry. Somebody has insulted you, but why does the insult hurt you? Because finally it is your interpretation - nobody's insult can hurt you unless you decide to be hurt by it. So you have decided to be hurt; it is your ego. You were not expecting this; you were thinking that he would praise you, and he has insulted you. So now never expect praise, and if somebody insults you then see - it will not hurt.

Whatsoever happens around you, you are continuously interpreting. Now the child is not healthy - that too is your interpretation. Who knows?

Just a few days ago I was talking about Asthavakra, mm? His name means he was bent in his body at eight points - his whole body was like a camel. He could not walk properly, impossible; in eight places his body had something wrong. He was a caricature - but he proved to be one of the greatest mystics of the world.

The father must have cried and wept, the mother must have beaten her head when she saw this child: all wrong, nothing right. But this child proved to be one of the greatest seers india has produced. And his book, asthavakrasanta, is incomparable in the whole world's literature. No bible, no koran, no veda, no gita, has anything comparable to it. It is simply transcendental! So, one never knows....

The child is not according to your expectation, that's why it hurts. Drop the expectation. Now the child is there: it is god's gift - enjoy whatsoever has been given. Accept it in deep humility and gratitude, and then see what happens, mm? Good.

Prem jiten. It means conquered by love. And that's all that one has to do - allow love to conquer one.

And love is something that is bigger than you: you cannot possess it, you can only be possessed

by it. And people who try to possess love kill love. Then in their hands something else is left; it is not love - maybe a corpse, something dead. Only something dead can be possessed, only things can be possessed. Even if you possess a person, the person becomes a thing immediately. If you possess the wife, the wife is a thing, no more a person. If you possess a friend, the friend is a thing, no more a person - just like the house and the car.

All that is great and all that is beautiful, one has to allow. You cannot possess it, you can only be possessed - and that is the fear. We want everything under control. And god cannot be under control, love cannot be under control, truth cannot be under control. So we are even ready to accept lies, but at any cost we want to control, we want to remain in control.

This ego is the only barrier - and the ego is the idea to possess, to conquer, to have. Yes, you can have many things, but you will have a dead world. You will have king midas' world: whatsoever he touches turns into gold - but he cannot eat gold, he cannot drink gold, he cannot love gold. And the ego has that touch: whatsoever it touches becomes a thing. And you need persons, not things; you need the whole world to be full of personality, throbbing with life and aliveness.

So I am giving you this name just as an indicator, to remind you again and again to learn to dispossess and to be possessed. Learn to surrender, open the gates of your heart so that the whole can overflood you, so that you are almost drowned and taken away.

And that is the state of the mystic when he is possessed by love - he is a drunkard. And you can become one! That is everybody's birthright. If we miss it, nobody else but ourselves is responsible.

We could have it - it was ours just for the asking.

[The new sannyasin said he had been training as a therapist but he dropped out, because he felt he was in it for the wrong reasons and not out of love for it.]

That's very good - that feeling is very good. In fact that's what is happening in the west. And therapy is a function of love; it has not much to do with the technique. You can be a gestalt therapist or you can be a primal therapist or you can be anything else: if you love, techniques work. In fact love works; the technique is just an excuse. The therapist works, not the therapy.

So sometimes when there is a man like Perls, something starts happening. It is not gestalt, mm? it is the personality of the man - his tremendous courage, compassion. He tries to help; he tries to reach the other person.

But our logical mind says that it must he the gestalt therapy that is helping; and that has been the fallacy down the ages. It is not christianity that helps, it was christ. And it is nothing to do with buddhism, it was buddha. For twenty-five hundred years people have been thinking that it was Buddhism that helped people. It was not Buddhism, it was Buddha. If Buddha had been saying something else, that too would have been of help. Even if he had said just the opposite to whatsoever he said, then too it would have helped. It was the person, it was the life force of that man, the compassion and his love and his understanding, that helped.

But our minds immediately catch hold of the techniques, of the superficial. Then the superficial becomes important and we lose contact with the primary, the essential. And there are problems:

the essential cannot be taught, only the non-essential can be taught. So you cannot teach Fritz Perls - you can teach gestalt. Fritz Perls happens when it happens; there is no way to teach that! But the society cannot depend on such accidental happenings. The society wants to be certain about something, so it starts teaching, and only the non-essential can be taught.

So all teaching goes against the teacher, because the teacher brings the essential and the teaching teaches the non-essential, only the periphery. And by and by the periphery becomes so loaded with knowledge, information, research, that the essential is completely lost track of.

It is very difficult to find out what buddha said, what type of man, what manner of man he was; it is almost impossible. Two thousand and five hundred years of scholarship - it is such a big jungle you cannot find where Buddha is sitting, where his bodhitree is.

And you will find thousands and thousands of pretenders. Sometimes pretenders are so skillful that they can even defeat the real Buddha. That too is a problem - because a real Buddha has all the limitations of reality and the pretender has none of the limitations of reality. A Buddha is spontaneous, so he can err - but the pretender never errs because he rehearses, he practises.

[Osho recounts how, when Charlie Chaplin entered a competition that was set up to find the person who could best imitate Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin only came second!]

The real can be defeated by the unreal because the unreal can practise. For the real there is no way to practise - one has to live moment-to-moment; whatsoever situation comes he will respond. The unreal knows all the situations beforehand and he knows beforehand how he has to respond - he has a script. So the teaching becomes of the non-essential, and teaching falls into the hands of the hypocrites.

It was good that you realised it. With that very realisation, much more becomes possible. In fact, from that very moment the journey has started towards reality. To know the false as the false - to feel that something is a pretension and you don't have anything to give, so how can you give? - is to start moving towards the real. Mm? it was a great moment of blessing that you recognised that, and now things can move in a totally different direction. It is good that you have come!

So meditate here, feel my presence, drink me as much as you can... become a drunkard!

[A visitor says: I'm on a honeymoon with me. It's exciting.]

Mm mm - one can be on this honeymoon for the whole of life. One should be, but religions have destroyed the very possibility - christianity more so, and particularly catholicism. They have really poisoned all life sources, and guilt is the poison.

They have fabricated the whole thing, the whole conspiracy, with such skill, with such efficiency and expertise, that it is very difficult for a man to see through and through what has been done to his life. In fact the moment you ever become aware of the whole nonsense that has been done... To have that moment of awareness becomes almost impossible, because the conditioning penetrates to such deep layers of the unconscious.

... and once the guilt is dropped, life is really a honeymoon; it is a tremendous joy. And one has to be selfish! All teachings about being unselfish and sacrificing to others and doing this and that are simply idiotic - and they don't help anybody! You don't become unselfish, you remain selfish; it is just that you remain guilty. They don't destroy your life, they just poison your sources.

So if you are alert, and these moments are beautiful, get rid of it forever - because these habits follow you; even dead habits follow you.

[The visitor adds: I want to say about sannyas that I couldn't make up my mind. What is happening is that I am already a sannyasin to me, to my very existence. I have felt really a lot of pressure here at the ashram of "When are you going to do it?" It happens a lot.]

They know better... they know better!

There are a few things to be understood. It is very simple but very deep-going. It is as if a person decides alone to himself that he will not smoke, and he says nothing to anybody: there are ninety- nine chances that he will smoke. Now the second person decides that he will not smoke and he goes and tells everybody - to ali the friends, to all the society, he goes and says that he has decided not to smoke. There are ninety percent chances that he will still smoke.

First there were ninety-nine chances that he would smoke; now there are ninety chances that he will still smoke, but there is nine percent less possibility.

The third possibility is that he joins a society of non-smokers where nobody smokes. Now there are ninety-nine percent chances that he will not smoke.

Gurdjieff used to say that if you want to do something, find a few friends so that you can do it together.

It is almost as if you are imprisoned in a gaol: you want to escape, but to escape alone will be very difficult. If you make a gang the possibility is more: you can kill the guard - alone it will be very difficult; you can break the wall - alone it will be very difficult. But still there is a possibility you may not be able to succeed, because your gang will be a small gang of prisoners, helpless prisoners.

The forces who manage the gaol are bigger than you.

The third thing, the best thing, is make contact with people who are outside, who are already free, who are not in the gaol, who can supply things to you, who can manage, who can give you the map, who can bribe the guards, who can take the gaoler away for a picnic, who can manage a thousand and one things.

Sannyas has nothing to do with orange.... you will have to wear orange. But sannyas has nothing to do with orange: it is just a declaration, a gesture, that you are not alone, that you are part of my family.

It is a gesture that you are ready to stake your life with me, that you are ready to gamble. It is a gamble - who knows? I may be wrong. Who knows? I may not really be out of the gaol, maybe I am just pretending... I may be the gaoler himself! Nobody can ever be certain about it. So it is a gamble, it is a trust. Trust is always a gamble.

Just the other day I was reading - it has come to light only within these last ten or twelve years - that if somebody has taken LSD and is high on it, turned on, sometimes it happens that if you love the person and you just sit by his side, you turn on. Now, you have not taken LSD, but if you love the person something telepathic happens, something communicates with your inner being.

His state of being turned on, somehow becomes an opening to you - if you love the person. If you are in a communion with the person, you suddenly feel that you are on the LSD-trip yourself.

This has happened only within ten, fifteen years since drugs became so available to the new generation, but in the east we have always known it. And exactly the same is the situation with spirituality - more so.

A man is turned on: we call him the master. Just being in tune with him, suddenly your lives are turned on.

Sannyas is just to fall in tune with me. These are outward gestures of falling in tune with me. They simply show that you are ready - for the inner you are ready, and you are even ready for the outer. If the master says to go and dance naked in the streets, the disciple dances. Not that this nakedness is going to help in any way, but the gesture that he follows the master....

[Osho recounts the tale of Ibrahim, a Mohammedan king, whose task, before being initiated by a mystic, was to dance naked in the streets of his own kingdom, beating his head with a shoe.

He followed the master's order without demurring and returned a transformed being.... ]

So these things are just gestures. Not that by wearing orange you will become enlightened, not that by becoming naked or beating your head with the shoe you will become enlightened, but these are gestures of falling in tune with me. Even if I say something which has no logic in it.... Why not green, why not white, why not blue? No logic in it - it is illogical.

I could have chosen green, but that would have been the same. I had to choose some colour - but this is just a gesture to make you part of a family, to make you part of me, so you become associated with me, so your responsibilities are my responsibilities, so we are staked together, so our commitment is together.

If you want to think, think about it. But the better course is to jump without thinking - and the benefit will be far more. But if you feel like thinking, you can think for a few days.

[A sannyasin couple speak to Osho. The woman says she has difficulty adjusting to rest and work hours in her work and relationship.]

My feeling is that if your body rhythm does not like getting up late in the morning and going late to bed, then it is better to follow the body rhythm. Otherwise you will become irritated, and you will start taking revenge on him [the boyfriend]. It will be very unconscious revenge and that will destroy the whole beauty of the relationship. He will not even be able to know why you are getting irritated, why you said certain things. Because the body rhythm is very very important to understand. And it cannot be changed, that is one thing about it - there is no way to change the body rhythm. It settles the moment you are born.... You will never be able to change it.

[She answers: I don't know why I do this... not allow myself to have enough sleep - I think I must do this thing and this thing... especially things that you have given me.]

No, no - nothing. I give you this work: to sleep as much as you can... Now there is no problem; you have to follow my instructions.

So now this is work and you have to do it!

So just watch your rhythm. If you feel like going to bed early, then go early and get up early in the morning. And once you have understood what time suits you, it is better to be regular about it. If it is possible, then be regular; if sometimes it is not possible then it's okay, but don't make irregularity a normal routine.

And the body rhythm is more important than you are aware of. It creates many difficulties in relationship. People start trying to adjust to each other - rather than adjusting to their body rhythms, they start to adjust with each other, naturally. The wife thinks to adjust with the husband, the husband thinks to adjust with the wife - but this adjustment is impossible. So sooner or later they start taking revenge, and that is very unconscious. Small things can destroy beautiful things; very small things, not very big, just very small things can destroy.

So just listen to your body, and then adjust the relationship according to the body rather than adjusting the body according to the relationship. If it is difficult, if [he] feels to go to bed late, he can go. Mm? then see him in the day, meet him in the day. If it is not possible in the night, then let it be day. But first... and he has not to be forced either, mm? otherwise the other extreme can happen, that he has to go early with you and he has to get up early. That will disturb him.

And this is something, that whatsoever you do, there is no way to change the rhythm. The rhythm is a fixed thing It gets into your system the day you are born and it leaves you only the day you die.

Now much research has been done on body rhythm, and there seems to be no possibility to change it. It is something in the very cells; the cells are programmed. And it is beyond the conscious control.

You can force - one can force oneself to be awake or go to sleep and take a tranquiliser and force sleep - but you cannot change the inner structure of the cell, it is there.

Many experiments have been done on animals and on birds. There are birds who fall asleep as the sun sets. So this has been the understanding, that it is the sun: when the sun sets they feel that the darkness has come, they fall asleep. So they were put in artificial chambers and deceived. When it was night outside there was light in the chamber, and when it was day outside there was night in the chamber. They were there for months together. They became neurotic birds - they started committing suicide or killing each other - but the body rhythm could not be changed.

They would fall asleep while it was day in the chamber and they would become awake when it was night in the chamber. And of course it was very strange for their bodies to be awake in the night - they started feeling something eerie, something weird, and that started telling on their systems, and they became very irritated.

Many things happen when an animal becomes irritated, his sexuality becomes perverted. Animals become homosexual when their body is too irritated, or they start masturbating. Ordinarily they

are never mad, but they start becoming mad. Ordinarily birds never commit suicide, but in those chambers they tried to commit suicide; the whole thing became too heavy. And it was a simple thing, they just had to adjust their body rhythm - but what could they do? It is impossible, unless some day in the future they can change the very programme of the cell. It is not possible before that, and one should not try.

So simply follow your own rhythms - there is no obligation to adjust with the other - and then you will feel more loving. In fact, love gives freedom to the other to be the way he is - the way he feels happy, the way he feels blissful. Love gives freedom; it never forces the other to adjust to a certain artificial structure. Even if you cannot see each other as much, it is good, nothing wrong. Even seeing each other for a few hours is very good, but giving freedom to each other to be themselves is important.