Darshan 29 April 1977

Deva means god or divine and pashianti means clarity, vision. capacity to see. Capacity to clearly see god - that will be the meaning of the whole name.

Everybody is born capable; somewhere on the way we lose the capacity. Every child comes with a very clear vision of god, but by and by we force him to forget; we force him to remember the world and forget god. We change his gestalt: we try to focus him on things - money, power, prestige, ambition. By and by, we orient him towards matter; and his orientation towards the divine becomes more and more foggy, unclear, and is lost.

Somewhere near the age of two or three, the vision is no more there. That's why if you try to remember your past, you can remember at the most up to the age of three - at the most, otherwise up to the age of four. It is very rare to remember beyond the age of three because at that moment your gestalt changed: you became focussed on matter, you started speaking a different language, you started becoming alien to your own being, you started being unnatural, patterned, so a rift, a great rift happened.

The child was natural, spontaneous, the child was living moment to moment, the child had an authenticity. He was never false, he was never untrue; he would never deceive anybody. He had no politics, he was not yet a politician; he had his original face.

By somewhere around the age of two to three he started wearing a mask, he became a human being. That is the fall Christians talk about. Up to that age he was part of god, he lived in the garden of eden.

Adam was expelled near about the age three. Every adam is expelled - and it is not the serpent who seduces him, it is the society. It is not the devil - it is the priest, the parent, the civilisation. It is the

collective mass that seduces every child. In the name of education, in the name of training, in the name of doing it for his own good, a great rift happens. Suddenly the whole dimension changes, the child is no more spontaneous. He starts feeling awkward, embarrassed, starts feeling shy, ashamed.

Mm? that is the story of Adam's expulsion - when he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the first thing he remembered was that he was naked. He started feeling ashamed because he was naked.

Watch the day that a child starts feeling ashamed of his nakedness: that is the day that the rift is happening. That is the time when the child will fall from his divine innocence into human knowledge, into human calculation, human cleverness, cunningness. That is the meaning of the fruit of the tree of knowledge: the child has become a knower, now he knows.

And the most ancient meaning of the word 'know' is sexual. In the old books it is said 'Adam knew his wife.' The day a child becomes aware of his sexuality, knowledge has happened. The day a child recognises that he is a boy or she is a girl, or that he is meant to be a boy, meant to be a girl, this way and that, and starts thinking of himself as a sexual being, the child has entered into knowledge.

All knowledge starts with sexual knowledge, all knowledge is based on sexual knowledge, and then innocence is no more there.

I am saying this to you because sannyas means falling back into that innocence. again.

Sannyas means again entering into the garden of eden.

Sannyas means that we have known and recognised the fact that the society has corrupted us - now we will not allow the society to corrupt us any more. Now we will live out of innocence and not out of calculation.

That's what sannyas is all about, that now we will trust rather than doubting. Even if we are deceived, it is worth it - but we will trust! Even if a thousand and one times we are deceived, our trust will not be broken. Now we are going to stake everything on trust and with that stake.... It is a gamble, it is the most adventurous journey possible that a man can ever think of.

Once that stake is made clearly and consciously, once that commitment is made clearly and consciously, suddenly a change of gestalt. Again you are no more focussed on matter - you are unfocussed from matter and your focus changes towards god. It is a sudden illumination, a satori.

Sannyas has infinite significance. It is not a change only of the clothes - it is a change of your inner being. It is a new dimension entering into a new world - new in a sense because you have forgotten about it, otherwise it is the same old world that you were born in.

So this is just symbolic, the name, and I can see the possibility of the new gestalt arising very soon.

It is one of the most beautiful names I am giving to you.

Deva means divine, archan means prayer - a divine prayer. Prayer is something that you cannot do, but that you can be. It is not a question of doing, it is a question of being. A man can become

a prayer. Nobody can do prayer - what will you do? But one can become prayer, one can be prayer-full.

The idea that prayer can be done has misled people. It has created the sunday religion, that once a week you go to the church and do prayer and you are finished with religion. That's a very easy way to get rid of religion. You feel good: you have done the prayer, or at the most if you are very sincere, you can do it every night before you go to bed. You can just say a few ritualistic words which have been taught and which you have learned like a parrot. It is parrot-like, it is not prayer.

You can repeat it mechanically, fall into bed and go to sleep. You can finish it in a hurry, but it doesn't change your being, it doesn't change your style, it doesn't bring any light to your life, it does not create any love.

If this type of prayer was really creating love then the world would have been totally different: there would have been no Christian wars, Mohammedans would have been peaceful people, then Hindus would not have fought and killed. But that has not been the case.

Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians and all, they have been killing each other - and they are all people of prayer! They all go to the temple and to the mosque and to the church. In fact they fight because of the mosque, because of the church, because of the temple; they fight because they are people of prayer! This is absurd, this is patent nonsense - if any nonsense can be patent, this is it!

Prayer has not changed the world - that simply means that prayer has not existed yet. There have just been a few people sometimes, here and there, few and far between. Those few people have really been the solace of humankind, but their way of prayer is not of ritual, it is not parroting. They live it, they move into it, they breathe it!

So when I am giving you the name 'deva archan', it is an indication to be more prayerful.

Walking, walk prayerfully. Talking, talk prayerfully - because you are talking to a god! Listening to the wind passing through the trees, listen carefully - because you are listening to god. Listen prayerfully - because all is god, and all ground is holy ground, so each step has to be taken very very carefully, very lovingly, very respectfully. So whatsoever you do, do it prayerfully.

You are always in the temple - the whole earth is a church of god! We are never out of it anywhere; we are always in it.

This remembrance - -that god is everywhere - will change you.