Darshan 9 April 1976

[A sannyasin about his responsibilities as a father as he would be separating from his wife. His wife and he had arranged that the three boys would live with him, while the girl would live with her mother.]

Much will have to be done, because when the mother is not there, your responsibilities become greater, bigger. You will have to be both father and mother. But in a way it can be a great challenge and a growth for you.

When you are just a father, your innermost core is not involved in it... just the periphery. The father is a peripheral thing. It is institutional; it is not natural. Fathers exist only in human societies - society has created it. It has no natural instinct; it is just a conditioning. So when you are a father, nothing much is involved in it. When a woman becomes a mother, something tremendously meaningful has happened to her. But nothing much happens to a man who becomes a father.

For a woman it is almost a new birth. Not only the child is born; the mother is also born. The mother gives birth to the child, the child gives birth to the mother. Just before it, the woman was just a woman. Now she is a mother. It is something which is very difficult for a man to understand unless you are creative.

If you have given birth to a painting or poetry or something, then just a little glimpse can happen to you. When a poet has given birth to a poem, he feels tremendously happy. Nobody else can understand what has happened just by composing a poem. But it is not just a poem. Much was in turmoil within him, and the poem has settled many things.

The poem is only the outermost expression of something. Some deep harmony has happened in him. The poem is just an indication that something has fallen in line within his being. The poem

brings news to the world that a man has become a poet. It is just a very small fragment of the fragrance that has happened inside the poet. He is no more the same person. He is no ordinary mortal human being. He has competed with the gods. He has given birth to something . . . he has created.

But it is nothing compared to a woman when she becomes a mother - nothing. A poem is a poem.

The moment it is born it is already dead. When it is inside the poet it has life. The moment it is expressed it is a dead piece of furniture. You can hang it on the wall. You can throw it on the rubbish heap, or whatsoever you want, but it is no more alive.

When a woman gives birth to a child, it is life. When she looks into the eyes of the child, she looks into her own being. When the child starts growing, she grows with the child.

So up to now you have been just a father. It was a duty, but nothing much was involved. Now you will be both. You will have to be both - mother also. And if you can be a mother to your children, then don't be bothered about responsibilities - they will be fulfilled. Just start thinking in terms of being a mother. Become more feminine, more receptive.... You will have to become less and less a father, and more and more a mother. This is going to be a great challenge and a great transformation for you.

If you can use the opportunity, you can almost achieve to a great satori through it, a great samadhi.

Through it your inside will come to a reconciliation. The reconciliation will be within you - the man and the woman within you, the yin and the yang within you will come to a meeting, a crystallisation.

And by and by you will lose the notion of who you are - man or woman - because you will be more motherly, and yet you will be a father. This can become a very alchemical situation.

And my whole effort is always to give you an insight, in whatsoever situation you are in, that can become a point of growth. So just try to look at your children as if you are a mother. If you cannot do it for twenty-four hours, then at least for a few hours. And then catch hold of the man. Because it is totally different.

When you are a father you would like to dominate the children. You would like to make them like you. You will become dictatorial. When you are a mother you would like to give them freedom to be themselves. You will not impose yourself upon them. You will be a help in need, but your deepest desire and your prayer will be that they should become themselves. You will not be ambitious through them - a father is always. a mother, never.

She loves the child just for the being he or she is. There is no expectation. She is not going to fulfill any ambition through the child. In fact women are not ambitious at all. That is male aggression, male violence - doing something, proving oneself.

But you can divide your time. You can have a certain programme in your mind - that when the sun sets you will be a mother; up to sunrise. The whole day you can be a father, the whole night you be a mother. The woman is more like the night. She surrounds you... engulfs you... drowns you, and without huffing you, without even touching you. When darkness surrounds you, you cannot even touch it. It is there, but it is almost as if it is not. Its very presence is through absence.

So when you are a mother become as absent as possible. Don't try to prove anything. Just be a help - and that too, very indirectly. Don't think in terms of responsibility. Think in terms of inner growth. Once you think in terms of responsibility, duty, you are already moving into anxiety. You are already losing a great opportunity. You have taken a wrong step.

Responsibility - one feels burdened. Duty - one feels one has to do it. Duty is a dirty word, a four-letter word. Love, not duty. You enjoy and you love.

And enjoy the whole situation that has happened. Then someday you may feel grateful to your wife that she left and allowed you to become a mother; otherwise it would have been impossible. And not only in this case - in every situation in life, always try to find a way how to use it for growth, how to become more yourself through it.

A man is half and a woman is half. When both become one, the perfect man is born. And the whole is beautiful because it has grace. The whole is beautiful because it is at home. The whole is beautiful because it lacks nothing. The whole is beautiful because all the opposites have come to an inner reconciliation, a synthesis, a harmony. Then man is not a crowd but a crystallised being.

Then all the noises inside have fallen into an orchestra.

And once you know how, you can slip from man into woman, because the inner soul is neither - or both.

So drop the word duty, and forget all about responsibility. Love is enough.

And meditate deeply - that will make you strong enough to face this situation and to grow out of it, mm?

(to a new sannyasin) Forget the old name, mm? Just by dropping the old name, many things drop automatically. The moment you can think in a new language, the past drops as if it never belonged to you.

And every moment the past becomes a burden. One needs to be unburdened again and again and again. It is just as rubbish goes on accumulating in the house; one has to throw it out every day.

The same happens in the mind.

So this will be your new name: Ma Deva Pujan. Pujan means worship, deva means divine - divine worship, or worship of the divine.

[Pujan said that as she had heard of Osho through her husband, from whom she was estranged, she felt some resistance.]

It happens every day.... Because he has hurt you much, it is natural not to trust. And because he is my sannyasin, automatically one starts thinking about me also through him. But you can be directly related to me. [Your husband] need not be in between you and me. And always remember that nobody knowingly hurts anybody; it all happens in the unconscious.

Nobody wants to hurt anybody - but it happens, that's true. So never carry wounds. It is not only a question of [your husband. If you carry the wound and the hurt feeling, you will become incapable,

by and by, of loving and trusting - and that is bad. It is not only that [your husband] has hurt you - he has hurt love. Whenever you move in a love relationship again you will shrink, you will become afraid. Or you will move up to an extent, and not more than that. And that is bad. Persons come and go. One should never become distrustful of love.

Love is bigger than the whole world. One [husband], a thousand and one [husbands] come and go, but nobody should be allowed to disturb the trust in love. Because if that is allowed, you lose all meaning in life. Always remember that when one door doses, another door immediately opens. So don't go on sitting by the closed door. Look somewhere - one door has opened for you.

Life is always ready to give you more and more and more, but we become clingers. If we are thrown out of one house, we think that now there is no home. It may be that you are just being pushed from one house so that you can enter a palace. One thing is taken away so that you have space enough for another thing to enter.

Always trust life, and always remain open, flowing. Never carry wounds from the past. The gone is gone - why carry it? If somebody has given you love and pain, why remember the pain? Just remember the love that he gave.

Man is very very helpless. Even if you want to make somebody happy, some inner mechanism does not allow you to. Even sometimes you may have wanted to be with someone but something inside takes you away in spite of you - as if you are driven, possessed. I see so many people destroying their relationships. They cry and weep - they don't want to do it, but they feel helpless.

Remember that only a very small part of the mind is conscious - one tenth; nine tenths is unconscious. And everybody is ruled by the unconscious.

For example, a man falls in love with you. You think he falls in love with you? Something in his unconscious is stirred by you. That's why people say, 'We don't know why we have fallen in love.'

Hence the word 'fall' - because one is almost helpless; one cannot do anything about it. Something from the unconscious arises and clouds the whole being.

[Osho went on to say that we find rationalisations for why we are particularly attracted to someone - but they are just rationalisations, for the ego feels unsettled if it can't find any reason for why one fell in love. One day someone has attracted something in your unconscious so that you believe you are in love, and the next day somebody else stirs something in your unconscious - and again you are in love. You feel guilty, but you are helpless.... ]

This is how man is - almost a mechanism, not yet conscious.

And that is my whole effort: to make you so conscious that unconsciousness no more dominates you. You become master of your being.

Then you love a person because you want to, not because the unconscious forces you. Your love has a totally different quality to it. You possess it - you are not possessed by it. Then love can be a life-long thing, or even can go beyond life, can become eternal.

In the East, and particularly in India, where we have been working with human consciousness for so long - for almost ten thousand years - we have tried, and succeeded in many cases, with a couple dying and then being reborn again in the next life and falling in love again. We have managed that for a series of lives the couple remains the same. But that has to be very conscious, absolutely conscious.

Right now you don't know. You may go out on the street and you see a man and immediately something stirs in you. And you are not in control, so what to do? You are in love, madly in love. You try to control it, you try to avoid it, you want to go away, but something like a magnet pulls you. This is what is happening.

In the West, because people are so free now, and everybody is moving in a permissive society, the unconscious has full play. I don't see that any permanent marriage is going to be possible in any way soon; it will be almost impossible. If a couple remains for two, three years - enough; more will not be possible. Three years seems to be the most, the average limit.

But don't be angry and don't complain... and don't have a grudge. It has nothing to do with [your husband. [your husband is helpless. He is a beautiful person but as helpless as you are!

And now you are here I will take away the whole of the past, mm? Just be here for a few days... be totally here. And you will be going a total4 different person. The person who had come is not going to be the one who goes - somebody else.

[The mother of a sannyasin says: I came here because my son is here... I came here angry at you for taking him away. I'm not angry now. But I want to be able to let go of him.]

Very very good!

I understand. It is always a problem. One day or other every mother has to face it.

[Osho went on to describe the various stages of separation of the child from the mother. (See 'Be Realistic: Plan For A Miracle', Monday March 15th.)]

This is a natural process - hard. Hard for the mother. Hard for the child also, because he would not like to hurt you in any way. But one has to go away from the mother.

It is just as if a seed falls under a big tree - it will not be able to grow. The seed has to go far away.

Every tree finds a way to send its seeds far away, so that they can find a ground of their own and be independent.

Rather than fighting with him, simply let him go. It will be difficult, hard. Cry and weep - but let him go. And if you allow him to totally let go, he will never go so far away. Because when a mother allows, the whole point of fight is not there. When a mother fights, then the fight arises.

That is part of being a mother. And a mother is expected to be wiser than the child - has to be. So if he is going to do something foolish he can be pardoned. But you cannot be pardoned that easily.

You have to allow him. And I don't say that it will not hurt. It will hurt, but life hurts in many ways.

That too is part of growth.

You will become stronger if you can let him go. So simply let him go - and help. Cooperate with his going. Then he will not go anywhere; he can remain near you. He can remain with you - and free.

[To her son:] Give her a good fight, mm? (laughter) That is going to help her. If you give her a good fight and she allows you, she will fulfill her motherhood. And if she allows you to go, then there is no point. How can you fight?

But don't relax too soon - otherwise her motherhood will remain unfulfilled. It is difficult for you to fight with a mother. Who wants to? It is fighting with yourself, with your innermost core of being. It is as if you are cutting your own body. Who wants to fight with a mother?

But if you don't fight when the need is there, you will never be independent. And if you don't fight, you will never give her an opportunity to let go. If you give a good fight,.you are fulfilling your sonhood; if she lets you go she is fulfilling her motherhood. And if both are perfect and total, both will feel the fulfillment. And then you come closer - closer than ever. A new sort of closeness will arise. You will become friends. And to find a mother as a friend, or to find a son as a friend, is one of the greatest and most beautiful things in the world. You cannot find such a thing anywhere else.

And this is my whole work, that I have to say to you to give her a good fight and say to her to let you go, mm? (laughter) [The Tao group is present. The group leader said: The energy of the group was beautiful and people went very deep. But I just don't seem to have any energy.

He described a spinal complaint he had developed... Osho suggested he see the appropriate doctor, but also said he felt Rolfing might help.]

Because I have been watching your mind, and my feeling is that your mind goes up and down so much that it can create trouble in the body. The body cannot change as much as the mind. The mind can change in a second, but the body is very slow-going, very orthodox. It does not change so easily and so fast. If you change your mind so many times, the body has to linger, and sometimes the alignment will be lost.

For example you are happy. The body parallels your happiness - the body is happy. Then you become unhappy. The body cannot change so fast. It remains happy, you become unhappy, the adjustment is lost. By the time the body becomes unhappy, you become happy again; again the adjustment is not there. So Rolfing may be helpful.

And the second thing I will suggest is that even if you cannot remain happy for long, remain unhappy, but remain that for a long time; make it permanent. Give the body a chance to adjust.

[The group leader said he did feel high when people were working in the group, but when the group was finished, he went down.]

Then that may also be one of the things to be considered - because in the West you were working continuously. Here sometimes you work and sometimes there is no work. That too can create a misalignment in the body. If a person has become accustomed to activity and activity brings you happiness, then inactivity will destroy you.

There are types. There are inactive people to whom activity is just a burden. They carry it somehow, but they become unhappy when they are active. When they are not doing anything they are happy.

Then there are the active types; they are happy only when they are doing something. They are the ones who are creative.

[The groupleader said he was only high when someone was actually working when he was in touch with their energy, but that after that his energy would go right down.

Osho said that he should then simply sit near people when meditations were happening. or join another group and just sit in it, inactive. Osho said this would revitalise and nourish him.]

[A sannyasin says: I'm losing understanding.]

That's very very good! (laughter) You had understanding before?...

You must be losing the thought of understanding.

One can never lose understanding. But everybody thinks that he understands. Then one day when understanding starts, you feel as if you are losing understanding. If you think your illness as health, then when illness disappears, you will think your health is disappearing.

Very good! Lose it! It is not understanding. That which can be lost is not understanding. That which cannot be lost, whatsoever you do, which is impossible to lose, only that is understanding. So all that can be lost is borrowed. Drop it - the sooner the better! It is better to be ignorant but to be on one's own than to have borrowed knowledge and understanding and information. All rot, mm? Get out of it. And it is losing itself, so that's very good.

You are getting better every day, mm? There is nothing to worry about.

[A sannyasin says: Everything is so new and I'm feeling like I've never felt before.... ]

Very good! Much more is going to happen - just remain open. Opening is just the beginning. You have opened the door, now much is going to happen... much you have never dreamt about, much that you cannot imagine. All that you know is irrelevant. When the door is open, something from the unknown comes in.

So just remain open, and enjoy the very feeling of openness. Get in touch more and more with your feelings. Forget thinking completely. Let the whole energy move through the heart. That is the way of God.

Mind is the way of man, and heart is the way of God.

Move more in feelings. Trust them more and they will lead you into mysteries - which are the real goal of life.