Darshan 21 April 1976

[A sannyasin said that he had decided some time ago to dedicate his life to music. He went on to say that he played drums and had been part of a group in Australia.]

Really devote yourself to it... religiously devote yourself. Sacrifice your whole being.

Music is a very subtle meditation. The seven notes of music are concerned with the seven chakras of the body and each chakra has its own note. If you concentrate on that chakra, you will start hearing that note arising within your body. The second chakra has two notes, the third, three. One is important, the other two are just part of it but create a harmony. It goes on becoming a greater harmony, rising higher with each chakra. On the seventh chakra it is an orchestra.

Each chakra has its own form, its own music, its own taste, its own smell. The deeper you move inside yourself, the more you find the whole world, because if it is not within you, you cannot see it without either. Something is needed to correspond.

Your eyes can see things because your eyes correspond with the light outside. In fact they are part of the sun. That's why you can see in the light and you cannot see in the dark. Your eyes are the most responsive part of your body for light; your ears, for sound.

We know only five things in the world because we have five senses. Not that there are only five things - there are millions - but we can know only that which is also within us; otherwise there is no way. to know it. If a man loses his capacity to smell, the whole world becomes smellless and all perfumes are alike; good or bad, the odour is alike.

If you lose the sense of taste, as it happens after a long fever, then everything is tasteless. If you become deaf, there is no sound in the world, and if you are blind there is no light. Whatsoever you

know, you know through something that exists within you. Everything can become an inner growth and an inner discovery. Music can become tremendously helpful, but then one has to become completely lost in it.

So play the drums... and just remember one thing: by and by lose the player completely so that there are only drums and playing, and the player is no more. You will start hearing the drums within yourself. You will be playing outside on the drums and something corresponding to it will start happening within you. Then for the first time you will become a drummer. Then you are in tune.

Music was basically found out by meditators, by deep inner investigators, and they have used it for centuries. The quality of the mind determines what centre it will hit. Jazz, modern music, hits the sex centre immediately. It is sexual, pronouncedly sexual. It excites, thrills... almost massages the sex centre from within. It makes people more erotic. If this can happen, then the other thing is also possible.

There are a few compositions in the world which can hit the hara and a person can die immediately.

It makes people so silent that even life starts disappearing, because life is also a tension. Death is absolutely non-tense. Only death is absolute relaxation. Life cannot be absolute relaxation.

It can be, at the most, relative - more or less tense, but it will remain tense. So there is music that can create such a deep response that a person simply disappears.

In India there is a story of a great musician. He had become one hundred years old and there was great celebration. He had a thousand disciples from all over the country and they all came to pay their respects. Maybe this was going to be his last birthday and he would not be among them again.

They had brought many things. Even kings were among his disciples, emperors - very rich people - and rich gifts were there. A beggar, who was one of his disciples, had also come.

Somebody asked, just jokingly, what he had brought as a present. He said, 'I have brought myself.'

Then he went to the master and played on his sitar. He died there playing. The master had even yelled just in the middle, 'Stop!' but by that time he was gone.

So play deeply, meditate daily. Devote your whole life to music... devote it completely. Surrender to it. And don't think of it as a hobby. Hobby is a profane word. Think of it as prayer, and go to your drums with deep respect. First bow down to them... they are the doors... and be respectful to them.

If you are not feeling good, if you are feeling angry, don't play. If you are feeling sexual, don't play. Choose the most silent, blissful moments to play, so as the playing becomes more and more associated with blissful moments, it will create more bliss.

If you play when you are in anger you may start hating the drums. Subtle anger, catharsis will be there. It may be good for catharsis, but not good for growth; not good for the inner growth of musical sensitivity.

In India, real musicians will play only in the morning, at three o'clock, when everything is absolutely silent and rested and the whole cosmos is full of energy and waiting for the sun to rise. Ordinarily

musicians go on playing late into the night - almost a music marathon - but then that music is more or less sexual and erotic. Just early in the morning is best.

And when you get in tune with it then any moment is right, mm?

Anand means bliss and sudas means a very good servant... a good servant of bliss. Let that be your goal; nothing else is important. Whatsoever gives you bliss, serve it. And wherever you can find bliss just bow down, surrender.

Sudas means a deep surrendering... a deep surrendering to bliss.

[Sudas said there were many things in his life he felt he had been a servant to - for example, taste.

Osho said that there was no need to be concerned about that because these things would start disappearing of their own accord.]

Even the effort to drop them is not needed. Just a little understanding is enough; just a ray of understanding and Things start changing.

This is my observation, that one should never make an effort to change anything, because that effort is going to make things difficult rather than easy. It is the same mind that makes the effort.

For example your mind is attached to something, and now the same mind tries to detach itself. At the most it can repress, but it can never become a real detachment. For the real detachment to happen, the mind has to understand why the attachment is there. There is no need to be in a hurry to drop it; rather, see why it is there. Just look into the mechanism, how it works, how it has come in: what circumstances, what unawareness has helped it to be there. Just understand everything around it. Don't be in a hurry to drop it, because people who are in a hurry to drop things don't give enough time to understand them.

Once you understand, suddenly you see that it is slipping out of your hands; so there is no need to drop it. Nothing is there for any other reason than a misunderstanding. Something has been misunderstood, hence it is there. Understand it rightly - it disappears. All that is creating trouble is just like darkness. Bring light to it - and simply light, because with the very presence of light, darkness is no more there.

Just float with me, mm? If you can float with me a little longer, the mind goes away by itself.

[To another sannyasin Osho said to bear three things in mind on returning to the West.

First he said that when the fear of death came - and it was going to come soon - he should go into it and not be afraid, because this barrier had to be passed by every meditator... ]

And the second thing. I am always available to you wherever you are, so have a small room in the house - a very small room will do - and keep it just for me. Don't do anything else in there.

You can listen to my talks and hang my picture there, and I am going to give you a box, so keep that there. Whenever you want to be with me there, listen, read, meditate, but let that small place be just

for me. Soon you will feel that it has become tremendously charged. Whenever you need me, move into that room and I will be there.

And the third thing to remember is that many things happen through meditation, but you have to implement them in your life, otherwise they disappear. A certain experience flowers, you see something - try to implement it in your life.

If you feel very loving, then be loving; don't keep it to yourself. Somehow relate it to people. If you relate, it will grow. If you keep it to yourself, it will disappear because it needs roots somewhere. If you feel like sharing, share; don't just go on postponing it. Whatsoever happens inside, try, make every effort, to do the same outside also.

That's how a religious style of life is created. But first it should happen on the inside, and the outer should follow like a shadow. One has to remember the outer. If you forget about it, you become lopsided. Many things go on happening inside and you never implement them so they disappear.

You have to give them roots in the earth.

So whatsoever experiences come, find out ways and means to bring them into your real life. If you are feeling a deep gratefulness during meditation... suddenly one day you feel God showering on you and you feel grateful... then remember that and feel grateful with whomsoever you come in contact - as if all the forms are of God. Remain grateful for as long as you can remember. If you forget, okay. When you remember again, feel grateful for small things.

Somebody just smiled at you - feel grateful. Somebody said hello - feel grateful, because there is no need and no necessity that somebody should say hello. If you can watch and hear and feel grateful, you will almost hear it as if it is coming from God. It is coming from Him. He uses many people as His vehicles.

So whatsoever experiences happen, you can always find a way to make it part of your ordinary life, the real life. Religion should not remain fictitious, and it should not become just part of your dreams.

It should be brought to actual reality.

Once it comes to the actual reality you can forget about it and it will continue. It will hover around you... it will become your aura and you will always be in contact with it.