Darshan 2 May 1976

Santan means silence and anand means bliss. These two things have to be remembered. Be as peaceful and silent as possible. Let it become a climate around you. Walking, feel as if you are surrounded by a deep silence.

In the beginning it will just be 'as if', but every idea becomes a reality, and every reality was just an idea in the beginning. Sitting, feel as if you are surrounded by silence and peace. You will forget again and again. Just remember again, and don't be worried about forgetting; it's natural. Whenever you remember again, start feeling it. Relax... feel the silence surrounding you. Out of silence, by and by some moments of bliss will arise. When they arise, sway with them, let your energy flow with them.

[A visitor said that in the Encounter group there had been much violence directed at persons, instead of on a pillow. He himself had much violence and had hurt someone. He was very shocked and had decided to leave. He felt this structure could lead to someone getting killed. He had decided to leave the ashram.]

No, it has never happened, and it is a very rare possibility. There are a few things to be understood.

The society has conditioned you to repress violence not against pillows, not against the wall - society has repressed your violence against persons, so pillows are a very poor substitute. The whole mechanism of the Encounter group is to relieve you of all the repressions that society has given to you.

I understand your problem because there can be so much violence repressed that it can become almost murderous. But there is another in-built mechanism in the human mind. If you go on repressing your violence, one day it can explode and can be murderous, but that will be unconscious.

If you allow this explosion consciously - and that is what an Encounter group is supposed to be for:

to consciously allow it - you will go to a certain extent and suddenly compassion will arise. That is an in-built mechanism in all animals and in man also, but man has completely forgotten about it.

Have you ever seen any animal killing its own species? No animal kills its own kind - only man.

No dog will kill another dog. They fight, they can fight very violently, but they will never kill. They will go up to a certain extent. One dog may hold another dog's throat in his mouth and you will be thinking that now he is going to kill the other dog, but at a certain moment the whole energy turns back; something stops the dog from within.

The same happens in human beings if repressions are allowed. And that's the whole theory behind Encounter groups. If you are allowed your violence, you may feel that it is going to be too much, that you can murder. But you cannot murder because you are a human being and you also carry, howsoever repressed, an inner mechanism that will not allow you. You will go to a certain extent, almost to the brink, and suddenly a compassion will arise in you and you will see the whole absurdity of it. This person is completely innocent. You may be carrying violence against other persons - maybe against your father, your mother, brother, enemies, friends, society - but not against this person who has accidentally met you in an Encounter group.

So you may go to a point and then suddenly - and it happens only when you are at the extreme point - the inner mechanism that has been non-functioning, starts functioning and you see the whole nonsense of it and a deep compassion arises. Many people become afraid, but nowhere, not even in the West, has any Encounter group come across a murder yet.

Just two or three days ago I was reading the memoirs of one of the very perceptive men in the West, Fritz Perls, who started Gestalt therapy. He was a very strong man; tall, well-built and very powerful.

One very tiny man in a group told him that he had an obsession that some day or other he would kill someone by suffocating them. He said this came to his mind so much that he was almost afraid to come near people because any provocation and he might suffocate and kill them.

So Perls said, 'I will lie down here and you suffocate me, kill me. Be finished with your obsession - you have carried it too long!' Perls lay down and the man started suffocating him, holding his throat and pressing it really hard. Even Fritz Perls says that there was a moment when he thought this man was really going to kill him! He went to the very extreme. But just on the verge, suddenly he relaxed and started crying. Compassion came to his mind.

The whole encounter philosophy believes in this compassion within you. It is a tremendous trust in you. The society does not trust you - that's why it teaches you to repress. Society condemns you and kills you as a murderer, as a thief, an immoral man, a rapist, and a thousand and one things. It thinks only of the worst possibility and it goes on repressing you. The encounter philosophy believes and trusts in your deep humanity, in the divinity of your innermost grace, in the dignity of your being, so it allows.

Risk is there. Sometimes if somebody is really mad, maybe out of one million, there is a chance that somebody may commit a murder. But that risk has to be taken, otherwise the whole therapeutic work of Encounter is stopped. That risk has to be taken. It has not happened and I don't see it ever happening. It is just a theoretical possibility. I have never seen a man go so completely mad.

Even the mad people in your mad asylums are not so mad. They have compassion, and even more compassion than your ordinary humanity which is outside the asylums.

You have repressed much and it came to be provoked, and you became afraid; that's natural. But I feel that if you had continued, the compassion was bound to come. I will tell those people to be a little more alert, but too much caution cannot be used, otherwise the whole point is lost. Then the group becomes almost a part of your society. Then the group also represses you and is no more therapeutic.

Whatsoever the society has done to you, the group is trying to undo. It is risky certainly, but the risk is because of society and its repressions, not because of the group.

If the whole world functions on the philosophy of Encounter, there will be no murder, no violence, no war. But it is not, so there is murder, war, and every violence going on, and we are prepared for that violence.

Moving in an Encounter group, violence sometimes arises, but it is dearly faced. We have a given society with a given structure. It has corrupted your being and created such barriers that your inner functioning is stopped. Man has lost the touch and connectedness with his being.

[The visitor asks for advice to improve. He has done TM meditation in the past.]

TM is a repressive method. That may be one of the causes why the Encounter created trouble. It is a repressive method and it gives you a false type of silence. It gives you a certain peace, but it doesn't change you. You remain in turmoil deep down, and just on the surface you have a painted side.

It will make you more efficient, but efficiency is not a value at all. If you are a murderer, you will become a more efficient murderer. If you are an exploiter, you will exploit more efficiently. In the West, efficiency is thought to be a great value.

TM can give you an efficiency, and of course a certain illusion of improvement because it is very ego-enhancing. You feel more controlled. Now I understand what the problem was in the group and how you could not manage to be in it or benefited by it.

[The visitor then said he has long training in Aikido, and that to express violence is against Aikido training and principles.]

But the training is not simply not to attack. The training is dropping the idea of attacking and this was the situation to know whether your training has worked or not. When nobody is beating you and you don't attack, it is meaningless. When somebody is attacking you and you remain alert, you keep the flame of alertness and don't attack, only then is the training and discipline worth something. Then you have learned something; otherwise it is useless. When nobody is attacking you, what is the point? The provocation is the test.

It will be difficult for me to suggest anything because all my methods are cathartic. You have to bring all that is inside, out, so that you are relieved and the tension is completely lost. You should not carry anything.

Both these trainings are in a way dangerous, because they both try to make you very disciplined and controlled, but you are sitting on a volcano. Both falsify your being because they don't allow your natural spontaneity to function. If you are continuing in them, don't ask my advice because that will create more contradictions in you.

But if you ask my advice, I'll suggest you do Dynamic meditation. Only that will help. But you are going so soon. You needed to be here for at least a few days to do one camp. One camp would have given you much insight.

Some day or other you will be in great trouble because you look very repressed, controlled, disciplined. It gives a good feeling and people will appreciate you. It gives you a personality. That's why control became so important all over the world and people have tried to control themselves.

The whole thing that I am doing here is showing a way to remain in uncontrol and yet disciplined, uncontrolled and yet aware. Then there is a beauty. If you are simply controlled and not aware, you are already dead and all your sensitivity will be lost. If you do Dynamic meditation for at least three months, you will see things disappearing and a totally different quality will happen to you. You will be silent, aware - with no control and yet in control because there is nothing to control.

There are two different types of control: a person who has many things to control and is controlled, and another person who has nothing to control, so is controlled. He is completely empty and void and quiet inside.

I will suggest you do few other groups in the West - Encounter, marathons, Gestalt, Bio-energetics.

TM is just useless, but if you are feeling good, continue.

[The previous visitor's wife said she had also been doing TM but had not found it helpful.]

TM can help a certain type of peacefulness. It is not very deep and it is not worth much, but if you are not getting into anything, you can try it. You have misunderstood the whole point.

Boredom is part of it. The mantra is meant to create boredom, because when the mind is completely bored it stops the inner chattering. It is just as when a small boy is not going to sleep and the mother sings a lullaby so the child starts feeling bored; the same line is repeated again and again and again.

The child wants to escape from there, but where can he escape to? He escapes into sleep.

TM is nothing but a lullaby. You can use a certain mantra or word continuously and you create a lullaby within you. Now there is no escape from it because you yourself are doing it. It is not the radio that you can turn off, or the traffic noise against which you can dose the windows. You yourself are doing it so there is no escape. If you go on doing it, doing it, the mind starts feeling bored. The mind is always interested in something new. It is not interested in repetition. If you go on repeating you will slip into a sort of sleep - that's what they call meditation.

That sort of sleep is artificial. It is basically a hypno-sleep. In Yoga we call it tandra: artificially created sleep. But it gives rest. Nothing is wrong in it. If you simply want sleep and rest, it will give it to you, but you have to try it for at least three months continuously, every day, twice a day.

If you cannot get into TM, you cannot get into anything else because it is the most superficial meditation there is. I will suggest that you get into it because if you cannot, it will be difficult for you to get into anything else.

Dynamic meditation is a totally different thing. It is not interested in making you silent. No. First it is interested in making you open. It may take many weeks for you to open, and then all the rubbish that you have been carrying has to be thrown out. It is dirty work, but if one really wants to be clean it has to be done. Cleaning is always dirty work, but if you want a clean and new being inside, you do it. If you cannot even do TM, then you will not be able to do Dynamic.

So try TM first and be finished with it. When a certain little silence comes to you, then only will you be able to do some harder method which will really relieve you of your tensions. He (indicating her husband) needs to go beyond TM; you need to go into it. But try, mm? It will come.

[A sannyasin says: I seem to like problems... I seem to always manage to create them.... but the trouble is I can't stop it]

No, no, I'm not saying to stop it. Create problems and enjoy it, but know it is you who is creating them. It is your game, so play it.

Nothing is wrong in it if you play knowingly. Everything is a game. If you play it knowingly you are not affected by it. U you like creating problems and solving them, very good... very intelligent (laughter).

Create bigger problems and more complicated so that it becomes more and more difficult to solve them.

In English we translate the indian word 'maya' as illusion. It comes from the latin root 'ludere' which means to play with, a game. The english word 'illusion' means playing a game. It does not mean the unreal, but simply to play a game. That is exactly the meaning of maya - to play a game.

So play it willingly. I am not saying to stop it. What will you do if you stop it? Even God cannot stop it! (laughter) But have good and beautiful games. You are the creator - why not have beautiful and more aesthetic games? Enjoy decorating them and making them more complicated. Make them so complicated that even you cannot solve them - and you have made them! Do it deliberately. The whole thing is how to do things deliberately.

For example somebody stutters. I tell him to do it deliberately, consciously, to stutter more, to exaggerate it. It happened once that a student was brought to me and I told him to do it deliberately and he couldn't. He tried hard but he couldn't.

Once you start enjoying a problem, you have already killed it because the whole thing was that the problem was heavy on you. It was creating trouble for you. Now you are enjoying it so the trouble is no more there. You have taken away the very ground and the problem will be dangling in a vacuum...

it will fall by itself.

[The Tathata group is present. One group member says: I had this terrible realization that I've been totally false and fake for as long as I can remember. I felt slightly suicidal about it.]

To realise that one's whole life has been fake, false, is a very shattering experience. The whole life collapses and suddenly you are nowhere, the whole identity gone. You were clinging to it and thinking it a great treasure and it proved to be just rubbish. It is natural that the stomach feels nauseous, numb. You have been through death. So it is perfectly good - you are still alive!

(warmly) Come here... come here. Mm! The group has been really significant for you. Very few people go to that extent of realisation. People go a little bit, and that too almost intellectually. They say, 'Yes, I understand that I have been a fake,' but this is not felt; it is still in the head. It is again a new fakeness. It has not been understood physiologically... not in depth. They have not felt the tremor. Once you feel the tremor, this sickness will come. This sickness is a sign that you have passed through death. Just take a little rest for two or three days and you will come out completely new and fresh.

Don't get into the old pattern again because it is very tempting. You have practised it so long that it has almost become second nature and almost robot-like. You have put your whole life into it so it will tempt you again, because without it you will have to be more aware. Without it you will feel a little haphazard. Without it you feel less efficient and you will continuously feel the need to think and be aware of where you are going, what you are doing, what is happening. The mind will say, 'Why bother so much? Just take back the old cloak, and hide in it. Cover yourself under the old blanket and everything will be okay and as it always has been.'

Don't listen to the mind.

It. has been a really shattering experience - that's how it should be for everyone. This sickness is very healthy. It simply shows that the system is trying to throw out all that is toxic, poisonous. So don't take any medicine, simply rest.

[A sannyasin said he realised he had been continuously depressed over the last two years; and lying to himself and his girlfriend. He would like to be able to 'rub out' those two years.]

You have come to an insight but you have not been able to absorb it as he (the previous sannyasin) has. You have seen it but you still want to reject it, and that's creating the trouble. You have not accepted it. If you don't accept it, you want to erase it. If you accept it, what is the point of erasing it?

If it has been so, it has been. How can the past be erased? It can only be understood. Accept it, and once you accept through understanding it is erased because then it becomes just like a nightmare, nothing else. It was a dream that you saw.

Once you understand, you are out of it. But this very effort and the idea of how to erase it, shows that you have not accepted it. You are still rejecting it and still trying to somehow convince yourself that it has not existed, that it is not part of you - maybe just an accident, chance, coincidence, but it was not essential to you, it never belonged to you. You were carrying it but it was not essentially part of you. That's what is creating your puzzle.

So don't try to erase it and don't try to reject it. Don't try to say that it never existed. Don't even wish it because now nothing can be done; it has happened. Whatsoever has happened cannot unhappen.

We cannot move time back. But there is a way to move ahead in time with such deep insight that whatsoever has happened in the past has been used and integratedly used.

For example you were sad for two years, and now you recognise the fact and accept the facticity of it. You understand it without any rejection, condemnation. That understanding will change your future. You will never be depressed again in the way you have been in the past. And if your future changes, that's the real change.

And what will you do by changing the past? You can be hypnotised and given the suggestion that these two years never existed. The suggestion can be given so deeply that you will forget all about these two years and that they even existed. But that is not going to help. You will commit the same mistake again and again. Your future will be a repetition of the past that you have forgotten.

I would not like to erase them. I would like to focus on them. Bring your total awareness to the past. This has been your life. If it was wrong, one has to look at it deeply, very deeply, so it is never repeated. The past is meaningful only if you understand it; then you don't repeat it. They say about history that it has to be learned so we don't repeat it. Otherwise we will commit the same mistake again and again.

It has been good but you are still struggling. You don't want to accept it.

[Another group member said he had imagined part of the group structure was not to sleep at night, and at the end of the group he was shattered.]

You overdo things... that too is a subtle ego. The ego is always overdoing because it is always trying to perform, to prove things - if not to others, then to oneself. You need a little relaxation.

Overdoing is not going to help. Your top-dog is too strong and it goes on torturing the under-dog.

The under-dog wanted to sleep but the top-dog was not willing. The top-dog always enjoys some type of domination. It feels good and ego-enhancing that you will not sleep, will not eat, you go on a fast, or you stand in the sun. The top-dog is always masochistic.

Always listen to the under-dog. That is the real oppressed human being. This top-dog is just a sucker, an exploiter. Whenever you run into any conflict, decide in favour of the under-dog. If you have to decide whether to go to the movie or to the meditation, if the under-dog wants to go to the movie, go to the movie and forget about meditation.

Never give any chance to that top-dog to become any stronger because the under-dog is your nature.

Try to become more ordinary. You are trying to become extraordinary - that is creating the trouble.

You are doing the Tao group next? That will be good because it will not be overdoing. Just really relax in it and float. And if you want to fall asleep, fall down then and there, but don't overdo that!

[A assistant said he had given massage, and disappeared into it. However, afterwards much aggression came up.

Osho suggested that after he had completed his massage, He should immediately take a shower and while doing so, imagine that all anger and violence was being washed away. He should recommend that the people he works on do the same too, immediately the massage is over... ]

While you are doing massage, it is not one-way traffic. The energy is not only moving from you; it is also moving from the other person to you, because the contact is for both.

If the other person starts catharting, he will be releasing much energy and you will absorb it. You will feel violent or angry for no reason. Massage stirs many things inside and if it is really deep, and if you become possessed, it stirs many things. One has to be alert.

[Massage is available at the ashram through two sannyasins. Osho said, at the introduction of massage into the ashram:]

Massage is something that you can start learning but you never finish. It goes on and on, and the experience becomes continuously deeper and deeper, higher and higher.

Massage is one of the most subtle arts - and it is not only a question of expertise. It is more a question of love. Learn the technique and then forget it. Just feel, and move by feeling. When you learn deeply, ninety percent of the work is done by love, ten percent by the technique. By just the very touching, a loving touch, something relaxes in the body.

Massage is needed in the world because love has disappeared.

[Another group member said: Since the group I've been enjoying myself very much. Thank you!]

That's very good. Enjoy - and don't feel guilty about it, mm? People start feeling guilty when they enjoy because everybody has been taught that there is something wrong in enjoying life; something basically like sin when you enjoy something.

So don't feel guilty. Just enjoy and be happy. Enjoyment is a virtue, and only virtuous people are able to enjoy. Those who enjoy I call virtuous.