Darshan 1 September 1978

Deva means divine, aikanta means aloneness. Self-knowledge is possible only in deep aloneness.

Ordinarily whatever we know about ourselves is the opinion of others. They say "You are good" and we think we are good. They say "You are beautiful" and we think we are beautiful. They say you are bad or ugly... whatsoever people say about us we go on collecting. That becomes our self-identity.

It is utterly false because nobody else can know you, can know who you are, except you yourself.

Whatsoever they know are only aspects, and those aspects are very superficial. Whatsoever they know are only momentary moods; they cannot penetrate your center. Not even your lover can penetrate to the very core of your being. There you are utterly alone, and only there will you come to know who you are.

People live their whole lives believing in what others say, dependent on others. That's why people are very afraid of others' opinions. If they think you are bad, you become bad. If they condemn you, you start condemning yourself. If they say that you are a sinner you start feeling guilty. Because you have to depend on their opinions you have to continuously conform to their ideas; otherwise they will change their opinions. This creates a slavery, a very subtle slavery. If you want to be known as good, worthy, beautiful, intelligent, then you have to concede, you have to compromise continuously with people on whom you are dependent.

And another problem arises. Because there are so many people, they go on feeding your mind with different types of opinions - conflicting opinions too: one opinion contradicting another opinion.

Hence a great confusion exists inside you. One person says you are very intelligent, another person says you are stupid - now how to decide? So you are divided. You become suspicious about yourself, about who you are... a wavering. And the complexity is very great because there are thousands of people around you. You come in contact with so many people and everybody is feeding his idea into your mind. And nobody knows you, not even you yourself know, so all this collection becomes jumbled up inside. This is a maddening situation.

You have many voices inside you. Whenever you ask who you are, many answers will come. Some answers will be your mother's, some will be your father's, some will be the teacher's, and so on and so forth. And it is impossible to decide which one is the right answer. How to decide? What is the criterion? This is where man is lost... this is self-ignorance. But because you depend on others you are afraid to go into aloneness, because the moment you start going into aloneness you start becoming very afraid of losing yourself. You don't have it in the first place, but whatever self you have created out of others' opinions will have to be left behind. Hence, it is very scary to go in. The deeper you go, the less you know who you are.

So in fact you are moving towards self-knowledge, but before it happens you will have to drop all ideas about the self. There will be a gap, there will be a kind of nothingness. You will become a non-entity. You will be utterly lost, because all that you know is no more relevant, and that which is relevant you don't know yet. This is called "the dark night of the soul" by the Christian mystics.

It has to be passed, and once you have passed it... there is the dawn. The sun rises and one comes to know oneself for the first time. The first ray of the sun and all is fulfilled. The first songs of the birds in the morning and all is attained.

Be here as long as you can. Much is going to happen.... You are already on the way and things have already been happening; much more is going to happen. You have come in the right time.

Just be here as totally as possible. You have come home.

Deva means divine, paresha means the beyond - the divine that is beyond, the divine that is transcendental.

We can have it but we cannot understand it. Understanding is impossible. The instrument for understanding is very tiny and the reality is vast. Thought cannot contain truth, but the heart can feel it. Love can know it, but not knowledge. And the whole problem for a spiritual seeker is how to drop knowledge and how to become more loving. It is very difficult to drop knowledge. It is very difficult because we have been, from the very beginning, conditioned by knowledge. In the very milk of our mothers we have been fed with knowledge. This whole society depends on knowledge, not on love - the schools, the colleges, the universities. And the misery is that even the churches, the temples, they also depend on knowledge. And knowledge is all garbage; it is not for the true seeker.

For the true seeker, the beginning is renouncing all knowledge and disappearing into the heart, moving from the head towards the heart. That brings transformation. The head is within you but the heart is not within you. The head is within you but you are within the heart; the heart is bigger than you.

When I am talking about the heart I am not talking about the physiological part called the heart.

When I say "the heart" I mean God. That's why Jesus says: God is love. We are surrounded by the heart, the divine heart. Once we get down from the head trip, suddenly it is all ours. All the doors open and existence starts revealing its mysteries.

That is the meaning of the word "revelation." Knowledge is not possible - revelation is possible.

Knowledge is man's effort to know, and revelation is God's will. Man can only remain available, that's all, and whenever one is ready, God reveals himself. The first step towards readiness is to drop all knowledge, even the so-called spiritual knowledge, because whatsoever we have learned from others is not going to help. It will become a barrier. You will have to go to God naked, like a small child... innocent, ignorant.

The state of not-knowing is the state of the real seeker. When you can say deeply, profoundly, "I don't know," then God is closest to you. That's what Socrates means when he says, "To know that I don't know is the beginning of knowledge." This is the meaning of your name, Deva Paresha: God is beyond all knowing but is perfectly within loving. So change your gestalt from knowing to loving. Think less, feel more, and God is not far away, he is very close by. He is already searching for you, he is already groping for you. It is not a one-way affair - not that man is seeking God and that God is hiding - God too is seeking man.

In fact, man is hiding; sometimes behind money, sometimes behind knowledge, sometimes behind power politics, and he has found a thousand and one ways to hide himself.

Be here... much is going to happen! Remain courageous, because when things start happening, fear arises.

This will be the name for the center: Sadhana.

It is a very significant word and very difficult to translate. No single word in English exists which can be equivalent to it, but the meaning can be understood. It means seeking, searching - but not only intellectually: existentially. One can seek only through the mind; that is philosophy. One can think about truth and God and great things sitting in one's armchair; that is speculation, that is not sadhana.

When one not only thinks but lives and transforms one's life also in order to seek, in order to search; drops everything in one's life which becomes a hindrance in the search and chooses only that which is a help - when the search becomes one's whole life, one's only life, one's only love, one lives for it and one is ready to die for it - then it is sadhana. So it is not just inquiry. It is not just intellectual speculation; it is not philosophizing only. It is philosophizing through the being, and the difference is great.

For example: David Hume is a great philosopher but only a philosopher. He has the same kind of intelligence as Buddha, the same penetrating genius, but no attainment. He just goes on thinking and thinking, goes on sharpening his intellect. But if you look into his life it is as ordinary as anybody's. You will not find that sharpness in his life too. If he argues, you will find he is sharp, he is a sword; it is very difficult to win an argument with him. But if you don't argue with him then he is just ordinary. If you don't know what he thinks you will not feel the presence of the person in any other way.

But when a Buddha passes by... he has not uttered a single word and suddenly you feel something of tremendous power; some silence starts enveloping you. If he looks at you, you know he has looked deep down into your heart. If he touches you, you know he has touched your whole being:

you start vibrating in a new way. He is not just a philosopher: he has lived his philosophy. The search has not been only of the intellect: it has been existential. Whatsoever he has thought, he has practiced. And whatsoever he has found through practice as true he has declared to the world, otherwise not.

Something may look very logical and true in thought, and may not be so in reality; the reality may be just the opposite. Reality has no obligation to follow logic - it has its own ways. One has to put aside all logic and look into reality. When reality is the only criterion... For example, if I speak about meditation... A philosopher can also say something about meditation, about what it is.

Once it happened: A Jaina nun wrote a beautiful book on meditation, a really beautiful book on meditation. When I passed through the book I was surprised. I was surprised because there were a few faults in it which are possible only if the person has never meditated. Just a few - three, four faults - not much in a book of four hundred pages. Otherwise, it appeared as if the person who had written it knew what meditation was experientially, not just intellectually; but those four faults were enough. Then I forgot about the book.

While I was traveling in Rajasthan, in one town the nun came to see me. I had completely forgotten about the book and the name of the nun; and she asked me how to meditate. Looking at her face I remembered that I had seen a picture somewhere, and then the memory came, and I asked her, "Have you written a certain book on meditation?" She said, "Yes, I have." I said, "How could you write that book if you have come to ask me how to meditate?" She said, "I have been studying meditation. I have studied all the books that are available on meditation, your books too, and that was a kind of thesis. I have accumulated material from every source; whatsoever looked beautiful, I chose it and I made a consistent whole of it. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't know what meditation is because I cannot get rid of thoughts." This is not sadhana - this is philosophy. Sadhana means: whatsoever you think is right, you try to practice it. Unless your practice proves it, you will withhold the conclusion; you will not say whether it is right or wrong. When you have practiced it and when you have experienced it and tested it, then you will declare whether it is right or wrong; because the criterion is experience.

So sadhana is more like science than like philosophy. Just as science experiments in the outside world, sadhana experiments in the inside world. Sadhana is the inner science of the soul. One becomes one's own lab. One changes one's whole life into experimentation. Great risk is there, because one never knows what is going to happen. But only those who are ready to risk are ever able to attain anything in life; they are the fortunate ones who can risk.

So help people to risk, to search, to seek, to experiment.

[A sannyasin says that when he came five weeks ago he wanted to meditate... but his thoughts always go to his home, to the things he hasn't finished. Now he wants to go back to finish his things and then come back here.]

Good. Go and finish things and come back. That will be very good; then it will be easier to drop the thoughts. It is always good to finish things. People go on accumulating incomplete experiences.

Anything incomplete hangs around you and tries to attract your attention; that's why it has been difficult for you.

If a person lives every day, moment to moment, finishing things, never accumulates piles of incomplete experiences, never accumulates files, letters which have not been answered, problems which have not been solved... Then they stand in a queue and they all hanker for attention. They say, "Complete us!" It is always good to finish things and it is good to finish them every day. Never postpone, never say, "Tomorrow," because tomorrow you will not be free. When you say to a thought, "I will do it tomorrow," then tomorrow that thought will come like hammering and will say, "Now, you had promised - fulfill it." And you have been promising your whole life, so a crowd is waiting.

To live rightly means to live every moment so deeply, each thing without postponing it, so that either it is finished or you come to the understanding that this is not a thing to be finished, it cannot be finished - then too it is finished. You need not give any moment to it again. There are things which can be finished and there are things which cannot be finished, but to see it is of great help.

Something cannot be finished, something is humanly impossible to finish. Then too it is finished; you put a full stop to it. There is no need to open the file again. Either you answer the letter or you throw it in the wastepaper basket, but don't go on accumulating.

I have heard that Albert Einstein had the habit of accumulating letters. For months together he would accumulate them. Just on his table above his head they would all be hanging, and people would ask, "Why do you go on accumulating them?" He would say, "Tomorrow, tomorrow." Then one day he said, "I answer a few and the remaining ones I have to throw, because the time has past - now the answer is not needed. My not answering them has already answered them." But then why go on accumulating? If you don't want to answer something throw it right now! They are hanging there - they will be heavy on you, they will continuously attract your attention, and the load will go on becoming bigger and bigger. So learn one thing: always finish things. The man who can finish everything by the time he goes to bed, who can say goodbye to the day that has passed and is ready to fall into sleep with nothing hanging around, is the most blessed man in the world. The next morning he will be waking up fresh, will open his eyes, look at the world... if there is something to be done, he will do it, but there is nothing pending on his mind. When nothing is pending, clarity is there and that clarity is of great significance. Then each morning he is new, fresh, available to existence, and existence is available to him.

So go and finish things and come back!

[Osho explains the meaning of anand diya: lamp of bliss.]

The meaning is simple but the search for it is difficult. The meaning you already know, but the real meaning you will know only when you come across the inner light. The light is there - it has not to be invented, it has only to be discovered. It is hiding behind the clouds of thought. As thoughts start disappearing you will see the flame coming out, and when the flame is smokeless then the bliss is infinite.

To search for the inner light, to know it, to be it, is what religion is all about. A few religions have called it God - the inner light they called God; a few religions have called it enlightenment, a few religions have called it nirvana. That is only a difference in names. But one thing about which all the religions agree is that the inner experience is that of infinite light... light and light and light, and without any center.

We consist of light, we are made of light, and not only us: the whole existence consists of light. Each particle of matter is nothing but condensed light. The day one comes to know one's own light, the whole existence becomes full of light, all darkness disappears. Even in darkness one knows that darkness too is a form of light and nothing else. That's why there are a few animals, a few birds, which can see in the dark night. Owls can see in the night. For us it is dark; for them it is not dark.

They have more penetrating eyes, that's all; they can see perfectly well in the night. There is no darkness anywhere. Our eyes are limited, that's true, so we see only a certain part. If we can see the whole, then there is no darkness at all - there has never been any darkness, there cannot be....

But you will have to live to find its existential meaning.

[A sannyasin who has been leading groups in the West asks what to do besides the three groups she's signed up for.]

Do these three, mm? - then I will give you a few more. Then if you feel like it you can start leading a few groups here too. But first pass through groups so that you can feel the whole work that is going on here and then you can start doing something.

[The sannyasin then asks about her relationship: We are hanging on to each other too much and that each of us has to go his own way, but I am very much afraid.]

One can stay on one's own and still be loving to the other. It is not against love to be on your own; just don't cling. Clinging is not love. Love, enjoy the presence of the other. Share your joy with him; enjoy his being with you. Let each moment be of great sharing, but there is no need to cling.

Clinging means you bring the future in. Whenever the future comes in clinging starts . Clinging means: "What about tomorrow?" Clinging is future-oriented; it prepares for tomorrow. It says, "We have to be together tomorrow!" Today is unimportant for the clinging mind. Today is okay but the real thing is tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes!

And whenever it comes it will be today again and you will be again thinking about tomorrow. So the clinging mind never really lives; it only thinks that one day it is going to live, but it never does. It is continuously postponing life: preparing for tomorrow and missing today, and today is all there is.

Tomorrow is not and is never going to be.

A non-clinging mind lives today, this moment, en joys it and leaves tomorrow free. When it comes we will see. If we are together we will enjoy; if we are not together, so we are not together. Then I will enjoy something else; you will enjoy something else. We will be separate, and we will be enjoying separately. But why miss today?

The clinging mind is a foolish mind. It is the very core of stupidity. The intelligent mind lives this moment and waits for the next moment to come. When it comes we will see. What can we do right now? Who knows? - tomorrow you may come across a better person, he may come across a better woman. Tomorrow you may die, he may die. Tomorrow you may not be able to communicate. Life may disrupt you, throw you away into separate islands. Who knows about tomorrow? All that is certain is this moment; not even the next moment is certain.

Jesus says: Think not of the morrow. Look at the lilies in the field, how beautiful they are, because they live right now, herenow.

So I am not saying to be on your own, I am not saying to drop him or separate from him. There is no need to drop; that is going to the other extreme of clinging. Either we have to cling or we have to drop. Can't you stop in the middle? - no clinging, no dropping. Only a clinging mind can drop. How can a non-clinging mind drop? - because he clings not, so there is nothing to drop either.

Be in the middle. The golden mean has to be remembered, otherwise the mind goes from one extreme to another extreme. It moves like a pendulum, and always remains in anxiety. Stop the pendulum in the middle and the clock stops. Stop the mind in the middle and time disappears, time stops.

You need not be separate from him - be with him - just don't cling. Can't you be together without clinging? That is the point! To be separate is easy, to be clinging is easy. The real work is to be together but without clinging at all... just being together like two trees standing side by side. They have their roots in the earth but are swaying in the sun and dancing in the wind and in the rain, and enjoying being together - not clinging to each other at all. Be like two trees together and you will come to know much joy that you have not known.

I can see from your face that you have suffered a lot, and you can be very joyous. And if celebration does not happen here with me, it cannot happen anywhere else. So don't miss this opportunity. Be together, enjoy being together; share your love, your poetry, your music, your silences - but don't cling. Let the future take its own course. If tomorrow you are together, share again; if you are not together then you are not together. Nothing can be done about it.

We cannot plan and we cannot make it a guarantee. In trying to make the future guaranteed and secure, people destroy all beauty of life and all benediction. So I have not said to separate. This is how the mind goes on interpreting and hearing something which I am not saying. But you are new - just go on listening to me for a few days and things will be clear. Good.

[A sannyasin who is leaving says: I feel like I'm opening and I feel very fragile and scared and feverish.]

It happens when one starts opening; it is a good sign, a confirmatory sign. Soon the fever will be gone and the fear also. It is just a toxic energy in the body that is being released. One certainly starts feeling fragile but fragileness in itself is not weakness; in fact, it is strength.

[And in the beginning, He says, it looks like weakness but it isn't so, for water is stronger than rock and woman is stronger than man, and man created the fiction of masculine superiority because of crude animal strength. Fragileness is a totally different kind of strength... and we have passed the time of muscles; now that work can be done by machines.]

The feminine energy has a great future ahead. And man will have to learn how to be more fragile, how to be more feminine, how to be more delicate and graceful. So don't be worried - something beautiful is happening, and soon you will start enjoying it.

[A sannyasin, who is leaving to earn money, says:I'm a bit afraid to lose my center, this being meditative.]

I will take care. Just do one thing: for fifteen minutes every night when you go to bed, just lie down on the bed and for five minutes, turn the light off and relax. Start from the toes: start feeling that they are going numb, heavy, getting sleepy, almost dying. And then go on. Now half the legs are dead, heavy, dull. Then the whole of the legs are dead, heavy, dull, asleep - completely asleep, numb.

Go on. For five minutes going on bringing the sensation up to the head. The whole body is like a corpse.

This is just for five minutes. And within a few days you will be able to do it in two, three minutes. But go slow, so really the whole body becomes almost like a dead body.

Then start breathing deep and long breaths. Inhale deeply and exhale deeply. With inhalation, visualize light - create light, golden light entering from the head. When you inhale, just visualize light entering from the head, great golden light, as if a sun has risen just above the head. And within a few days you will be able to see it entering. It is coming like a flood, going in, going in. The body is dead, almost like a hollow bamboo and the light is passing through, and it goes out from the feet.

In one inhalation, this whole visualization. It enters as the breath enters in, it goes out from the feet.

And as you exhale, visualize again a dark, dark light entering from the feet - just darkness entering from the feet, coming up, going from the head out.

So with inhalation, gold light entering in from the head, going from the feet out. And with exhalation, darkness entering from the feet and going out from the head. This for ten minutes. And then just go to sleep. You will remain centered twenty-four hours a day. And whatsoever you want to do, you can do. There will be no problem at all.

This balances, this is a polarization of the feminine and the masculine inside. This is one of the most ancient methods to bring centering, balance, in the being.

Just this much continue, and whenever you can do some other meditation in the morning, you can.

But this has to be done as a regular thing.

And finish things soon and come back!