Darshan 5 September 1978
Veet means beyond, jay means the idea of victory - one who has gone beyond the idea of winning.
The idea of winning is the basic problem. It creates the whole politics of life. It creates violence. And one suffers infinite misery because of it, because this game of life is not a game in which anybody can be a winner. There is no question of winning and no question of losing All is as it is; we are not going anywhere. And because it is one energy, who is going to win and who is going to be defeated?
The whole idea of winning is as stupid as somebody trying to defeat his left hand with his right hand.
You can pretend, but you know that it is utterly ridiculous; the same energy is behind both hands.
That is the meaning when Jesus says, "Love your enemy as yourself," because he is yourself. This whole existence is a unity. And the moment we start thinking in terms of winning, we create conflict.
It is fighting with our own energy; that fighting brings frustration and life becomes unnecessarily bloody. It loses joy because you cannot win, and without winning you cannot be joyful.
Once this idea of winning is dropped, life takes on a new dimension. Then it is a festival, then it is just play. It is delight.
Prem means love, utsavo means celebration. Life is love and love is celebration. Celebration is the very core of religion, the soul. Without celebration religion becomes a corpse. And that's what has happened to religions in the past again and again: they become serious. And the moment they become . serious, only the dead body is there.
Religion remains alive only through celebration. When Buddha is there, there is celebration. When Krishna is there, there is celebration. When Jesus is there, there is celebration. The moment the Master leaves the body the disciples become very serious, they become fanatics, and they
start becoming missionaries: they want to convert the whole world. They start arguing, proving, disproving; they create theology. And slowly slowly the soul dies - they become too engaged with other things. Religion lives only through celebration, as celebration. But this point has been missed again and again; that's why so many religions were born but they all died, and they all died a premature death. It was not necessary to die; they could have lived and served humanity.
I want to make it very conscious in my sannyasins not to be serious; be sincere but don't be serious.
And remember continuously that existence is in a constant celebration. When you are in celebration you are in tune with existence, in tune with God, in tune with Tao. When you become serious you fall apart.
The old proverb is right: When you laugh the whole world laughs with you, but when you cry, when you weep, you weep alone. People are ready to share with you if you are happy. They themselves are in enough misery - who wants to be with a serious man? The serious man is heavy.
It is said that you cannot live with a saint twenty-four hours a day: you will die of boredom. But of course, these are not saints about whom that is said; otherwise you can live with a saint for eternity and you can go on celebrating. But then the saint has to have a different taste, a different flavor to him. That flavor is called "utsavo." My sannyasins have to be laughing, dancing, singing. That is their prayer. If you can laugh a heartful laugh, it is prayer. If you can dance to abandon, it is prayer. If you can sing your being, that is prayer.
And there is no need to take religion seriously. Seriousness is pathological. Children are not serious, because they are very close to the source of life. The birds are not serious; nobody has ever come across a bird who is serious. The trees are not serious; nobody has ever seen a tree serious. It is all joy... it is continuous celebration.
Even when a flower is dying and the petals are falling there is no seriousness at all; even in the dying flower you will see joy and beauty and thankfulness. And that's how a man should live and should die. Dancing one should live, and dancing one should die. I teach the dancing God.
[Deva means divine, abhar means gratitude... ]
To live in gratitude is to live in God. To live in gratitude means to see the gift that existence has given to us. It is so immense, so invaluable. We have not eamed it... we are not worthy of it. It has been showered on us for no reason - it is very unreasonable! Because it is unreasonable, gratitude has to be there. If we had earned it there would be no need to be grateful. We have not paid for it; it is just out of God's overflowing energy that we live, that we love. It is so mysterious to be.
It is not the "how" of existence that is a mystery, but that it is. It is almost unbelievable that I am, that you are, that these people are, that these trees and these stars are. There is no reason for it to be.
It is very unreasonable, it is very illogical. If it were not there we could not have complained about it.
It is there but we have not given thanks for it.
To see it and to start feeling grateful is the beginning of sannyas. Feel grateful for everything that has happened to you and that is happening and that is going to happen. Feel grateful for very small things, because they are not small. Just a rose flower you have seen in the early moming.... It looks so small but it contains the whole existence, the whole universe. And what beauty, what benedictionl A child has laughed looking at you. It is God laughing - it is his gesture. You see the sunset in the evening.... It seems impossible that people don't bow down when they see the sunset. It seems they have become hard stones. It seems their hearts beat no more; otherwise they would have cried out of joy. Tears would have come to their eyes, tears of bliss and gratitude.
This is my message to you: learn to be grateful, and once you start being grateful you will be surprised - every day there are a thousand and one occasions to be grateful. Then each moment, each occasion of being grateful, becomes a contact with God.
[A sannyasin says she has been very angry with her nine year-old son, since her daughter was born.
She doesn't love him so much. Osho elicits more details and checks her energy.]
Do one thing: whenever you feel angry with him, go into the room and instead of being angry at him, throw the anger on a pillow - beat the pillow, bite the pillow. Try it for a few times and you will be surprised: it will change your relationship with the child.
It is not really a question of loving or not loving. If you don't love him then it is even more essential not to be angry. If you love him, then anger can be tolerated because you compensate with love, but if you don't love him then your anger is just unforgivable. You follow me?
If one loves then, yes, anger also can be accepted, because you will compensate for it: you will love him more after anger and there will be no problem and the child will understand. But if you don't love the child and then you are angry, it is really unforgivable.
All that you need is expression of anger. It accumulates in you, and he has become just an excuse:
you don't find anybody else there to throw it on so you just throw on him. Children generally become scapegoats because they are helpless. You may have been angry with your husband but he was not helpless. You may have been angry with your father but he was not helpless. All that anger has accumulated; now it is channelized towards this helpless child, because he cannot do anything. You can be angry, you can afford to be angry. And you are feeling guilty because of it, because this is irrational. But simply stopping won't help, because you gather anger in you and it has to be thrown out.
So make it a point for one month: whenever you feel angry with him just leave him there, go into the room, beat the pillow, throw the pillow, bite the pillow. Within five minutes you will feel that the anger has gone and you will feel after that anger much Compassion coming for the child. So just for one month try and then it will be so simple. For one month it will be an effort, mm? because that habit will say, "Be angry at the child," and the mind will say, "This is foolish, mad, to be angry at the pillow." Just for one month.... Once you have seen the beauty of it - that nobody is hurt, anger is released, and on the contrary you feel compassion for the child, and love will arise....
And your understanding is not accurate when you say you don't love the child. If you don't love him you will not be so angry either; they go together. So once this anger is expressed - not on the child but somewhere else, in a vacuum - your love energy will surface and you will start loving the child.
First it will be compassion, then it will be love.
Anger is nothing but love upside-down, love gone sour, that's all. It has to be put right-side-up and it becomes love. You can't be angry with a person you don't love at all. Impossible. There is no point in being angry. So anger and hate are not really opposites of love. The real opposite of love is apathy, indifference. If you don't love the child you will be indifferent - who cares? Anger means care. You would like the child to be like this and he is not and you become angry. You would like him to do this and he is not doing it and you become angry. If you don't care, then let him do whatever and go wherever he wants, and whatsoever happens to him doesn't matter to you. Mm, deep down there is love but something has gone wrong.
And my feeling is that it has nothing to do with the child; it has something to do with your husband, with your father, with your mother... but all that accumulated anger. For example, think of this child:
he is suffering your anger for no reason at all. He cannot afford to be angry with you right now because he knows he will be defeated, he will suffer more. You can make him suffer. He will go on suppressing the anger and this anger some day or other is going to be thrown on somebody. If he can find a woman he will torture her. But if the woman is powerful, as women always are, then he will not be able to torture the wife; he will torture the son. He will have to look somewhere for some excuse, and he will have to throw it. If he cannot throw it on the child, on the wife, then on the servants or in the office - if he is a boss he will torture somebody who is just below him. And that will be unjustified, because really he wanted to torture you but that he could not do. This is how things go.
There is a famous story about an Indian king who had a joker in his court, as in the ancient days every king used to have - a fool in the court to bring balance. They used to have wise people in the court and to bring the balance a fool too. That was part of great wisdom, because sometimes the wise man might not say the thing that was needed. He might think about whether to say it or not, about how it is going to affect him, his future. But the fool would not bother and he would simply say it; and sometimes fools have saved great situations.
The king was standing in the court talking to his courtierS and the fool was standing by his side. He did something or said something and the king was very angry, so he hit him on the head. Now, the fool wanted to hit the king back. Although he was a fool and he could have done it he was not that much of a fool. So he hit the person who was standing by his side - it was the Grand Vizier - and the Grand Vizier said, "But why are you hitting me?" The fool said, "I cannot hit the king and I have to hit somebody. If you are too disturbed you can pass it on to somebody else." That's how it happens in the world: you pass it onl "The king gave it to me, I have given it to you, you pass it on." This is how from generation to generation anger passes, hatred passes, jealousy passes; all kinds of poisons go on accumulating and one generation gives it as a heritage to another generation.
That's why humanity becomes more and more burdened every day. Don't do it to the child because you will spoil his whole life, and he has not done anything wrong to you. Somebody must have done wrong to you but that is not his fault.
Just try for one month and you will be surprised: this one month will change the whole pattern.
[A sannyasin, leaving, wonders why she's always afraid of Osho. I feel that I'm leaving because I'm running away from you.]
That's a good sign, a very confirmatory sign!...
You cannot run away, because I will follow you wherever you are and I will not leave you so easilyl That is not possible. Each escape will bring you closer to me. Soon you will understand that escaping is futile.
And fear is very natural. Something is going to happen - something so tremendous and so unknown to you that the mind is afraid and frightened. I can see it coming. So fear is very natural. When the beyond starts penetrating, when heaven penetrates the earth, fear arises, great fear arises. But now you cannot do anything. You can be afraid - it is going to happen, in spite of all your fear, so why not enjoy? Why bother about it? When it is going to happen it is better to enjoy it.
Soon the fear will also disappear. It is the first reaction of the mind. When facing the unknown the mind always becomes afraid. The unknown brings a risk. Who knows what will happen in the unknown? Nothing can be predicted and the mind is incapable of seeing into it. It shrinks back.
It says, "Better to be with the known, at least it is familiar - maybe it is miserable but it is familiar." That's why people prefer misery rather than bliss, because misery has one good thing about it: it is known. Bliss is unknown. And to choose the unknown against the known is the meaning of courage.
Courage means nothing else, just this: choosing the unknown against the known. And the known has everything in its favor because it is known - you have lived it, you have tasted its joys and its miseries, its pleasures, its pains; you are perfectly acquainted with it. It is secure, familiar. You know where you are moving, you are acquainted with the ground; the whole map is known. It is almost like your home. Even in the dark night you can move without stumbling and can find the door. The known has everything in its favor. The unknown has only one thing in its favor - that it gives growth, nothing else; but that is more than enough. With the unknown is growth; with the known one is stuck, stuck in security. With the unknown one grows - in insecurity; all growth is in insecurity. All growth is in risking.
And I am the greatest risk you can find upon the whole earth. I am not a consolation, as other so-called saints are. They console you, they are like lullabies: you go on suffering and they console you and say, "Don't be worried - the soul is immortal and God is looking after you. Everything will come out right ultimately. You are safe - just pray and believe in the Bible or in the Koran, and Jesus Christ will take care of you." They console you. I take all your consolations away, I take all your props away, because the moment all your props are gone and you collapse is the great moment of your birth, rebirth.
So fear, Vadan, is absolutely understandable. But you have crossed that point from where one can go back. You cannot go back, so it is better to enjoy the journey now. And don't hanker for the past and the old. The gone is gone. Let it slip out of your hands. Don't waste time, because you don't know what is going to happen to you. I know, and I say, "Don't waste time," because once it has happened you will cry and weep - because how much time you wasted unnecessarily! - it could have happened long before.
So you can go and come back. Good!
[A sannyasin, leaving, says he feels very vulnerable and unstable.]
It is good! It's how it should be. Stability is death. Instability is life. How can you feel stable if you are growing? A growing thing cannot be stable. Only a dead thing is stable. So when a person starts growing he becomes unstable. And the other thing is also part of it: vulnerability.
Growth means that you are absorbing something new every day, and that absorption is possible only if you are open. You have lived closed your whole life; you were not available to the sun and the wind and the rain. Now your windows are open and the doors are open: sometimes the rain comes in and the wind comes in, the sun comes, and life moves within you. So you will feel a few disturbances:
your newspaper will start moving in the wind, the papers on the table will be disturbed, and if the rain starts coming in, your clothes may be wet. If you have lived always in a closed room you will feel, "What is happening?" But something beautiful is happening. It is good to be available to the wind, to the rain, to the sun, because this is what life is. So rather than becoming worried about it, dancel Dance when the storm comes, because silence will follow it. Dance when challenges come and disturb your life, because in responding to those challenges you will be growing to new heights. Remember: even suffering is a grace. If one can take it rightly it becomes a stepping stone.
People who have never suffered and have lived a convenient and comfortable life are almost dead people. Their life will not be like a sharp sword - it will be blunt. It will not even cut vegetables. It will be of no use in the war. Intelligence becomes sharp when you face challenges. Pray every day to God, "Send me more challenges tomorrow, send more storms..." and then you will know life at the optimum.
[A sannyasin, leaving says: I have changed very much in the days I have been here, this month...
but I feel like an instrument that cannot be tuned. Something is missing.]
You have changed - I can see it....
There has never been any instrument which could not be tuned. It takes time and patience, that's all.
But if you don't want to be tuned, that is another thing; otherwise there has never been an instrument which could not be tuned. Maybe, also, you expect too much too early.
Life is a very very patient affair. Things grow slowly, and everybody has to follow his own pace.
Whatsoever has happened is perfectly good. Much more will be happening, but don't ask for perfection - that is a neurotic desire and it makes the person feel very very sad unnecessarily. Feel grateful for that which has happened and go on working on yourself; much more will be happening, but don't ask for perfection. In fact there is no perfection ever. Even when the instrument is tuned it can be tuned more.
There is no limit to growth. You can never come to a point where you can say, "Now I can put a full stop." And that is the beauty of life, that there is no possibility to put a full stop anywhere. It goes on growing... waves upon waves go on rolling. It is an unending process. People who become too interested in perfection miss much. They miss the joy of gratefulness, they miss the joy of thankfulness.
Don't be worried about the instrument - it will be tuned. But I am not saying that you will come to a point where you can say, "Now there is no need to go anywhere, there is no need to grow." That point never comes. Life is an eternal pilgrimage. Each goal that you attain becoms the beginning of a new journey. All goals ultimately prove only resthouses for an overnight stay and in the morning we have to go again....
[A sannyasin had previously written to Osho about her studies; if she continues psychology it will take her perhaps seven years; but she feels to do something with her hands instead.]
My feeling is that you finish psychology. If you have not started the other course yet, finish psychology. You will not be satisfied by something with the hands. You have the intellectual type in you. So nothing is wrong in it - you will be satisfied. Continue studying psychology and finish it as fast as you can. That can be of much use later on.
Psychology has many insights which can be used and developed, and particularly right now psychology is in a growing mood. Mm, many branches are growing and much can be done. It is not yet a fixed science so there is much possibility for innovation. Once a science becomes fixed then there is nothing much left: one has to study it, information has to be collected, that's all. But psychology is still growing and has to grow much. It will take centuries for it to become a science, so there is much possibility to discover, to invent, to innovate, to explore - much possibility, and you will enjoy it.
Do it!...
It will be good if you finish your studies there and then come and be part of the university. That will be good. You can come in your holidays sometime and go again. But this will be good: first finish your studies there, then you can become part of the university, mm? Good!
[A sannyasin, leaving, asks for advice on how to live her day-to-day life? She is going to study oriental art.]
Yes, that s perfectly good - I will need you, so finish it. And put your whole energy into leaming it... not just for the degree's sake, because to get a degree is very easy. Mm? any mediocre person can do that. Put your whole energy into it, make it your life work, because I will need many people in the new commune, and you will be needed for the Oriental art. We are going to make it multi-dimensional, and art is going to be the most important thing that is needed there.
So make it your life work, your devotion - not just for the degree; the degree is immaterial, mm?
Drown yourself in it completely. Continue to meditate and let your leaming about Oriental art be your full-time meditation....
[An elderly sannyasin, who is invalided with arthritis, says that during the groups she has done, much pain came up and the sensation that she's dreaming herself. Osho checks her energy.]
The energy is perfectly good; don't be worried at all. There has been a change in the circulation of the energy, and whenever a great change happens one can feel nausea because the whole body feels very disturbed. It can feel almost like one has gone through surgery. But it is something good.
Within a week it will settle, and you will feel such a well-being as you have never felt before. It will take a few days to settle, but the energy is going perfectly well; the group has been helpful.
And this feeling that all looks like a dream and you yourself look like a dream is of great value. This is the truth. We are living in a dream and we are dreams. This is the beginning of seeing what reality is. Before one can know the real as real, one has to know the false as false. Before one can realize the light, one has to see the darkness and realize it. The negative has to be experienced first; then only can the positive be felt. The experience of the negative prepares one for the experience of the positive.
The Christian mystics have the right name for it; they call it "the great dark night of the soul." Before the moming a dark night of the soul passes... but the energy is perfectly good.
[An Indian asks, partly in hindi, about falling fits which he has in the mornings in the bathroom. Osho checks his energy.]
You need not worry - it is a very good meditative space; it is not harming you at all. So rather than worrying, enjoy it. It is not harming you, and if you go to the psychiatrists they will not be able to find anything. But experts have one difficulty: even if they can't find anything they will do something; otherwise they look fools. So they will give injections and medicines and they will disturb the whole thing. This is something like meditation... a natural meditation is happening.
You need not be worried. Enjoy it - forget thinking about it as illness. It is wellness, it is a fit of wellness. Drop that interpretation and you will be surprised: once you drop that interpretation you will come out of it so flowing, so energyful, so rested, as if you have gone to the deepest core of your being. And that's what is actually happening.
This is what was happening to Ramakrishna and the doctors were thinking that he was having fits.
These are not fits. It must have something to do with your past life: you must have meditated deeply and something of that meditation has been carried in your deep memory. And because in India the meditation time is early moming, it still carries the same program. That's why it happens in the toilet every day - no other time.
Just enjoy it, and after two, three months report to me again. You will become flowing, more healthy than you have ever been.
Keep this box under your pillow in the night, so I will continue to work on you. Good!