Joy is Intunement

[To a sannyasin with his wife and child who is afraid to 'burn all his bridges' in the West in order to be with Osho]

Because of that fear.... Fear always holds one back, keeps the past safe so that one can fall upon it if the moment arises. But then the whole journey remains half-hearted and lukewarm. Better than being cold, but the evaporation comes only when you are totally with me, and to be totally with me means burning all the bridges. That is trust. Otherwise yoU go intelligently. You see, you judge, and you go so far; you follow yourself really. And whenever something arises about which your mind is not convinced, you will immediately stop... and that is the point from where the transformation happens.

Trust means something that is not visible to you, that is not believable... and yet one dares! Trust is daring, it is courage. But the more you trust, the more life happens to you, because life happens only through risk.

It is a risk to be with me. And it is not you alone who are half-heartedly here - there are many. But you will grow as much as you are with me. If you are totally with me then the growth will be a kind of explosion.

But good... better than nothing. You have come - that's good. Next time you may gather more courage. Even this much is good, even this much has changed you a lot. You are softer, you are more calm and quiet. Just see: even this much can help, then more will help more. Nothing to be worried about - a few people take the jump in a few steps. But the jump is going to happen - I am determined upon it!

So you can hesitate a little - that is not going to disturb much. It will be only a little delay, that's all - but I will bring you to the brink from where there is no way to go back, where one has to go ahead into the abyss. That abyss is god.

Deva means god, anugata means a follower who follows like a shadow. Just as your shadow cannot be separated from you, the real follower cannot be separated from god. He lives in god, he becomes part of god. He becomes a shadow to god. He leaves no distance. And even an inch's distance is enough to keep you far away. It is not a question of a big or small distance; distance is distance.

One should become like a shadow to god.

And what I mean exactly is: one should disappear as a controller from one's life. Let god control.

One should start living in a kind of let-go, moment to moment, wherever he leads... not living a life out of the past, because that means you have already decided how to live, you have imposed a pattern.

The real believer lives without a pattern, without a character. He lives moment to moment in simple trust, in Utter surrender. His only prayer is 'Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done.' He disappears as an entity: he becomes a nobody, he becomes a shadow. His soul is not in himself any more. He is at god's disposal.

In the beginning it is very frightening, because we can't see god and we don't know his ways, and when we don't know him and don' t know his ways, how to surrender, how to trust? In the beginning it is frightening, but slowly slowly once yoU start surrendering a great joy arises... and not only joy but insight too, clarity. You start seeing things with new eyes, and everything that was a puzzle before is no more a puzzle. All the pieces start falling into a harmony; the old discord disappears into a new accord. Then one can take a little bigger jump, then one can risk a little more. And slowly slowly the moment comes when one simply takes the ultimate jump, disappears as an entity.

God cannot be possessed but we can allow him to possess us. That is the meaning of becoming a disciple, and that is the meaning of the word 'anugata': following like a shadow, not separate at all, with no will of one's own. When you are not there, god functions through you. When your will dies, his will starts functioning in you. And your heart cannot contain two: either you can live there or god can live there.

Deva means divine, raso means juice - divine juice. Life is a divine flow. It is not stagnant - it is riverlike. And the more riverlike one is, the more one is in tune with life. But people have become very solid, hence god cannot flow through them. The moment god stops flowing through you, you don't have any juice. You only appear to be alive but you are not. One is only a skeleton; the soul is missing. There are very few people in the world who have souls. To have a soul means god is flowing through you, pulsating through you, streaming through you, that god is circulating as the inner juice of your life.

My whole work here consists in melting yoU. The frozenness has to go. Once you start melting, you start becoming religious, joyous and utterly happy for no reason at all. Just to be is enough; one need not have anything to be happy. Happiness has nothing to do with having something.

Happiness is a state of being: being in flow.

And god is also a juice because you have to taste it. It is like wine: one has to become drunk with it.

Unless one is a drunkard one remains in the head.

Prem means love, prasado means grace - love is a grace, a gift from god. One cannot create it, one can only allow it to happen. You cannot make it; whatsoever you make will be plastic, will not be true. In the West the usage of the phrase 'making love' is utter nonsense. If you make it, you miss it; it cannot be manufactured. And if you make it, it will be only an empty motion, a gesture, utterly insignificant... just empty, nothing inside it - a container without a content.

Love is a happening. It comes from the beyond. One has to receive it as a gift; one has to be open and vulnerable for it. That's why closed people are unloving people: they don't have any opening to receive god's gift. They are closed from every side, surrounded by a subtle wall, a subtle structure that they have developed for security, safety... a kind of armour. They live behind walls in a prison.

The walls are transparent - they are glass walls so nobody sees them - but love cannot penetrate.

Children are more loving than grown-ups. Why? They are still without armour. They are still open from everywhere; all windows and doors are open. They are available to the sun and the rain and the wind and god. They are simply available. They are unafraid, they are innocent.

Fear creates cunningness. Out of cunningness one starts creating an armour. But it is suicidal - all armours are suicidal.

Life is in insecurity, because love comes only to those who remain utterly insecure... and it comes in abundance, it comes in torrents. It comes so much that you cannot exhaust it. It comes as a flood.

It cleanses you; it washes away all the impurities of your being. And when you have it, you can give it, you can share it. You have to share it. It cannot be contained; it overflows.

Remember that love is a grace, and unless one becomes a child again - without armour, without cleverness, without cunningnes - sunless one becomes a child again, available to existence, love cannot happen. And if love does not happen, nothing has happened. One can accumulate money, riches, power, prestige, and all is futile; one remains a wasteland. One simply dies slowly slowly, that's all. Life does not happen. What we call life is nothing but a slow suicide. Real life knows only one taste: the taste of love.

But let me repeat it: you cannot create it, you cannot make it. It is not in your hands - it always comes from the beyond. You have to receive it, you have to be a host to it. It is a guest.

Prem means love, bijo means seed - seed of love, potential of love, possibility of love. Man is born as a seed. One has to work upon the seed, one has to help it to grow. And the first thing to help it to grow is to help it to die in the soil. Only when the seed dies does it sprout in a new life. After the crucifixion, the resurrection. That is the whole meaning of Jesus' story: he dies on the cross and is resurrected. And this is repeated every day, in every garden, in every field: the seed dies and there is a resurrection. In fact, the seed was not alive. When it dies it becomes alive. The miracle - that through death life happens.

So those who are ready to lose themselves will be able to gain, and those who cling and are miserly remain dead, they remain just seeds. And if a seed remains a seed, it is a dead thing. Unless it is transformed into a tree and blooms... a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, these are the people who have bloomed; they have become great trees. Even after centuries the air is fragrant with their being. Even after centuries one can sit under their shade, in their shelter. Still the world vibrates with their being. The world is more colourful because of these people who bloomed. The world is more beautiful because of these people who bloomed.

Millions are born but they remain seeds, they die as seeds. Their death, their life, both are meaningless. What to say about their death? - even their life is meaningless. But when a Jesus dies, even his death is significant. What to say about his life? His life is significant. Each moment of it has been lived in totality. Each moment has been a revelation of god, and each moment has been an expression of the ultimate.

Remember that one is a seed, and much has to be done so that the seed does not remain a seed, so that the potential can become the actual, so that the shadow can become substance, so that the dream can become real, so that the hope is not only a hope but becomes a realization.

It is possible and one has to accept the challenge. It is a great adventure - the search for one's own being, the search for one's own flowering. This is the spiritual search!

Prem means love, svargo means paradise - love paradise. Love is paradise. Paradise is not a place, not part of geography. It is a space inside, part of the inner being, not geographical but spiritual.

And so is hell. When you are in anger you are in hell; when you are in love you are in heaven. And the distance is not much, because love can easily become hate, hate can easily become love. The boundary is very thin and very ambiguous. So heaven and hell are neighbours and just a very thin fence divides them.

One should not think that after one dies one will go to hell or heaven; each day, many times you move between them, you struggle between them. There are moments when you are in hell, every day, and there are moments when yoU are in heaven. But one thing is certain: whenever you are in heaven the quality of your being will always be of love; that fragrance is necessarily there. So let that become an indication. And once you know the indication, slowly slowly you can lean towards heaven more and more. Then it is within your hands.

The more you become aware that you create your own hell, the less is the possibility of creating it, because who wants to create hell? People live in hell because they think others create it for them.

What can you do when others are creating it? If they insist on creating hell, you have to live in it. The moment you realize the truth - that you are the creator - a great transformation happens through that understanding. Then you need not create it. Who wants to live in hell knowingly? Slowly slowly one starts leaning more and more towards those things which are part of heaven - love, beauty, poetry, music.

Lenin is reported to have said that ethics will be the aesthetics of the future. I say just the contrary:

aesthetics will be the ethics of the future. One has to be more and more sensitive towards beauty; that is true virtue. One has to be more and more sensitive, that's all, and one finds oneself more and more in paradise.

It is a kind of knack: nobody can really teach you how to be in paradise. It is just like learning to ride a bicycle: nobody can teach you verbally exactly what it is, how one balances oneself on the bicycle. But it happens - you can learn it; it is a knack. A few times you will fall and slowly slowly you will come to understand how to balance. And the moment you have understood how to balance, you wiO be surprised why you could not see it before; it was so simple. But even then you will not be able to tell somebody else how you do So even a Buddha cannot say how he manages to be constantly blissful All that he can do is to give a few hints, but you have to work out those hints in your life. Love is the hint. Be more loving; don't miss a single opportunity of being in love. And slowly slowly you will find that the balance is arising - yoU are riding on a great wave of joy and one day you see the whole truth of heaven and hell. That day is a day of rebirth.

Anand means bliss, daksha means skill - one who is skilful in being blissful. And that's my whole philosophy: how to be skilful in being blissful. It is an art, and nobody is born with the art. Everybody is born with the potential but nobody is born with the art. The art has to be learned and the art is arduous. That's why millions of people - the majority - have decided to remain miserable. To be miserable is easy. One need not be very intelligent to be miserable; any stupid person can do it.

One need not know anything to be miserable; one need not grow at all to be miserable.

Misery is so easy that anybody can do it but bliss is arduous; it has to be learned. It is creating inner music, creating inner poetry. It is creating an orgasmic state with existence. Only a very few people succeed. In the first place very few people try, and even those who try, if they try with wrong methods or in wrong directions, their effort brings no fruits.

Rare is a person who tries and succeeds. It is the greatest art. If one can learn it even in many lives, then too it is early. But if one is really longing to learn it, it can be learned in a single moment too. It depends on the intensity on how much one longs for it, on how thirsty one is for it. If one is ready to die for it, it can be learned in a single moment too.

It is possible. I am creating this whole Buddhafield as an opportunity, so that those who are ready to get involved with me can have an opening in their lives, can find the treasure that is hidden within themselves.

And it can happen only with a person who has attained it. One cannot learn it through books; 'how- to-do' books won't help. In fact, they confuse people more. They go on giving short-cuts to people, easy solutions to very complex problems. They go on giving hopes to people and those hopes make people more and more desperate. Their frustration grows deeper and deeper and deeper, and life becomes an anguish.

It can happen only with a person who has attained it. Then it is like a spark: it can jump from one soul into another soul. And that is the meaning of being a disciple, of being a sannyasin: to come close to the master, so close that your unlit lamp can get the fire from the master's lamp. In a moment of deep closeness, intimacy, suddenly the flame jumps into the unlit house and all is light.

So you have a beautiful name... but the name alone won't do. It has to be made your life too.

[To a sannyasin starting a centre] Just let me in... become a vehicle. Just represent me - become completely oblivious of yourself, as if you are not, and things will start happening. Many things will happen and you will be surprised.

You will say things that you have never thought and you will do things which are not in your capacity to do. But my whole being can become available to you if you allow!

So just remember that - that you have to become just a vehicle, a medium. Then nothing wrong ever happens, then all is right. Slowly slowly you will learn how to become more and more clear a vehicle... and then the joy is great, because each moment brings a new surprise and immense power, with no ego. That's the miracle. Because whenever power comes, the ego exploits it.

If you are really allowing me then your ego cannot exploit the power. Once the ego exploits the power it turns into poison. If the ego is not there at all then the power is nectar, it remains nectar. It will nourish you, it will nourish many new people.

There are many who need me, and I cannot go anywhere else. But my sannyasins have to take me everywhere, to every nook and corner of the world.

[To a sannyas who is afraid of going from one extreme to another] You will not go... and even if for a few days you do, don't be afraid; you will come back to a balance.

The fear is understandable, because that one extreme always creates another extreme. But don't be afraid. It is as if you have been fasting and then suddenly you start eating and you start eating too much; but how long can you do that? After one or two days it is gone. After denial one can indulge, mm? - but that is a momentary phenomenon. Don't be worried about it. Just continue to meditate and that will keep bringing you back to the middle.

Meditation is a balancing force, it is the golden mean. Only non-meditators can go to the extremes; meditators cannot. The extreme is the way of the mind. You can become an ascetic - that is the way of the mind - or you can become an indulger; that is also the way of the mind. If you meditate you are moving away from the mind. The mind lives through extremes, polarities. You are transcending the mind, and that transcendence brings balance.

So just continue meditating and don't be worried; even if for a few days you start moving to the extreme, it is just natural, mm? You are swinging to the other pole because you have remained at one polarity too long, that's all. Nothing to be worried about. I can see the balance coming. Mm, the grace is there. Something immensely valuable has happened, and it will go on growing. And with me there is no problem of the extreme, because I don't teach denial.

If you deny, then you can indulge. If you don't deny, how can you indulge? For how long? If the saints disappear from the world, sinners will disappear. It is the saints who go on creating the sinners. If the priests disappear from the world, prostitutes will disappear; it is the priests who create the prostitutes. On the surface they look like enemies; deep down they are in a conspiracy, and they may not even be aware of the conspiracy.

Don't be worried. Simply be there, meditate, and be natural - enjoy everything. Everything is god's gift to you.

I love one Hassid mystic, Joshua, very much. He used to say God is not going to ask me how many wrong things I have done - because I cannot think that he is so mean as to count wrong things - but one thing is certain: he will ask "Joshua, how many opportunities to enjoy things did you miss when rightfully you could have enjoyed and you did not? Answer for those opportunities, because I was giving you opportunities and you were not using them." He is certainly going to ask me this.'

And Joshua is right. He is a simple man but of very profound insight. God will ask you 'How many opportunities to be joyous, celebrating, did you miss which you could have rightfully enjoyed? Why did you miss? Why were you so ungrateful? Gifts were being given and you didn't receive them. I knocked on your doors and you didn't open the doors. I was ready to shower on you and you were hiding your head!'

I absolutely agree with Joshua: god cannot be so mean as to ask 'How many cigarettes have you been smoking and how many times have you been drinking and what have you been eating?' That would be really mean... and not only mean but stupid too.

But Joshua's point is right - he can ask 'Why were you so ungrateful as to not enjoy? Life was given to celebrate!' So just be natural - I will take care!

One has to become a moon of love. Love is a feminine phenomenon just like the moan. It is not like the sun. It is cool, tranquil, silent, and it has the same hypnotic qualities as the moon. It has the same psychedelic qualities as the moon.

Love is the natural psychedelic. When you are in love the whole existence has a different colour to it, a different intensity, a different beauty. All dullness disappears, all dust disappears. Everything becomes luminous: trees are greener, roses are rosier. Everything seems to be more alive, more vibrant. And it is not that it only appears so - love gives you the vision of the reality as it is. Reality is psychedelic. It is really colourful, it is a rainbow. It has immense beauty and great splendour. Love brings you face to face with it, and love is light.

All those qualities are represented by the moon. Become a cool, silent, meditative love.

[To a sannyasin who was feeling confused and "I found the only thing left was just a very strange longing - loving my wife, wanting to be one with her] That's perfectly good. Nothing to be worried about. One should learn to accept whatsoever life brings. If this is what life has brought, accept it. Confusion arises because you don't want to accept it. Then there is a division. There is no need to worry - it is perfectly beautiful. Just love your wife; that's enough. And one day when even that disappears, one has to accept that too. This is how, slowly slowly, one comes to know one's ultimate aloneness. And if one can accept that ultimate aloneness, one has come home.

This is good: your attachments are disappearing. It hurts in the beginning - one wants to cling to many things, but now clinging won't help. This is something one should be happy about. One day when you understand and when you look back, you will be happy. This is how one comes to one's own being where nothing else exists... just a silence. In that silence is truth, our truth. That silence is the moment of truth. Just accept it, welcome it and rejoice in it!

This is what I call trust, mm? Life brings loneliness - trust it. Life one day brings absolute aloneness - trust it. And as the trust grows and you settle with the new space, confusion will disappear.

Confusion is because you want to cling, you want to have something to cling to, and everything is disappearing, the earth beneath you is disappearing and you are falling into an abyss. I want you to fall into this abyss; this is what meditation is all about.

Just fall blissfully... Like a feather falling into an abyss. There is no bottom to it, but then one starts enjoying it; just the -very fall is such a thrill.

Just wait - something good is happening!