Work can produce, silence can create

Question 1:

Prem Vishva, the joy, the love, the blissfulness, the feeling of coming home - if this is true, you need not worry about losing it. The truth can only be found; it cannot be lost. That which can be lost was only your imagination. In any case, going away will be of tremendous help in understanding yourself.

Either you will find that whatever you were feeling here you are feeling wherever you are, or you will find that back in your own world, all that blissfulness and all that love disappears. Then it was just a figment of your imagination. Even to understand that is good, so next time when you come here you can avoid falling into the trap of imagination. As far as I can see, you have come to a space which you cannot lose even if you want to. And the only way to grow deeper into it is to share it with people.

Life needs continuous growth. The moment you stop its growth, it starts dying. So go into the world full of songs, full of dance and abundant love, and give it unconditionally, without any judgment, to anybody who is receptive - and you will go on growing in the experience both deeper and higher.

Something has happened - that much I can say to you. Now it depends on you to let it grow or not to let it grow. And the way of growth is very simple: share it. But the sharing should not be with any judgment on your part; the sharing is not to be done with those who deserve it. Love knows no discrimination between the deserving ones and the nondeserving ones. Love enjoys giving itself - it does not matter to whom. And the miracle of love is that whomsoever you give it to, becomes deserving.

Question 2:

Prem Prasado, the mechanism of guilt is very simple. You have been conditioned from your very childhood to believe that doing something is better than doing nothing - and meditation is going into nothingness. The idea has been imposed on you for so long it has taken roots in your mind. But because the idea is basically false, it can be dropped.

First you have to understand there is no guilt in existence anywhere; there may be mistakes, but no guilt at all. Guilt is a by-product of the idea of sin: that you are committing something sinful. The world wants you to be extroverts - workaholics, it wants you to continuously work and work and work. The world has no need, apparently at least, of those who sit silently, doing nothing. They also are needed - immensely needed - but to see it needs great understanding.

A man of silence, a man who can sit without any movement of his body or his mind, creates a certain vibration all around him which is very infectious. It helps people to be silent, to be relaxed. He is almost like an oasis in the desert. But because it is not visible, the world has never taken note of it.

You always feel guilty when doing nothing - and that is the greatest virtue in the world, not only in your body, but even in your mind. All doing stops: you are simply a presence.

So you have to drop that idea, which has been implanted in you by others. They wanted you to work because work is productive. They could not understand that doing nothing, being silent, has its own way of creating a certain atmosphere - which is far more valuable than any production.

Work can produce, silence can create.

But it is very difficult, because the whole world around you is insisting that you do something. Don't just be useless. Remember the words of Rabindranath that we were talking about the other day: "I am useless; I can only sing, and my songs are purposeless." But Rabindranath has enriched this country more than any other individual in this century. Flowers don't have purposes, but a world without flowers will be a very mundane world.

Roses bring something of the beyond into the world - the beauty, the fragrance. They all have no purpose. But purpose is not the only thing life is for. Purpose is necessary for survival, but survival is not living. Living needs songs and dances and love and peace.

Flowers show that existence is so abundant with colors and fragrance, that it goes on sharing. A world without flowers, without poetry, without music, without painting, would not be worth living in.

But for centuries the wrong people have ruled over humanity. In Mahatma Gandhi's ashram roses were not allowed. Even in the flower pots wheat was sown - because wheat has a purpose. Roses don't have any purpose. Mahatma Gandhi had the mind of a businessman.

Jesus says, "You cannot live by bread alone; something more is needed." Of course he means God is needed - but if you cannot even enjoy a rose flower, God is very far away from you. Have you ever thought, What is the purpose of God? Is there any utility in God? Even if you find him, what are you going to do with him? Decorate your sitting room?

Life needs work for survival, and to celebrate - silence, songs, music. They are higher values. You want to live for them - the work is for you to survive. But you want to survive because there are roses, and there are songs, and there are meditations, and there are worlds unknown and challenging to be explored.

So I am not saying, don't work. But work is the minimum of life, and the state of not doing anything and just being a silent pool of energy is the maximum of living, because out of this silent pool everything that is beautiful arises.

Question 3:

Yoga Pragya, I can understand that your body, your mind, and your heart are not in harmony. But your being - you have only heard the word; you don't know anything about it. If you had known your being, everything would have been harmonized immediately.

Being is such a great power that neither the heart can go against it, nor the head, nor the body. So leave the being apart - because that is the solution. You have to find your being, and the finding of the being will harmonize your existence.

Right now, when you find body, mind and heart in disharmony, first listen to the body. None of the so-called saints will say this to you, First listen to the body. The body has a wisdom of its own, and the body is uncorrupted by the priests; the body is unpolluted by your teachers, by your education, by your parents. Begin with the body, because right now the body is the purest thing in you. So if the heart and the mind go against it, let them go. You follow the body. The body is the first harmony and the being is the last.

The fight is always between the heart and the head. The body and being are never in conflict - they are both natural. The body is visible nature and the being is invisible nature, but they are part of one phenomenon.

Mind and heart are in conflict, because the mind can be polluted, corrupted - and that's what all the religions and all the cultures have been doing: corrupting your mind. They cannot corrupt your heart. But they have managed a different technique for the heart: they have bypassed it, they have ignored it. They have not nourished it; they have tried in every way to weaken it, condemn it.

So what you have, in fact, is your head, which goes against your body - because all the cultures are against the body - and the body is your home. Your heart is part of the body, and your head is also part of the body - but the head is capable of being influenced, being conditioned. The heart is beyond the reach of other people; only you can reach it.

So begin with the body - first follow the body. The body will never misguide you, you can trust it - and you can trust it absolutely. Anything that goes against the body is forced upon you by others.

That is a good criterion to find out what has been forced on you. Whatever goes against the body is forced on you, it is foreign. You should throw it out.

Your mind is full of foreign elements; your mind is not in its natural state. It can also come into a natural state - and then it will not be against the body, it will be in tune with it. So begin with the body and use it as a criterion.

It is a very simple process; follow the body. Slowly, slowly the mind starts dropping anything that is anti-body. It has to drop. It is not its nature, it is carrying it in spite of itself. It is the load that dead humanity has left for you as a heritage.

Following the body, you will be surprised that for the first time you see two things happening: First the head starts dropping conditioning, and second, as the head starts dropping conditioning, you hear for the first time the still small voice of the heart, which was drowned by the noisy head. Because the head is becoming a little more calm, a little more silent, you can hear the heart.

First listen to the body, so all that is gross in your mind will be dropped, and you will start listening to the heart. It is not against the body, because nobody can condition your heart, there is no approach from the outside to the heart. You will be amazed to see that your heart and your body are in harmony. And when this harmony happens, the head is completely finished, it has no power over you. Now you know a new power, purer, more natural, more authentic; and the head drops even its subtle conditioning.

The day the head also becomes silent and comes in tune with the heart and the body, that day you will discover your being - not before it. And once you have discovered your being, you need not try to harmonize anything. The very presence of the being harmonizes everything. The very experience is so vast that your body, your heart, your mind, all lose their identities in the vastness of your being.

But begin with the body. All the religions are saying just the opposite: Oppose the body, don't follow the body, the body is the enemy. That is their strategy to destroy you, because they have taken away the basic element from where you could have grown towards harmony. You will remain always in discord, without harmony. You will never come to know your being, and your whole life will be just anguish, anxiety - tensions of thousands of kinds.

The religions have already given you the clue as to how they have destroyed you: making your mind work against the body has been their strategy. I am saying to you: Start with the body. It is your home. Love it, accept it, and in that very love, in that very acceptance, you are growing towards harmony. This harmony will lead you to being. And once the being is discovered, then you are relieved of all effort. Harmony becomes just your nature - one voice, one organic unity.

Question 4:

Deva Majnu, you never ask how to be together with your two eyes, how to be together simultaneously with your two hands, or your two legs. Certainly the same is true about the deeper things of life:

work and silence together. What is the problem? You can chop wood - of course there will be the noise of chopping wood, but you can remain silent. Your silence has nothing to do with it. It is not disturbed by chopping the wood. In fact, if your total energy is involved in chopping the wood, you will find you are silent. That's why I insist: Be total when you are doing something. In this totality you will simultaneously find your silence.

You are asking how to be alone and friendly together. Have you ever seen that freak of nature, two children born joined together? Their only use is to be exhibited in museums, in carnivals. Otherwise their life is not a life - they are joined too closely. For friendship a closeness is needed and also a distance; in fact, in a living relationship you are always coming close and going far away, coming close and going far away - without destroying each other's individuality.

Aloneness is individuality. And only individuals can be friends. You cannot be friends with someone you have become identified with, that is not friendship. Either you are dominated by the other or you dominate the other. That is a relationship of the owner and the owned, of the possessor and the possessed.

Friends never possess each other. The most fundamental thing in friendship is to give freedom to the other to be himself. There is a trust, there is no need to dominate the other; there is no need to chain him - through conditions - for tomorrow. Between two friends only one thing exists that bridges them, and that is trust; but it does not bind them.

Your question is meaningless. You don't understand what you are asking. Perhaps that's what happens in the world; even friendship becomes like marriage - expectations, demands....

In the Middle Ages, people of the upper classes in Europe were so concerned with the chastity of their wives that they invented a lock; so if they were going for a few days out of town, they would lock up the wife's sexual organs. She can urinate, but she cannot make love. Those locks are still available visible in European museums - a great invention!

A warrior was going to war and he was very worried. Finally he locked up his wife. It was just like a belt, which made it impossible for any man to make love to the wife. And then he thought that in the war he might lose the key somewhere, so he went to his best friend and told him, "I am going to war, it may take two, three months for me to come back. I trust you - you keep this key. I have locked up my wife so she cannot make love to anyone. When I come, I will take the key back."

And he was lighthearted, that now there was no problem. As he was getting out of the city he heard the hooves of a horse following him, so he looked back. His friend was rushing, and he said, "Wait!

You have given me the wrong key!" Just five minutes have passed...! This is the type of friendship that exists in the world.

Very few people know the joys of friendliness. It makes no demands, it expects nothing - and then there is no problem: you can be alone and you can be full of friendliness. It is one of the most spiritual experiences.

You are also asking how to be in excitement and calmness at the same time. You can try it in two ways: either be excitedly calm or be calmly excited. I don't see any problem in it, I have tried it both ways - it works. Do you think I am not excited about you, your future, your potential, your growth? I am as excited as any gardener about his plants - but that does not disturb my calmness.

These are just like two wings of a bird: they appear to be opposite to each other, but they both are needed for the flight of the bird. And to know this secret of transforming contradictions into complementaries is one of the most important alchemical mysteries.

So whenever you see two things that are contradictory and you want both, you have just to find a link that transforms them from contradictions into complementaries.

And you will be surprised that there are no contradictions in existence; there are only complementaries - but they look to us like contradictions. The tree grows higher, but its roots go deeper. If the tree was also a philosopher it would be puzzled: how to maintain this contradiction of growing higher and lower simultaneously? But because trees are not philosophers, very simple people, they go on growing higher and they go on growing lower simultaneously.

Question 5:

Prem Purna, the dictionary meaning of all these three words will be the same, but not the existential meaning. The existential meanings are so different from each other that it is amazing what these linguists, experts in language and grammar, go on doing.

Wanting implies a very clear-cut idea of the object: what you want. It is not vague. You want a house, you want a wife, you want children - the object of wanting is very clear.

Desiring is vague: the object of desire is not clear. You want power - you desire respectability, honor; you desire to be the greatest man in the world.

Wanting is simpler, and there is a possibility you may be able to fulfill it - because it is not an impossible task to have a house, a wife, children. In fact, it is impossible not to have them.

But desire is vague: respectability is not an object, but just an idea; honor is not an object, but just an idea; to be the greatest man is not an object, but just an idea. And even the greatest people - the world may think they are greatest - are unhappy deep down in themselves.

For example, the founder of the Russian Revolution, Lenin, can certainly be called a great man; even his enemies would agree about that. But he was constantly worried, embarrassed, because his legs were short, and his upper body was bigger; they were not in proportion. When he used to sit on a chair, his legs would dangle, they would not reach the ground. So he was always hiding his legs, sitting very close to the table. His table was always covered with cloths, so nobody could see his dangling feet. But whether anybody else saw them or not, he knew....

I don't think that there was any problem - but it remained in his mind as a deep inferiority complex.

Perhaps it was this inferiority complex that drove him to become a great revolutionary in the world:

if he had had normal legs, perhaps he would not have been a revolutionary.

Desire is vague; and longing is totally different from wanting and desire. Wanting and desire are both of the head: one is for a clear-cut object, another for vague ideals. Longing is of the heart, not of the mind. It is the heart that longs, and feels the pain of longing. The heart has no business with money or power; the heart's longing is only for love... and ultimately for God, which is the purest form of love, and nothing else. It is a good exercise to contemplate the differences between words which appear to be similar. It will give you clarity.

Longing is just a thirst, and it is beautiful.

Desire is ugly, because it is always competitive - jealous of those who have it, when you don't have it. It is ugly because it can do any sort of harm to anybody in order to fulfill itself. It is violent.

Wanting is ordinary and mundane - middle class.

Question 6:

Prem Arup, the people that you just don't want to let go of you will not be able to find because they also need freedom.

In the universal consciousness you can meet only out of freedom, out of pure love. The very idea of not letting them go is anti-freedom. You want to keep the possession in your hands even in the universal consciousness, when individualities have dissolved. Those will be the first people to disappear. They will slip out of your grip.

As far as I am concerned, there is no problem. You will be able to recognize me, because between me and you there is no question of possessiveness. The more nonpossessive a friendship you have, the greater the possibility to feel and recognize the essential core of the individual, because all outer forms will have disappeared, will be gone; only the essential core will be there, unembodied. Only out of freedom, out of love, is there a possibility of recognition.

You are asking, "Will we still be able to recognize our friends?" You are not aware: somebody is a friend today, tomorrow he becomes your enemy; somebody was an enemy yesterday and today he has become your friend. Friends turn into enemies; enemies turn into friends. Unless you have a friendliness which is already eternal, here - now, you will not be able to recognize them.

Whatever you can make eternal, here - now, you will be able to recognize in the hereafter.

And this is good. I have heard about a man who married eight times. Now to get recognized by eight wives simultaneously in the universal consciousness... that man will try somehow to fall back into the world! he will not want such universal consciousness, where eight wives are torturing him.

Whatever is pure here will remain pure whatever world you are in. So think of making friendliness completely free of impurity; think of love as only a gratitude, not a demand. All demanding relationships, all expecting relationships will be dissolved. Only the purest relationships - just the sheer joy in the individuality of the other - will be remembered and recognized. And it is good...

because you have lived so many lives: you have had so many husbands, so many wives, so many friends, so many enemies... it has been difficult to deal with them separately. Thousands of lives, and their relationships, in the universal consciousness would crush you, destroy you.

Even Christian theologians have become worried about the last judgment day. Bertrand Russell started the question when he wrote the book, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN. He pointed out all the fallacies of Christian theology - and one of the fallacies is the last judgment day.

Bertrand Russell was a mathematician. He could not conceive how millions and millions and millions of people can all be judged in one day. And half of them will be women, screaming and trying to find their husbands... and they have all had many husbands in many lives and many wives in many lives and they will be quarreling with each other and fighting with each other... they will drive God mad. Bertrand Russell says, "That's why the last judgment day goes on being postponed. It is never going to happen."

All the people who are in their graves... and they are not a small number: wherever you are sitting there are at least eight people underneath you in their graves. And God will wake all these people up from their graves? First, waking up all these people from their graves will take much time; one day will not do. And people who have been sleeping for centuries... even to wake someone up in the morning who has been sleeping for only six or eight hours is a difficult job. People who have been sleeping for millions of years - to wake them up is not going to be simple!

And then the whole gathering will be so big, it will be a real congregation. And everybody will be rushing, finding... because in one thousand lives you had one thousand wives, and each of your wives has one thousand husbands - not only you. It is going to be such a quarrelsome day that nobody is going to bother about judgment. And how will God manage?

I agree with Bertrand Russell that the last judgment day is not going to happen, just because it is mathematically impossible.

It is good that you forget all of them; only the purest is remembered - and you don't have much that is pure. So don't just wait for the hereafter; if you want to recognize someone, purify your relationship with the person. Give him absolute freedom - and don't be dominated by him either.

Remain absolutely free. Only two freedoms, two alonenesses, two meditators, meeting together for no reason but just sheer joy, will be able to recognize each other.

But Arup, about me you can be certain: whether you recognize me or not, I will recognize you.

Okay, Vimal?

Yes, Osho.