Chapter 1

[A sannyasin leaving for the West says: I feel deep gratitude for all that has happened to me since I've been here.]

I know.... Much will be happening, much more, and gratitude prepares the way. Feel as grateful to existence as possible - for small things, not only for great things... just for sheer breathing. We don't have any claim on existence, so whatsoever is given is a gift. If it is not given we don't have any court for appeal.

So grow more and more in gratitude and thankfulness - not only towards me; let it become your very style. Be grateful to everybody.

If one understands gratitude then one is grateful for things that have been done positively. And one even feels grateful for things which could have been done negatively. You feel grateful that somebody helped you; this is just the beginning. Then you start feeling grateful that somebody has not harmed you - he could have; it was so kind of him.

Once you understand the feeling of gratitude and allow it to sink deeply within you, you will start feeling grateful for everything. And the more grateful you are, the less complaining, grumbling.

Once complaining disappears, misery disappears. It exists with complaints. It is hooked with complaints and with the complaining mind. Misery is impossible with gratefulness. So that is one of the most important secrets to learn.

[The Hypnotherapy Group was at darshan tonight.

A group member said:

You look good! All things happen together. If you feel less guilty, immediately you start feeling more happy. If you feel more, happy, you feel less in conflict, more harmonious, together. If you feel together, more harmonious, suddenly you feel a certain grace surrounding you. These things function like a chain reaction: one starts the other, the other starts another, and they go on spreading.

But to begin with, feeling less guilty is very very important. The whole of humanity has been made to feel guilty - centuries of conditioning, of telling people to do this and not to do that... and not only that, but forcing them by saying that if they do something that is not allowed by the society or by the church, then they are sinners. If they do something which is appreciated by the society and the church, then they are saints.So everybody has been fooled into doing things that society wants them to do, and not to do things that society does not want them to do. Nobody has bothered about whether this is your thing or not. Nobody has bothered about the individual.

The thinking up to now has been this - that the individual exists for the society so the individual has to follow just what the society says. He has to fit with the society. That is the definition of the normal human being - to fit with the society. Even if the society is insane, you have to fit with it; then you are normal. Even if the society is neurotic and you try to be sane, you will be thought neurotic because the society is the majority. They have power so they can make anybody feel guilty.

They have put a deep mechanism inside you which they call a conscience which, if you move slightly away from the norm, the accepted rules of the game, immediately says, 'Wrong! Wrong! You are doing something wrong!' Now the problem for the individual is that nature demands one thing and society demands something contrary. If the society was demanding the same as nature demands, there would have been no conflict. Man would still have remained in the garden of Eden.

The problem arises because society has its own interests which are not necessarily in tune with the individual and his interests. Society has its own investments. The individual has to be sacrificed.

This is a very topsy-turvy world. Just the other way round should be the right thing.

The individual does not exist for the society. The society exists for the individual. Because society is just an institution. It has no soul. An individual has the soul, is the conscious centre; it has a centre.

God resides in the individual, not in the society. Society is nothing - just a word.

You cannot come across society anywhere. Wherever you go, you will come across the individual.

Society is just in the dictionaries and in the legal codes of the courts. It is a term but a very big blanket term. It covers many things. And for this blanket term the real individual can be sacrificed - and he has been up to now.

Rarely have a few individuals been able to escape from this dangerous structure. These few individuals are the religious rebels - Jesus, Buddha, Krishna. They tried to live their life according to their nature. They dropped conscience. they dropped all guilt. They became part of nature rather than part of society. Nature is vast. Society is very tiny. Society is man-made. nature is God-made.

They chose God instead of a man-made institution.

The difference is just like marriage nad love. Marriage is a man-made institution. Love has nothing to do with man's manufactured institutions. Love is natural. Wherever you find society is in conflict

with nature, choose nature - whatsoever the cost. You will never be a loser. You will always gain.

If you choose society, you will always be a loser. The game will be very short term, worth nothing, and you will lose your whole soul.

So this is the basic thing - to move into a new light, into a new consciousness, where you can unguilt yourself. And then many more things follow.

So good... but keep the insight and don't get into the guilt again. Drop it more and more. It is still lingering there in the unconscious. Drop it from there also.

[A group member says:

Very good. Changes are easy if you allow. Laughter is the most easy thing in the world if you allow, but it has become hard. People laugh very rarely, and even when they laugh it is not true. People laugh as if they are obliging somebody, as if they are fulfilling a certain duty. Laughter is fun. You are not obliging anybody! Just as with love... you are not obliging anybody. Love is fun. Laughter is fun. Life is fun. But somehow the idea has gone very deeply into the mind that you are fulfilling duties.

You see a person and you smile. You smile for him. One should smile only for oneself. If others share, good. If nobody shares, good. But one should smile of one's own accord. One should not laugh to make somebody else happy, because if you are not happy, you cannot make anybody happy. Even if you are happy, it is very difficult to make somebody else happy because it depends on that somebody else as to whether he will accept it or not. One should simply laugh of one's own accord, and one should not wait for reasons to laugh. That too is absurd. Why wait for reasons? Life as it is should be enough of a reason to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful...

it is so wonderful. It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic joke.

If you start looking into things you will not be able to stop laughing. Everything is simply perfect for laughter - nothing is lacking - but we won't allow. We are very miserly... miserly about laughter, love, life. Once you know that miserliness can be dropped, you move into a different dimension.

Laughter is the real religion. Everything else is just metaphysics. Laughter is true religion because it will bring you closer and closer to life. In great laughter the ego disappears suddenly you are open to the whole, to the whole of existence. All doors, all windows open.

So make it a point to laugh more. Always keep laughter alive so that for any tiny reason, or for no reason, you are always ready to burst into laughter. And don't wait for excuses to laugh. If they are available, good. If they are not available there is no need for them. One can laugh without them. It looks mad if you laugh without any reason but don't be bothered about what others say.

It is your life and the more you fill it with laughter, the more sacred it will become. Laugh your way to God !

[An elderly sannyasin says:...

[chuckling] That's really a miracle, really a miracle! To feel like a child again is a great conversion.

Allow it... don't feel shy about it. Tease people! It will be difficult because of your age, your mind and your experience, but don't be bothered. Put your age and mind aside. If you can, you will suddenly feel a new energy arising in your body. Your age will be reduced by at least twenty years. You can become younger immediately and you can live longer. So allow it; it is beautiful.

That's what Jesus means when he says, 'Those who are like children, only they will be able to enter my kingdom of God.' One has to become a child again and then life is complete. In childhood we start and in childhood we end. If one dies without becoming a child, his whole life circle is incomplete.

He will have to be born again.

That is the whole eastern idea of rebirth. If you can be reborn - reborn in this life - there is no need to be born again. If you can really become a child in this body, there is no need to be born into the world again. You can live in the heart of God. There is no need then to come back. You have learned the lesson and completed the circle.

My whole effort here is this: to help you to be a child again. It is difficult, it is very difficult, because your whole experience, your whole pattern, your whole character resists and says, 'What are you doing? It looks foolish!' But be foolish and let it assert itself. You will feel so unburdened, so new, and as fresh as a dew drop. That freshness is something of the spirit, because your body is old but your consciousness can be new and young.

So it is somewhat of a miracle. If you allow it, it will grow and you will be able to see things again as a small child with no ideas, no verbalisations, with no mind. Then the world is so luminous. Life is like a rainbow - so many colours, so many sounds. It is a great orchestra - but only a child can feel it because we have so many ideas. Those ideas act as blinkers.

Even when we see the moon, our ideas about the moon are standing between us and the moon.

The moon is never really available to you - so many layers, so many screens. If you allow this child to grow again, it will be a death and a resurrection. The old will disappear by and by and will be replaced by a totally new consciousness and then you will be able to see that a rose is a rose is a rose.

You will be able to penetrate into the facticity of things with no words, no verbalisations, no philosophy, no metaphysics, no religion. A child knows none. He simply looks direct. His being is immediate. He is full of presence, available, open.

Allow it. This is something very significant, but you can lose it. If you don't help it, it can be lost easily because your whole personality will be against it. You will have to consciously work a way for it, to allow it. Your whole past will be there like a rock and this new phenomenon will just be like dripping water, a small stream, which can become a river if you help; otherwise the rock is too big.

But ultimately, if one goes on helping, the softer, the more water-like, the stronger one is, the more the rocklike things disappear.

In the long run the rock is always defeated by the water. The old man is always defeated by the child. Death is always defeated by life. One should remember that, and one should always help the softer, the younger and fresher things.

[She then asks:

A child never bothers about these things. This a question coming from your past, not from your child.

A child doesn't bother. He goes on teasing. Whether somebody rejects him or not is not a problem to him. That's why he is a child! He does not think pro and con and he does not calculate. He does not think whether this child will like it or not. That is not the point.

So don't ask this question - because this question comes not from the child but from the rock... not from the water. This question comes from your old personality. It says, 'What are you going to do?

Will it be good or bad? Think about it.' Then you will not be able to because this calculation, this clever mind, has entered into it. You are no more a child. And if you decide by this mind, then the teasing will also be useless because now the control remains with the old. Forget all about it ! At the most they can reject you. That is their problem. It has nothing to do with you.

Really be a child and let us see what happens. At the most, people can reject you or can think that you have gone crazy. That's what they will think, so let them! It is worth it. Being crazy is worth it. You have remained sane long enough. Now try the other way. For seven days simply forget all consideration. Simply do whatsoever you feel like doing. Just behave like a child - and a child never asks. So don't ask for seven days. A child never thinks - just a feeling and he goes and does things.

Make friends with children... small children around the ashram. Make friends with them and follow them. Whatsoever they do, you do [laughter]. They will enjoy it and will not reject you at all. Children are very very receptive and they always understand. They will immediately understand that you look old but you are not. Just mix with children and forget about big people.

[A group member says:

Good, very good. Trust is life. Trust is God. I don't say to people to trust in God. I simply say 'trust', because trust is God.

There is nothing to fear because we don't have anything to lose. Nobody can rob us, and all that can be robbed is not worth-while, so why fear, why suspect, why doubt? These are the real robbers - doubt, suspicion, fear. They destroy your very possibility of celebration.

So while on earth, celebrate the earth. While this moment lasts, enjoy it to the very core. Take all the juice that it can give to you and is ready to give to you.

Because of fear you miss many things. Because of fear we cannot love, or even if we love it is always half-hearted, it is always so-so. It is always up to a certain extent and not beyond that. We always come to a point beyond which we are afraid, so we are stuck there. We cannot move deep in friendship because of fear. We cannot do prayer because of fear.

There are people who go on saying that people do prayer because of fear. That's true; many people pray because of fear. But there is an even greater truth than that and it is that many people don't go the whole way in prayer because of fear. They may start in fear but then they don't go very far.

They just remain on the formal, the cliche level. They say some formal prayer to God but they really

are not moved, thrilled by it. It is not an ecstasy. They are not mad with it. They don't go headlong.

They move very cautiously - and all caution is based on fear.

Be conscious but never be cautious. The distinction is very subtle. Consciousness is not rooted in fear. Caution is rooted in fear. One is cautious so that one may never go wrong, but then one cannot go very far. The very fear will not allow you to investigate new lifestyles, new channelisations of energy, new directions, new lands; it will not allow you. You will always tread on the same path again and again, shuttling backwards and forwards, shuttling backwards and forwards. One becomes like a goods train.

Consciousness simply says, 'Be conscious of whatsoever you are doing, wherever you are going.

Just remain alert so you can enjoy it to the very last drop.' So nothing is missed, you are alert.

Fear is one of the most basic problems to be faced, encountered, and if you feel it is less, make it even lesser. It is like the weeds in the garden. One has to go on continuously pulling them. up and throwing them away, otherwise they tend to overrun the whole garden. If you allow the weeds, sooner or later roses will disappear, flowers will disappear and there will be weeds all over the garden.

One has to go on continuously pulling them up. Only then can the garden remain beautiful. When all the roots are uprooted, then there is no problem. You can relax. This is the whole effort, the 'sadhana', the very inner discipline, the work. So, fear seems to be your chief characteristic.

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, 'Find your chief characteristic,' because around that everything is hooked. For example, [one] has a guilt feeling; that is her chief characteristic and everything is hooked around it. If she loses the guilt feeling, then everything will drop by itself. If you drop your fear, there is nothing else to drop. Everything will drop automatically because everything is just part of the fear.

So it has been good. But insights give you a glimpse and then one has to work hard to make them more and more crystallised realities. So now each moment be more alert and don't allow any fear.

Wherever you see that there is fear, drop it. Even sometimes if it is needed, then go into the fear.

[Osho said that if one is afraid of darkness one should go into it, explore it, allow it, and by and by one would come to experience the beauty of darkness and to welcome and love it.]

As I see it, in life there is nothing which is bad, nothing which has to be feared - nothing whatsoever.

It is just that we have certain ideas implanted in the mind in certain fragile moments and they go on projecting.

A small child is left in the crib. He is hungry and he cries out, looks around and he cannot see anything; it is dark and nobody is coming. Now the aloneness, the hunger, nobody responding to his call and cry, and the fear, all become associated. They become associated so deeply that whenever he is in the dark, even after fifty years, he will start feeling a certain fear. That fifty-year- old association is still alive.

Now he is no more a child, no more in the crib, no more dependent on the mother, but still that fear is there functioning and projecting. So just watch and drop fear more and more.

If you can clean your consciousness of fear you have come to the right path. Then the real journey of celebration starts.

[The therapist who conducts the Soma group, said she had allowed a couple of participants to conduct a few sessions in the group, and it turned into an encounter group she couldn't deal with, so she had walked out.

Osho checked her energy.]

There is nothing to be worried about. From just the very beginning, never allow anybody to take over the group, howsoever experienced. Never allow anybody to do that. They have to be participants and the participant has to remain a participant. If you allow that, there will be chaos. Now you are suffering because of the chaos. Now you see that nothing is happening and nothing is going to happen that way because now the direction is lost.

If somebody is trying to force his own way on the group, tell him to leave, because he has to be there as a participant. If he wants to lead a group he has to come and see me. But this is not the way. Once things have gone out of your hands it is difficult to control them again and frustration will come. You will start feeling that you are not the leader of the group and they will be on their own.

Sometimes things can be good on their own and I'm still thinking about a group where there would be no leader, just the participants, so whatsoever they want to do, they do. That will have its own flow and it may give many things to people, but that is only possible when they have done all the groups.

You should not move from your schedule in any way and you should not allow anybody to replace you, because if you do, the group will be lost. It will turn into Encounter, it will turn into Arica, it will turn into anything.

You know what has to be done. You have the whole direction. You have the schedule, the planning in your mind of how things have to develop. So tell [the participants] that they have to be participants and if you feel that the time is wasted, then extend the group for three days.

And don't bring in your problems while you are leading the group. That is one of the things that the leader has to understand. When you are functioning as a leader, forget all about your personal problems. It is just as when an electrician is working; he forgets all his problems. Here he is just an electrician. A plumber is working in the bathroom; he forgets all his problems. He does not bring them here, because we have called him as a plumber.

There in the group you are the leader. You need not bring your problems with you. That is a great discipline for you. That is what the leader is going to be benefited by. You put your problems aside and here you function as an expert who knows something about the human mind. And you can help people - not that you pretend that you have gone beyond your problems, but you know something.

That know-how you can impart, that's all.

When somebody comes as a plumber, you don't bother about whether he has problems or not. That is his business. He is not saying that he has no problems and that is why he has come to do the

plumbing. He has problems, but he knows something about plumbing that has nothing to do with his problems.

A doctor has his own problems, a psychiatrist has his own problems. He himself may need another psychiatrist to be psychoanalysed and treated by, but when he comes to the patient he brings his expertise. And this distinction has to be maintained.

You are not enlightened, that's true. Nobody is trying to say that you are, nor do you need to pretend to be. But when you are leading a group, your personal problems, your anguish, your anxieties, are by the side. You function there as the expert. This is going to help you because when you function as an expert and you put your personal life aside, you function in a totally different way. You see your own problems then in a more objective, realistic sense because they are far away, put aside, and you are dealing with others' problems. You can see that they are your problems also.

Anything that happens to any human being is happening to you also, more or less. If somebody has a problem with anger, somebody with greed, some with love, someone with sex, you have all those problems, but there you are functioning as an expert. Watching their problems, helping people to come out of them and seeing that they really do and that they are growing, you become confident that you can help others, so why not yourself? - then the same can be done to you too. You can have a more objective outlook about your own problems - as if they belong to somebody else - and you can work them out. That is the benefit the leader is going to gain out of the groups.

He can gain even more than any participant. Helping others, he will grow into this insight. Seeing others' problems he will be able to see his problems in a different light. Seeing people coming out of their problems, his confidence will grow. He will feel more rooted, more grounded and he will see, 'Yes, I can help others, why not me? I can pull myself out in the same way.'

I have been watching that again and again you relapse into it again. Again and again you bring in your problems and then you become confused. In a way it is very sincere... I love it. One should be sincere, but in a way it is not going to help you or others. It is good to remind oneself again and again that your own problems are there and they have to be solved; that you are not here just to help others, because unless your problems are solved, what is the point of being there?

But this is the way I am trying to help you. This is a device for you to be a leader. It is one of the hardest devices - to give you a certain responsibility for which you don't feel capable. But I will help you to become capable. And when you start feeling capable of solving others' problems, you will suddenly have a new energy available that can be applied to you too. Then it is only a question of direction.

This is my understanding - that if you really want to learn something, start teaching people. There is no better way to learn than to be a teacher.

[The leader then said:

No, no catharsis, because that group is not for catharsis. If they want to cathart they have to join other groups. You have to insist that Soma is not going to be cathartic. That is the whole training.

Otherwise they will mix everything.

If somebody is not listening, watch them for a few hours and then tell them to leave. Be strict. The group has not to lose its difference from other groups. Its distinction has to be maintained.