Chapter 20
[People who had done the Aum marathon had darshan tonight. Veeresh, one of the leaders, said that he followed Osho's advice: "Let Veeresh not be there"; and when he got stuck to close his eyes, relax, and think of Osho. Veeresh recounts three incidents in the group when this had happened.]
Mm, really fantastic it has been. Good.
All these three points have been really meaningful, and they will be growing more and more... they will be coming more often. Finally a time comes when they are no longer moments - they become your state. These have been glimpses... nourish them, remember them.
Next time more will become available. It is what one day will become simply your spontaneous consciousness. Veeresh is not there, and tremendous things happen. There is nobody like a doer, not even a watcher. No division exists; things simply move of their own accord. Not that you stand by the side - you move. Really you move for the first time, but you move in a unison. You move with the group; not separate, not leading them, but so much with them that they forget all about the leader and the leader forgets all about himself.
Then the leader becomes something innermost to every participant, and the group moves on its own.
You never feel that it is moving without you. It is moving with you but now you are no longer separate from the participants. You have become part of them, you have entered them. Now the group is no longer a collectivity, it is really no longer a group. A collective soul has arisen... the individuals are no longer there. They have dropped their boundaries, have merged. Definitions are there no more - everything is murky, muddy, boundaries confused... nobody knows who is who. And that is the most beautiful moment when it comes to a group, when a soul has arisen. Then something possesses all... something that is beyond and yet within. Those are the ecstatic moments.
What has happened to you will soon be happening to the whole group and everybody will become aware of it at the same moment. This is what is known as the phenomenon of possession. The modern mind has completely forgotten that language. Only primitives knew about it - how to be possessed by God. That simply means how to be dispossessed by the ego.
Once you are not there, something beyond you takes possession, and things move - nobody is moving them; they move on their own. The very energy moves like a river.... it finds its own course and everybody simply moves with it. There is no need to push the river - you are not separate from it.
Good has been the experience. Blessed have been these three moments. Remember them, be mindful of them, and more and more will be coming. When they come next, don't get scared. This time you got scared. If one gets scared then the moment cannot become a prolonged state. It comes and it goes because you are not accepting it, you have not welcomed it. The guest has knocked at the door, but the host was not willing.
Welcome it, and next time it comes start dancing, so that everybody knows what is happening.
(Veeresh chuckles to himself) You will see that the moment grows deeper and deeper and deeper. It can become almost an eternity. A single moment can become eternity, because it is not a question of length but of depth.
This has to be understood: time is length, meditation is depth - of the same energy. Time is length:
one moment following another moment following another moment; a row, a line, a linear process - but one moves horizontally on the same plane. Tick... tick... moments pass... but the plane remains the same.
What you experienced are the moments of depth. Suddenly you slip down, or if you allow me, you slip up. Both are the same but you are no longer horizontal - you become vertical. Suddenly a turn, and you are slipping out of the linear process. One becomes afraid because mind exists only on the horizontal plane. The mind becomes scared. Where are you going?
It looks like death. It looks like madness. Only two interpretations are possible for the mind: either you are going mad, or you are dying. Both are scaring, and in a way, both are true. You are dying to the mind, so the interpretation is right - and you are dying to the ego. And in a certain way you are going mad, because you are moving beyond the mind which monopolises all sanity; which thinks that only that which is within the mind is sane, and that which is beyond it is insane. You are crossing the boundary, you are crossing the danger line, and the mind says, 'Beware, stop! Come back!' Because nobody knows - once you have crossed the line you may not come back. That's why the mind becomes afraid.
But these moments when you slip down or slip above, slip in height or in depth, are the same. When you slip beyond the horizontal line there is eternity, time disappears. One moment can be equal to eternity, as if time stops. The whole movement of existence stops because motivation stops.
This is the meaning of the christian symbol of the cross. the cross has two lines - one horizontal, one vertical. When Jesus is crucified it is very symbolic. His hands are on the horizontal line, and his whole being is on the vertical line. Hands represent doing, action, so only doing is on the horizontal
line. When you become a non-doer, you slip. When you are just a being, when you just are, then you slip on the vertical line - that is the vertical line of the cross.
But of course you will be as frightened as Jesus was when he was crucified. He started crying: ' My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Are you not with me anymore? Have you left me alone in this misery? ' Even Christ became frightened. Everybody is going to become scared; it is natural.
But by and by go beyond the natural - then the real nature opens its doors. It has been good.
And that's what I mean when I say Veeresh, you disappear - let me work through you. I am the vertical line within you. I would like to become the vertical line of all the sannyasins here. Once you allow me, the possibility is tremendous.
Good, Veeresh; this has been really good. I am happy.
[A group member said he enjoyed the group but had missed the chance to work on something which he felt to be in him and which groupleaders in this group and others had commented on, and that was a ruthlessness. Osho said he should repeat the Aum again and make use of any opportunity that might come up to work on.... ]
This time be more watchful, and if something happens where you become frightened, that is the exact moment to move in. go opposite the fear. Whenever you feel that something is frightening you, jump in head-long, and that will help.
Many times you miss because when for the first time an insight comes you cannot recognise it. How can you recognise it? - you have never known it. So it is natural to miss it the first time, absolutely natural. By the time you understand it, it is gone, the moment is missed, but next time you can be more aware.
So this should be the rule: whatever frightens you, go into it. Just put aside all safety measures, securities; just gamble. The whole of life belongs to the gambler, and the whole mind has become a business man: calculating, thinking of profit and loss, never taking a risk - and risk is needed. Life comes to those who risk, who live dangerously, almost on the verge of death.
That was the attraction in the past of being a soldier, a warrior. The attraction was not of war, but of danger - just to move side by side with death. It gives you a crystallisation, and there comes a time when no fear remains in you.
Just imagine a point where no fear is in you. That is freedom, what Hindus call moksha - absolute freedom. Fear is the bondage. There is no other bondage than fear.. Fear is the imprisonment.
Nobody is imprisoning you... it is your own fear, and you go on hiding yourself behind the walls. You have become crippled and you cannot come out in the open. Your eyes have become blind because you have lived so much in darkness, so whenever you come against light it is too dazzling.
Whenever you come near fear, you are near the door. Fear is symbolic. It says now be aware, don't enter here; death is here. But death is the door - to enlightenment, to all that is beautiful and true.
Learn to die. That is the only way to achieve more and more abundant life. Carry your cross on your shoulders. And everybody has to carry his own cross - don't avoid it. The more you avoid it, the unless you enter, there is no life.
Life arises only in risk, in danger. When danger is there, all around you, something in you crystallises, because that danger changes you. The danger creates a situation in which you have to become one. You cannot go on thinking; you become thoughtless.
Have you watched that when you suddenly come across a snake on the road, thinking stops?
Immediately there is no thought - the mind is vacant because the situation is so dangerous that you cannot afford to think. Thinking will take time, and the snake is there and may not wait for you... he may strike.
So you have to do something without thinking. You have to move out of no-mind. You jump - not that you decide to jump; you jump without any decision on the part of the mind. After you have taken the jump the mind comes back and you start thinking about many things. You may forget that the jump happened out of meditation, that it was spontaneous.
Whenever there is danger, thinking stops. Thinking is a luxury. When people become too secure, they think too much - noise of no value, much ado about nothing. This inner talk becomes a barrier on every sense - it becomes like a dead weight. It does not allow you to see, it does not allow you to hear, it does not allow you to live, it does not allow you to love. Fear kills people before death comes. A man dies a thousand and one times before death comes. Real death is beautiful, but the death that fear projects is the ugliest thing.
So next time make this the key: whenever fear arises that means you are somewhere near the block that has to be broken; just there somewhere near the door. Knock hard and enter there. Be a fool and enter. Don't try to be clever - be a fool and much is possible.
[A sannyasin says: Behind all my feelings I've experienced a deep 'no'. No particularly to love.... I experience love as pain and sadness.]
I understand. It has something to do with your past life. I have been watching....
In your past life you have suffered much because of love, and that no has become ingrained deep in the unconscious. But it has to be broken, otherwise your past life will go on controlling you. No experience should be allowed to be so powerful. You have suffered, that I know. You have suffered a lot, and when one suffers much then the no becomes ingrained. We carry our experiences from one life to another - particularly deeprooted ones. Superficial ones are lost when you die, but the deeprooted, the essential - and love is one of the most essential - we carry on.
It has to be broken. But it is good that you have become aware. You have come across a rock. Don't be worried, just go on hammering on it. Don't force a yes because that will be false, inauthentic.
Go on hammering on the rock of no, and one day the rock will give way, and when it does then the yes, the real authentic yes, will arise. So I am not saying to pretend yes, or to say yes when it is not coming. If it is not coming, nothing to be worried about. Go on hammering on the rock.
Don't accept the no, because one cannot live in a no. You cannot eat no food, you cannot drink no water. You cannot live on no love, and you cannot live on no God. Nobody can live in no... you can only suffer and create more and more miseries. No is hell. Only yes brings heaven close... and when there arises a real yes out of your total being, nothing remains behind. In that yes you become one, and your whole energy moves upwards and says yes, yes, yes!
That is the meaning of the christian or mohammedan word 'amen'. Each prayer is to be closed with amen - it means yes, yes, yes. But it should come out of your very guts. It should not be a mind affair, it should not be just in the thoughts. So I am not telling you to say it; I am saying to make way for it to come.
No is like a rock on the fountain... the spring is being crushed by it, and that spring is you. With no you remain crippled and paralysed.
What other group are you going to do?
[The sannyasin says: The Enlightenment Intensive.]
That's perfectly right; that will be most helpful now. That may do something to the rock. And howsoever big and strong it appears to be, it is impotent, it has no power - because no cannot have any power. Even if it seems to have power, it is borrowed. Because no means non-entity, nothing. It is an absence of yes. It is just like darkness - powerless. In fact it has no existence of its own.
So work hard in this camp. Almost go crazy. Sanity will not be of much help now because your whole sanity is based on the same rock of no. You will have to go completely insane. Once that rock is broken, the breakthrough achieved, you will move into a totally new dimension. For the first time you will be alive and flowing. That rock is your grave.
So make all the effort you can.... But it is good that you have become aware. It is a rare insight to come against a deeprooted rock - because in the first place the rock tries to hide itself. It creates false climates around you. If it is a rock of no, it will create around it a false yes so everybody is deceived by it. But you have come exactly to the point where I was waiting for you to come.
I could have said this to you, but then it is pointless. I have to send you to these groups and meditations - I can say to you without sending you, but that won't be of any help. Unless it is your experience, my saying will just be in the air - it won't have any roots. Good, it has been good.
[A group member said she realised she was a lunatic because:... I was being given all the love I wanted, and I was giving all I could, but at the same time I was screaming my lungs out I had exactly what I wanted at that moment and I chose to be miserable.
... this evening sitting on the back steps. I was watching you... and suddenly I thought something like 'I'm really in the presence of God'.]
You are .... It has been good. And everybody is a lunatic.
The moment you understand it, you are going beyond it; then the first step towards sanity has been taken. People never realise that they are mad, and because they don't, they remain mad. Not only do they not realise it but if you say it to them they will defend themselves. They will argue and try to say it is you who is mad, not they. Once you realise that you are a lunatic, sanity has started it is already on the wing. By the very realisation that you are insane, you have dropped it.
This insight has been very very meaningful; don't lose it.
And this is also good - that you realised that in a situation where there was love, where you were being given all that you needed and were sharing all you could, that you were crying and making yourself miserable. Misery has nothing to do with any outer cause; it is your inner decision. If you want to remain miserable you can - whatever the situation. And vice versa is also true. If you decide to be happy, rejoicing, celebrating, you can be, irrespective of the circumstances.
Circumstances are irrelevant - the real thing is you, your attitude. All the love in the world can be given to you and if you decide to be miserable, you will remain miserable. And there may be nothing in the world, absolutely nothing, but one can be happy, tremendously happy for no reason at all - because happiness and misery are your decisions.
It takes much time to realise this because it is very very comfortable for the ego to think that others are making you miserable. The ego goes on making impossible conditions, and it says that first these conditions have to be fulfilled and only then can you be happy. It says how can you be happy in such an ugly world, with such ugly people, in such an ugly situation?
Good that you could see and you could laugh. If you see yourself rightly you will laugh about yourself.
It is ridiculous, simply ridiculous... what we are doing is absurd. Nobody is forcing us to do it, but we go on doing it - and crying for help. And you can simply come out of it; it is your own game - to become miserable, and to ask for sympathy and love and everything.
If you are happy, love will be flowing towards you... there is no need to ask. It is one of the basic laws. Just as water flows downwards, and fire flows upwards, love flows towards happiness....
happinesswards.
And this is the problem: people are miserable and love cannot flow towards them, so they make that a cause for their misery and they say we are bound to be miserable because love is not coming to us. Then they become more miserable, so even less love comes to them.
Become happy and see - suddenly the whole world is there, available. Everybody was waiting for you to open your doors. The sun, the air, the fragrance was waiting to enter, and you were standing with closed doors. Open the doors.
[She also asks: What you said to [the previuos sannyasin] about his pain...
I was wondering, as I live with him, if there is anything I can do to help break down the rock.]
You just be happy. Just be as happy as you can. Don't think about him; whether he is miserable or not is not the point. You be happy, and your happiness will help him.
You cannot help... your happiness can. You follow me? You cannot - you will destroy - but your happiness can. Happiness has its own ways of working - very indirect, very subtle, feminine. When you start working it becomes aggressive, and if you start trying to help him, he will resist. He will resist not knowing, because it seems as if somebody has the upper hand, and nobody wants to be liberated by anybody else. Nobody wants to be made happy by anybody else because that seems to be a dependence, so a deep resistance comes in.
You simply don't be worried about it. That is his business. You have done nothing for his rock to be there. He has earned it through many lives, so he has to drop it. You just be happy and
your happiness will give him courage. Your happiness will give him impetus and a stimulation, a challenge.
Your happiness will give him some idea of what it will be like when he says yes. That's all....
[A sannyasin said that the two days of the marathon had been very intense but that he felt everything to be very absurd. He added that he realised he was not yet liberated so needed to go through these absurd things to become free. This had been his first group.]
They are not absurd - you are absurd. You are in your head too much, clinging to the logical - that's why they appear absurd. They are not absurd - and once you are liberated from your logic you will be free. The logic has to be dropped.
Enjoy! Why condemn? The moment you have taken an attitude you are broken away from the group, you are no longer part of it. Life is more than logic, love is more than logic - and God is absolutely absurd. And you are absurd because you are in the mind too much. But it is good that you realised this. This shows something about you, not about the group.
This was your first opportunity to be mad. Anywhere else in the world it is very costly to be mad. Try two other groups. (laughter)
[The sannyasin said it was very difficult for him to drop being logical because it was not something he had borrowed, he had worked hard for it, for many years.]
You cling to it Just give us an opportunity and we will drop it. Next time you come I will tell my people to arrange for it. Either you drop it, or we will - but it has to be dropped!
[Another sannyasin says: My mind is so confused. I try to work out something but it is just a blank...
there is nothing there.]
Don't try to work out anything. Leave it to me. For what am I here? You will not be able to come out of your confusion; you will become more confused - so leave it to me and don't be worried.
You may be confused but I am not... the real hope is there - that I am not confused!
[A sannyasin said she felt the group to be very powerful for her, but that now she had left that group and today had started another one, she was feeling a sense of loss; as if she had left a family.]
It is good.... One should move so fast from one family to another that one is never attached.
Buddha used to say to his disciples to never stay in a house for more than three days, because by the fourth day one starts feeling at home. Before one feels at home one should move on.
Mind always clings - and it is good to drop this clinging. Each day is new, each moment is new, and after each moment we move in a different world, and one should be prepared so that nothing has a hold on one. The past should simply disappear... you should die continually to the past. So don't waste time. Die to Veeresh, die to Aum, forget all about it. It is gone; it is no longer there.
Otherwise, as you are now clinging to that which is no more, when Tao (the group she had started) is over you will be clinging to it. This is how the mind goes on missing.
Always remain true to the present. Remain committed to this moment - and there is no other commitment.
One commitment is enough: commitment to this moment to herenow. When you go back to the group, immediately move with it and you will suddenly have a freedom. Because these attachments become bondages, chains - and we are not here to create any bondages of any sort. be alert, mm?
[Another group member said she felt she was receiving more love than she could bear... ]
It is, right. But your capacity to bear will increase every day. Love is always more than you can bear.
If it is there, it is always more than one can bear; if it is not there, it is always less than is needed.
If it is there it is always in abundance. God is really very spendthrift, not a miser. When one flower is needed, He will bloom a thousand and one flowers. When one seed will do, He will throw millions of seeds.
Love is too much, but the emptier you become, the more love you can absorb. And this is the beauty - that one can become so empty that one can absorb the whole of God, the whole universe... the whole.