Chapter 14
[A sannyasin, recently returned, says she feels rather neutral at the moment.]
Don't be worried about the neutrality and don't think that it is something that should not be. We have become accustomed to ups and downs, so both are okay: when we are up we feel good, when we are down we feel bad. But just in the middle there is a point which is neither up nor down; that is the neutral point, where we don't feel good, we don't feel bad. Sometimes that point is very frightening, because if one feels bad one knows what the case is; if one feels good one knows what is the case.
But when one cannot feel either, one is simply in a kind of limbo and one is afraid. But that point is very beautiful. If you can accept that point it will give you immense insight in your life. When you are up, the up disturbs you; all pleasures bring fever, excitement. And when you are down, again you are disturbed in a negative way. When you are up, you want to cling to that state; when you are down you want to get out of it. Something is there to work on and to remain occupied with, but when you are just in the middle, all fever is gone; it is a zero point.
Through that zero point one can have immense insight into oneself because all is silent. There is no happiness, there is no unhappiness, so there is no noise of any kind, there is utter quiet. Buddha used this point very deeply for all his disciples. It was a must, everybody had to attain to it first, and then the work started. He calls it upeksha, indifference, mm? - that is another name for neutrality.
So you are in a very Buddhist mood this moment (chuckling)... and you look like a Buddhist nun!
All people who are really interested in growth, in consciousness-raising in any way, are bound to become interested in me sooner or later; it is only a question of time. I am for them.
Osho to a painter about how to be creative, saying that one needs a certain courage because one has to constantly explore the new. More often than not, painters, writers, poets, find success through
a particular style or form and then can't afford to drop it in favour of something new. This is the place for you!
Prem means love, sarjo means creativity. And it is only love that creates. Hate destroys, love creates. And the more you love, the more you can create. If one becomes love, one's whole life becomes a creativity. Then it is not only that you are creative while you paint or while you compose music; whatsoever you do is creative. Touch anything with love and you create something in it. So be in deep love with existence.
These two months will be of great revelation to you of your own being, and that will give a totally new dimension to your work.
Prem means love, bindia means a drop - a dewdrop of love. But even a dewdrop of love is bigger than any ocean; because it is love it is bigger than any ocean. Love is humble, it effaces itself. Love is the death of the ego; and the moment the ego dies you are unlimited, you are infinite. The only natural way for the ego to die is through love. Love is the ego committing suicide, that's why people are afraid of love. They talk about love, they read about love, they hanker for love, but they don't move in it.
Only the people who move in love know what god is and know what deathlessness is. By dying they come to know the deathless, by disappearing they come to know the eternal.