Let Love be your Life-style

[A sannyasin who is returning to the West says: I'm really scared about going back. I wanted to ask you if you'd help me when I'm back there.]

The fear comes to many people because you go back into a world to which you have always belonged and now you don't belong to it anymore. So you are going to a foreign country, as a stranger, to people who think that they know you. Now you know that they don't, but they will take it for granted that they know you. They will go on making contacts with your past, not with you. They will expect you to behave the way they think you should have behave, and you cannot behave that way. This whole situation creates a fear.

Fear is always felt at the stomach or at the throat. If it is felt at the stomach it has a certain quality.

If it is felt at the throat, it has a totally different quality. The fear that is felt at the throat is the fear of communication. It will be difficult for you now to communicate with people. When the fear is felt at the stomach it is fear of death.

If you go deep in meditation, the fear of death arises and that is felt just below the navel centre, at the hara, the death centre. If you are going to communicate, the fear will be felt at the throat because the throat is the centre of expression, communication, relating. When fear arises in relationship to love, it is at the throat, because the child receives love for the first time from the mother through the throat centre. That is his first contact with the world. Mother's breast is his first contact, first relationship, and that is through the throat centre. That's why Freudians call small children 'oral'. That is the oral state of their mind. Whenever you are getting something or giving something, it passes through the throat centre.

So I can understand... the fear is natural. Don't try to avoid it and don't try to suppress it. Don't try to forget it, otherwise it will be difficult to get over it. Accept it - it is natural. It is absolutely natural going back to old friends and not being the old person at all. Your friends will be very much in confusion about how to relate to you, because we get accustomed to a certain pattern.

Whenever a person starts meditating, his world of relationships has to be changed. One person changes, then all his relationships - with the wife, children, friends, even enemies - have to change.

He comes to a shattering. He enters into the world again with a new identity.

When you are here as a sannyasin it is one thing. You can relate with people. You live in a commune of souls who are following the same path, moving in the same direction, living in the same vibe. But when you go back, the fear will come. It is good in a way.

Once you are back, the fear will be there for not more than a week. So don't hide. In that one week meet all the friends and persons to whom you have related in the past, and don't try to pretend to be the old self. Within a week it will disappear because you will be able to relate better than ever.

You can become a coward and try to hide. For example, you can go there and change your dress, and when you go to see a person you don't wear orange or you hide your mala. Then you will try to pretend you are the old person and that there is no need for anyone to relate to you in a new way.

Don't do that.

Never allow fear to dictate your life-style - never. Howsoever difficult it may be, never allow it to dictate your life-style. Only love should be allowed to dictate your life-style, nothing else. Everything else is irrelevant.

Just go. For seven days you will be in a trouble; but move as a sannyasin, phone people, contact them, and tell them that the old person is dead and you are completely new, reborn. Tell them that now it may be a problem to relate to you because you are absolutely new.

If you can stick to that for only seven days, people start relating to you. In fact they will be happy: a new friend, a new relationship arises. Something fresh enters into their life also, through you. A new window opens, a new breeze enters into the room.

I am going to be with you... don't be worried. Whenever you feel any fear arising in the throat, take the locket in your hand and remember me.

Start working there as a vehicle for me. It will be very very much easier for you to work and your work will become very skillful. It will have a great depth to it. Allow me. Just be empty - as if you don't know who you are and you don't know what you are going to do, how you are going to reply; how you are going to respond in a situation. Simply wait for the situation to arise and let me respond through you. If you allow me, within three weeks you will be able to feel an absolute contact. Then you become a link. If you fail, I fail. If you succeed, I succeed. It is nothing to do with you. You can laugh about it. Whether you succeed or fail, it has nothing to do with you; then your whole functioning will be different.

Just today I was reading about a zen master, Tozan - a very famous zen master. The story says that the gods wanted to see him, but they couldn't because he was just an emptiness. They would enter into him from this side and that, they would pass through him, but he was nowhere to be found. He was a nowhere-ness, a nothingness... so empty of himself that they could not see him. They were very curious to see a man who had become empty, so they played a trick.

They went to the kitchen as Tozan was coming from his morning walk and took a few handfuls of rice and wheat and threw it on his path. In a zen monastery that is almost a sin because it is very disrespectful to rice and wheat. Everything should be respected because everything is divine. It has nothing to do with ordinary economics, nothing to do with a gandhian ideology - because that type of ideology is nothing but rationalised miserliness. This had nothing to do with that. It is a respect for everything. Everything that exists and has existed, is divine and should be respected.

So in a zen monastery nothing is wasted; one should be careful, and alert. They played this trick and threw on his path a few hand-fuls of rice and wheat. When Tozan came he could not believe it - that any disciple could do that. Who could do it? Who could be so careless and disrespectful?

This idea arose in him, and suddenly a self was there and the gods could see him. The emptiness was no more empty. Suddenly an idea had crystallised; an attitude, a mind had come. For a moment a cloud appeared in the blue sky and the gods could see this man, Tozan. Then the cloud disappeared because the idea disappeared. I like the story very much.

Whenever there is an idea, you are, and then a cloud arises. And there is not only one cloud. There are so many ideas in you, millions of clouds which continuously haunt you, covering you in layers and layers of cloud. Your inner sky is completely hidden. You can't even have a glimpse of it.

Even a small idea like 'Who has been so careless?' - it was nothing special, nothing much to worry about. It was just a curious 'Who has been so careless?' but it was enough! If you see the morning sun and you say 'How beautiful' - enough! It is just a small fragment but it creates an inner pressure in you, and that's why you immediately want to say to somebody 'Look, how beautiful the morning is!'

That is a release. The pressure has been inside and when you talk it is catharted; you release it.

You feel good, you have said it. If you cannot find anybody, it will haunt you more. If you can write a letter, then you are finished with it. Our mind is continuously overflooded with ideas, emotions, sentiments.

By and by relax, be empty. Just go as an emptiness. Don't try to protect yourself in any way because that will make you closed. Fear is there - accept it. Relax and let it be there. Remain with it. Don't try to do anything against it because whatsoever you do out of fear will create more fear. Just accept it. What can you do?

[Just as Osho uttered the last words, a cuckoo, quietly calling out to a friend, suddenly broke into loud song, filling the stillness of the evening.]

The cuckoo is going crazy - what can you do? Just like that!

If the throat is feeling fear, okay; accept and relax. And I am coming with you.

[Osho tells a newly arrived sannyasin to take part in the forthcoming meditation camp, adding... ]

Even if you feel a little tired, don't be worried. This is just to see which meditation can go to the deepest layers of your being. Once it is known, everything can be very easily disciplined.

Once a meditation that penetrates you very deeply is known, other meditations can be found which can be a help to it. Otherwise sometimes it is possible that you can choose two things which are antagonistic to each other. You may feel good with both because the mind is very dualistic, very divided. But if you do two contradictory things together, it can never reach to the core of your being.

You will always be in a certain conflict and your energy will be moving against itself. The whole energy has to become one flow.

I would suggest that you continue Yoga. If you feel it is tiring to do it every day, then let it be every alternate day or twice a week, but let it be fixed. If you just do it when you feel like it, it will be just an exercise to relax the body, but it will not go very deep. If it is possible, let it be alternate days. But fix a time, and on those days, whether you feel like it or not, it has to be done so that it becomes an inbuilt programme in the body.

There is no need to do many yoga asanas; just two, three or four. Whatsoever makes you feel good, you can choose.

[Another sannyasin says: I'm going back to the West and I'm afraid of not accepting you there. Even here I don't understand fully... I want to keep flowering when I leave here.]

Your problem is deeper. It is not only of fear. It is more of doubt, more of non-trust.

Fear arises when you have trust - then you are afraid of the situation back home and how you are going to face it. You are not afraid of the situation back home - you are afraid of your own doubting mind. [The previous sannyasin's] problem is totally different. She has total trust. Her problem is not of doubt or anything. She is afraid of how to face the world and the old situation there.

You are not afraid of that. You are afraid of yourself.

This has to be understood: you cannot trust me if you don't trust yourself. The doubt is not against me. The doubt is against yourself. You don't love yourself... you don't trust yourself. Whatsoever you do, a basic mistrust continues to be there. Because you cannot trust yourself, how can you trust your trust? Impossible. If you don't love yourself, how can you love somebody? The basic thing is lacking somewhere.

But if you are aware, much can be done. Doubt enters in the mind only when you are in a sort of a slumber, sleep. Doubt enters only when there is a darkness inside. They have an affinity - darkness and doubt. If there is a little light inside, doubt is not, and cannot enter there.

So it is good that you are feeling a little alertness that you may betray yourself. So do one thing - decide something. Decision helps, because once you have decided something and the doubt comes, you have somewhere to stand upon. If you don't have any decision and doubt comes, it takes you over; you don't have any shelter. It is just like it is raining and you have a small hut. You can go inside. Let it rain - you remain untouched.

So make a decision that for six months, whatsoever happens, you will continue at least one meditation, you will wear orange. Whatsoever happens, whatsoever doubts come, for six months you are not going to listen to the doubts. Let them come - you will stick to your decision. If you can do that you will come out of these six months in a totally different way. Your quality will be more stabilised, crystallised.

Sometimes very small decisions help, very small decisions. The whole thing is just to carry them, because they give you an integration. If you don't carry them, they are very dangerous because they will create more unconfidence.

That's why I insist for a certain dress, a mala. It has nothing to do with spirituality. It has something to do with you as you are. It is just something for you so you can remain in a continuity. Moving in ochre in the West will create trouble. People will look at you. You will look strange, odd, and that will make you alert and aware. You can use that situation.

You will not be lost in the mob, and when people become alert about you, you also become alert.

Immediately something inside you clicks. People are looking at you - you walk differently, you sit differently. You become more attentive because people are watching you.

So these six months will be hard, but once you can pass through them you will become completely transformed. ,If you cannot make a decision, then it is better that you leave sannyas. Make that decision. You understand me? Because if you go back and then you leave sannyas, that will be very shattering to your centring - very much shattering.

If you go back and your doubt possesses you and you leave sannyas, you don't meditate, and you don't use orange, that will be more shattering, more destructive, because then you will lose all confidence that you may have in yourself. It is better that you go as a non-sannyasin so that you don't carry anything fragile which can be broken. If you are carrying it and it is fragile, and you are going into a very contrary world, then be alert. If you can carry it for only six months, you will come out of it very new, with clarity and trust.

[Another sannyasin says: I feel very shaky in the knees and the tummy and the throat and my hands.

I fall asleep during the lectures, and I feel tired - like I'm being shattered.]

So get shattered! Why are you resisting? Why are you creating any trouble? Just get shattered and be finished with it. Once you are shattered there is no problem - no tightness, no shakiness. If you resist, it continues. There is no need to resist. Just allow it and let it be settled. You just have a good laugh, that's all.

The problem arises because we go on doing contrary things.

My whole effort is to shatter you. And your whole effort is to protect yourself. Then shakiness arises and you feel a trembling inside and everything feels disturbed. You want one thing and I am trying to do something else. I am trying to destructure you so your old armour is no more there. I am trying to break the shell so you can come out of your egg - and you are trying to protect it. So of course you feel shaky and troubled and tired and tight.

Either tell me that I should stop... then I will not try any shattering; I will leave you untouched and then you will be okay ... or listen to me and get shattered. Cooperate with me and be finished with it. Mm? What shall I do, tell me.

[She answers: keep going!]

Good, good... And in the lecture you can fall asleep. Enjoy it; there is nothing wrong in sleep.

And don't say that in lecture time you fall asleep. Rather say that you listen to my lectures while asleep! (a chuckle) That is better and more positive. There is nothing wrong in it. Sleep is good.

There also you must be resisting - trying not to fall asleep. Many people fall asleep... Don't create a problem about it; enjoy it.

Whatsoever is important will be heard by you even in your sleep. You may not remember it but it will become part of your being and when the time arises, it will be there, available. So from tomorrow, you simply relax. Don't fight the tendency to go to sleep.

And I see everything is going well - that's why you are feeling shaky!

[Osho gives a name for a new centre.]

Pallas.

It is an indian flower, a very beautiful flower, a red flower. It grows in the forest, a wild flower. It grows as a big forest... the whole forest of pallas, and when it flowers, you cannot see anything - just red flowers all over the forest... almost as if the forest is on fire because all leaves disappear and there are only flowers and flowers. And that's what I am creating - an orange flame....