Love out of Freedom

Shanti Deva. It means goddess of peace. Let it be a remembrance - feel as peaceful as possible.

And it is only a question of feeling. If you feel peaceful, you become peaceful. Nobody is barring you; there is no hindrance. The idea becomes the actuality. A continuous thought can be transformed into a thing. It becomes as material as anything else. Let it vibrate inside continuously.

Whenever you forget, again remember, relax and bring peace. Move peacefully, sit peacefully, stand peacefully. Carry a grace, an elegance, and feel that you are surrounded by a small aura of peace.

Within a few days there will be no need to remember it. It will be there whether you remember it or not, but in the beginning remembrance helps to materialise it.

[A sannyasin said that her lover was unhappy at her moving with another man recently, but that she herself had felt that it was right and good, and since then had felt she was able to give to her lover out of a freedom.

Osho said that she should move as she wanted and should not repress herself. To her lover, Osho said that he should not make her feel guilty but should give her freedom to go through these kind of experiences. Osho said that his sadness and possessiveness were his problems and he should not use these feelings to influence what she did.]

If you can give your love out of your freedom, good. If not, then it is not worth anything.

A gift of love out of freedom is beautiful. When you possess a person and the person is forced to give her love, it is almost ugly, almost dead, full of hatred. If you feel unhappy, tell her not to worry and that it has nothing to do with her. Never make love a politics, a power struggle.

When love gives freedom it becomes tremendously powerful repression. People don't understand, and that's why they have chosen repression. Freedom means that both are free. But people have decided to repress it because they know that if the woman moves, the man is allowed to; if the man moves, the woman is allowed to. Rather than being free they have decided to be slaves. People have decided to be slaves in order to make others slaves.

So just think about it. Meet out of your freedom, stay together out of your freedom, and when you are feeling good, be together. Both drop all repressions and let's see what happens, and that power is not ordinary power. It is very very graceful and has a totally different quality to it - magnetic, but almost divine.

[Osho said that just as she had felt a desire to be with someone else, so her lover might wish to move with another woman, and he should be given that freedom.]

If we understand our own mind it gives us a vision of the other's mind also. If you understand yourself, you will feel compassionate towards everybody else. That's why, if some saint is not compassionate towards people and is condemnatory, he is not yet a saint. He has not understood the human helplessness.

Your meeting or your living together is out of freedom from both sides. It is not a commitment. Or it is a commitment for each moment, every day; not a commitment for the future, not fol tomorrow. It is enough if it is for today, or just for this moment, herenow.

Freedom is not an ordinary responsibility. It is greater than repression. People don't understand, and that's why they have chosen repression. Freedom means that both are free. But people have decided to repress it because they know that if the woman moves, the man is allowed to; if the man moves, the woman is allowed to. Rather than being free they have decided to be slaves. People have decided to be slaves in order to make others slaves.

So just think about it. Meet out of your freedom, stay together out of your freedom, and when you are feeling good, be together. Both drop all repressions and let's see what happens, and that power is not ordinary power. It is very very graceful and has a totally different quality to it - magnetic, but almost divine.

Prem Devi. It means goddess of love. To me everybody is a god or goddess. Nobody is less than that.

Treat the whole existence as divine. Even a rock is a goddess, a river is a goddess. Even animals are nothing but divine forms. So remember that you are a goddess and that everybody else is also a god or a goddess.

This is what I call the religious mind. To live in the divine one has to create the feeling that everything is divine, mm?

[A sannyasin says: There is a little confusion about returning to the life of the university again. My subject is mysticism, and now I've been here, I've much less to say about it.... ]

Now your subject has also become your life. It is no more something outside you. You have become an insider; you are no more an outsider to mysticism. You have entered the door.

Of course you will have much more to say now and something with more validity, more experience.

You will feel a certain deep reality when you say it, so don't be afraid.

Mysticism is not really a philosophy. It is something existential. One lives it; that's the only way to know it. One becomes a mystic, only then one knows what mysticism is. And I have initiated you into it and you are moving well. Soon you will be in the depths, so gather courage.

It is always difficult when you start experiencing something. To say something about it is more difficult than when you don't know anything about it and you have simply read and accumulated information, because then it is only a question of memory. But when you experience something, experience is paradoxical, something beyond the intellect. To bring it into the world of words and theories and systems seems almost impossible. When somehow you try to express it, much is missing. Out of one hundred percent, ninety percent is missing. A fragment comes and the fragment is almost dead because the experience can be alive only in its totality. When you take a fragment out of it, it is a broken limb, a branch cut; something taken from its totality, its organic unity, so it will be difficult.

But by and by you will become more articulate. And one becomes articulate only by trying to express the inexpressible. In the beginning one stutters, stumbles; goes astray many times; many times feels that what one is saying is not convincing enough because it is your experience and not that of the person who is hearing you. So something goes on above the head of the listener. But don't be worried about it. Try to find out something better, more coherent, more organic, poetic.

Go on trying and by and by one becomes more skillful. Just time is needed. And fear is natural, but don't be overpowered by it. It's natural, so accept it. Much will start surfacing in . Everybody carries so much potentiality that they don't even dream about. Their dreams are as their reality - just superficial. You don't know what you are carrying within you. If a little effort is made, more and more of your inner being will be made available to you.

Fear is natural because one is moving in darkness. The inner journey is very dark. Light comes but that is only at the end. First one has to pass through the tunnel, hence trust is needed. The world of light, of course artificial light, is no more there and the world of real light has not yet happened. Just in between the two there is a tunnel of darkness. The mind says 'Go back! At least there was some light. Maybe the light was outside you, but still it was. Maybe it was artificial, but at least it was. Go back! Cling to theories and words and philosophies.'

It is just like when you dive deep into water and an urge arises to go back to the surface. This is a greater depth than that. No ocean is so deep as the inner reality. So one trembles, feels afraid, lost, uprooted. One feels unskillful because the new is so new and you have never practised it. But by and by if you go on with courage and you take the challenge of the unknown, that very challenge will create the capacity to encounter it.

Once you accept a challenge, you start becoming capable of encountering it.

Nothing else is needed because the capacity is lying there within you fast asleep because you have never used it.

So whenever there is a challenge, never reject it - welcome it. Challenge is life and life-giving.

So whenever there is a challenge, immediately take the opportunity and thank God that again the unknown is before you. Again you are afraid, good. Again the security is no more there, good. Again you move in the insecure. Again the adventure starts and you don't know where you are going you don't know where you will reach, or whether you will ever reach.

You don't even know who you are because a man knows himself only by something that he is capable of doing. Somebody says, 'I am a doctor.' He knows himself because he can do certain things. somebody says, 'I am an advocate,' because he knows that he can do something. Somebody says, 'I am a carpenter.' We know ourselves by our doing.

When you move into the unknown, you cannot do anything. You don't know where you are going, what is going to happen. Every moment is going to be a surprise, something just out of the blue.

Sooner or later you start feeling that you are losing your identity. So the greatest fear is of losing one's identity, the image, the ego, the nameplate. You cannot carry it into the unknown.

Fear is there but don't pay much attention to it. It is there because of the challenge. Pay attention to the challenge. When you look at the challenge you will not feel bad about the fear; you will say that this is natural.

When one has to climb an Everest fear is natural. I don't see anything abnormal in it. In fact if a man is going to climb Everest and he doesn't feel any fear, he is abnormal; something is perverted about him. Maybe he is insensitive, an idiot, stupid, unaware. When a man starts moving, climbing the Himalayas, it is natural that fear will be felt.

But if when you move on the street of your town you are afraid, then it is abnormal. If in the known you fear, it is abnormal. If you feel fear with the unknown, it is indicative, symptomatic, that there is something that you don't know, with which you are unfamiliar, a strange country you are entering, the language of which is not known to you, and you have no map. There is every possibility that you may be lost forever and may not be able to come back. Fear is natural.

But take the challenge, focus on the challenge; then fear is just the shadow of the challenge. Never pay much attention to shadows because if you do, shadows tend to become realities. Always pay attention to the reality. When you are focused on reality you can see what is a shadow and what is real. The unreal has no more influence on you.

If you are really interested in mysticism, become a mystic. You have taken the first step, hence the fear. Accept the challenge, mm?