Delight is in My Presence

[The previous night of December 11th was Osho's Birthday Celebration Darshan, which was open to everyone. There was singing and dancing in his silent presence.]

Deva means divine, nirvesham means delight.... And all delight is divine. Pleasure is not divine - delight is always divine. And the distinction between pleasure and delight has to be under-stood.

Delight is always of the immediate. You see a bird on the wing - and suddenly there is delight.

You see a sunset and the clouds are luminous with the light - and there is delight. You don't even become so conscious that you were filled with delight; only later on when it has gone - when the sun has set, when the dark night has descended, and the clouds are no more luminous - then retrospectively you will become aware that there was a great moment, there was joy, and it is no more now.

Now you think about it... now you start bringing the mind into it. Now it starts turning into pleasure.

When the mind takes possession of a delight, it turns into pleasure. So pleasure is of the past and of the future, and delight is only of the present. In fact when it is there, you are not - hence it is divine. It brings a moment of egolessness.

You come across a beautiful face, and for a moment you are lost. You lose all self-consciousness...

it has possessed you. You don't know that it is pleasure yet. It is so sudden, how can you know it?

For knowledge, a little time gap will be needed. You will know it when it is gone, when it is no more there. Then the mind comes in and starts brooding and interpreting that it was beautiful. You would like to have it again and again and again. You would like to repeat it. Again tomorrow you would like to see this face... again tomorrow you would like to see the sunset.

When delight is, you are not. When you are, delight has departed. Now you can think of the past delights. When you think about the past delights reflected in the mirror of the mind, it becomes pleasure. Then of course you start thinking about how to have it again. Greed arises.

Delight is beautiful - pleasure is ugly. That which is gone is gone. Just know deep-down that it is over, and don't think about it - it is pointless. You cannot create it by thinking. In fact if you think about it too much, you will create a barrier. Forget all about it! It has been there; feel grateful, and forget all about it - it is over. And don't ask for it in the future.

If you ask for its repetition, there are only two possibilities: one, it may be repeated, but then it won't give you delight. Never does any repetition give you delight. How can repetition give you delight? It can simply create more boredom - you already know it. It is as if you have gone to see the same movie again. How can it give you delight? It is a repetition, and you already know what is going to happen - the surprise is lost.

So if your desire to repeat it is fulfilled by some chance, by some coincidence - again tomorrow the bird on the wing, again tomorrow the rose flower, again a child giggling, again the sunset, and the light on the water - maybe by coincidence it is there, but then you miss. Now you already know. It is a pleasure, so you are there. The shock is not there - that shock that makes you disappear. And of course it is a boring thing; it is boredom.

If it is not fulfilled - which is more possible in the nature of things - then you are frustrated. If your desire is fulfilled, you gain nothing; it is tasteless. If it is not fulfilled, you lose much; you feel very much frustrated now - why not today again the same pleasure? In both the ways you are a loser.

So remember this: delight is good - I am all for delight - but I am absolutely against pleasure, because pleasure is a false coin. Either it is of the past or of the future - it is never herenow.

Herenow is what I call delight.

So live each moment delightfully, and again and again forget it so it never becomes a repetition. And never desire for it again. It will come in millions of ways, and it will always be fresh and virgin. Do you see the difference?

So now, by and by start dropping pleasure, and hold more and more delight in your being.

[The new sannyasin says: I feel like I've been close for a long time. There's something that keeps me from taking off.]

Mm mm. I understand. First do the camp, and after the camp you join sufi dancing. Mm? for ten days you join the sufi dancing. Dance will help you very much, and music will become your meditation.

All these things that you have done are more or less intellectual - they have not penetrated your heart. (Nirvisham had said he'd done many groups before.) They are head things. Something of the heart is needed, but the problem is that if you do something about the heart, again it becomes a head thing. If you do something about the heart, you do it from the head. And the head has become so predominant that even when you feel, you think you feel. It is not really feeling - because vou always remain in control.

Something is needed as a device in which your head is not involved at all, and you are not asked to control. So first do the camp - do all the meditations. And the point that has to be remem-bered is:

get lost! It is not a question of analysis. In fact you don't have any problem - it is not a question of analysing it. You simply have a block... and this is a totally different thing.

A person who has a problem may be helped by psychoanalysis, or many therapies that have come as offshoots of psychoanalysis. Sigmund freud remains the grand-dad of all these therapies. Even those who think they have rebelled against the grandfather are still in his will. Even if they feel they are rebelling, they are reacting to him, and deep down he controls. So when there is a problem, psychoanalysis or any other psychotherapy that has come out of psychoanalysis may be helpful.

But when a block is there, it is not a problem. You simply need a situation where you can start melting.

It is not a problem at all. How can you analyse a block? You simply need a situation where you start melting. As I see it, it is just around the heart like a crust. And if you can't feel, you can't live. Feeling is life. Thinking is very stale. It has no pulsation in it, it is very dead - a computer can do it better. No computer can feel. Computers can think well and better than man - so that is a mechanical thing.

Feeling is the real home - but there is a hard crust around you. You are not to do anything; you are just to put yourself in a situation where it starts melting.

For example, if you want to have a suntan, you simply lie down naked on a beach and you allow the sun to do the work - what else can you do? If you are feeling hot, you go to a swimming pool, you float on the water - what else can you do? When you are feeling tired, you rest. You create a situation in which you move to the opposite.

In this camp, function as a drunkard - dance to oblivion. It is not something that you can control.

One day suddenly you will see that the crust has broken - and you were not doing anything to break it. You were simply dancing or moving, enjoying, delighting, and suddenly something has broken inside. You will hear it breaking, and immediately you will see a transfiguration. You have entered another world... you can feel. Delight in my presence, and let me do something. Now you are a sannyasin, it is my responsibility; you can rest, mm?

[A sannyasin has brought his mother to meet Osho, and says: It's been very difficult.... Just wanting her to see what's here... to really see what's here. Many buttons are pushed.]

No, don't make any effort. That sort of effort is not of help - it hinders. Once a person starts feeling that somebody is trying to convert, he becomes resistant, becomes defensive. It is natural.

And I can understand you too - you love her, so you would like her to see what is happening here.

So your standpoint is natural too, but try to understand her standpoint. If you try too much, that very effort will become a barrier. Just leave her. Help her, serve her, and just leave her absolutely free. If she wants to see something, she will see. If she wants, help her, otherwise don't enforce in any way.

Nobody likes a missionary - nobody! People hate missionaries. And that's natural - they should hate - because missionaries have done such harm to humanity.

But it happens naturally that when you have seen something, you have felt something, you would like to share it with all those you love. But be a little wiser - that is not the way.

Let her see for herself. If she feels something has happened in you, it will be a natural, spontaneous thing for her to enter into things. And it is more difficult when the relationship is that of a mother and a son, father and a son; it is more difficult. It is very difficult for the parents to understand that their son can be wise - it is very difficult. It is almost impossible! She has known you from the very beginning - she knows how foolish you have been!

When she talks about you to others she will make a hero of you - that's another thing - but she knows how foolish he is - and now he has got into this! She cannot believe it. The difference will always remain the same; your age difference will always remain the same. For the mother you can never grow. If you are twenty years apart, you remain twenty years. You may become fifty, then she will be seventy; you will become seventy, she will be ninety. That twenty years gap always remains the same.

A mother can never think that you have become grown. That is part of mother's love - she always regards you as her child. So when the child starts propagating something, the mother thinks, 'You yourself are a fool, and you are trying to make a fool of me too.'

Never do that. Take care, mm? whatsoever her needs, they are to be fulfilled, do, mm? And don't come between me and her - let it be direct. It will be easier.

Never argue. Argument never convinces anybody. At the most you can silence somebody - but that is not conviction. Argument irritates and the other also tends to argue, because it becomes a ego fight. It is not a question of whether what you are saying is right or wrong; it is a question of, 'You are saying it - and you are trying to prove me wrong?' It is always a question of, 'Me wrong or you wrong?' It is not a question of truth. So all arguments create an irritation. Then a counter-argument is created.

Never argue! and never look at it in this way at all. If she does not feel good here, she does not feel good... and that too is good! That's okay. The whole world cannot feel good here, everybody cannot feel good here - and that's how it should be. She knows what is good for her. If she feels that yes, something suits her here, she will immediately know. If you are after her too much and she feels that you are after her too much, even if she feels that something is good, she will not say. She will avoid it, because that will be losing the argument.

I have never argued with my own parents - never! I would go to my village, and they would always ask, 'What do you go on doing?' I would always avoid telling them. They had to enquire of other people what I was doing and what was happening. Many other people would tell them that this is happening and that is happening. It was unbelievable - their own son! Nothing has happened to them, and so much is happening to everybody - how can they believe it? I would never say anything to them.... I would go and just be with them.

By and by they started coming to the camps, and other people would say, 'Why don't you take sannyas?' They waited for me to say something but I never told them to. I knew that if I said to them to take sannyas, they would, but even to say it would be violent. Maybe they were not ready, and they could not say no, so it would be interfering. I never asked them!

Many people would say to me that they were ready, they were waiting for me, but I said, 'I am not going to say anything. If they are ready, some day they will ask me.' And when my father asked me, only then I initiated him into sannyas, so then it was just a total revolution in my father. I had to wait for it. Then his ego simply disappeared! If there had been even a slight effort from my side, he would have resisted.

And a very rare phenomenon has happened. Buddha tried with his own father and it was difficult; jesus tried with his own father and it was difficult. I have succeeded because I never tried - that is the key!

So don't.... Otherwise you will become worried, and you will become tense, mm? because you have brought her with so many ideas - that she may become happy and she may become a sannyasin - and now you see that she is not getting into things. You will become worried and anxious, and your anxiety will not be good. Be relaxed! Your relaxation will be the greatest argument possible.

If she can see that you are not even anxious to convert her, then there is a possibility.... And there is no hurry! Leave it to me - I can persuade people! (laughter)

I have already persuaded her! (laughter)

[To the mother:] Just be here and enjoy. Nothing to be worried about, mm? If something is going to happen, it is going to happen. If there is something, it will click, and then nothing bars the past. All the conditionings, and all the concepts, and all the ideologies - nothing can prevent it.

There is no need to be worried about it at all. Mm? I am happy that you are here. This time you are for him - next time you will be for me... but just be here. This time you are via - next time you will be direct. Nothing to be worried about. Just enjoy!

If you can do a few meditations, do. Get into some meditations, some dancing and singing.

[A sannyasin, weeping, says: Something that came up during primal was that even though I see what my parents did to me I'm still doing the same thing to my kid. So many times my own needs get in the way of what she needs. I can't seem to give her any help. And I think I'm doing her harm.]

Mm mm. One thing to be understood - that ordinarily what-soever has been done by your parents becomes an engrained pattern; that is the only way you know what is to be done with the child.

Whatsoever your mother did to you, that is the only way you know how to be with your child. So it is natural - nothing to be worried about - but now that you have become conscious that something has gone wrong in it.... It is good that you have become conscious, but now don't become worried about it so much, other-wise you will not be able to do anything. You are conscious that something that your mother did to you, you would not like to do to your child - so become conscious; that's all that you can do! Whatsoever you are doing, become conscious.

And don't try to overcompensate - that's what I think you are trying to do. Now you think you are not enough - you are not giving enough love, enough care - but whatsoever you can give, you can give!

How can you give more? Do your utmost, and if you cannot do more, don't get depressed about it, otherwise your depression will harm the child.

By and by you will start feeling that because of this child you are feeling inadequate, and you will take revenge. Because of this child you are suffering... this child is creating guilt in you. So whom are you going to take revenge with? - with the child.

One thing - you have become aware that you are not to do the same things; good. Now become aware, that's all. And when you start doing some old pattern, relax - don't do it! And this over- compensation - that you have to love much, and you have to become the greatest mother in the world - this nonsense has to be dropped, otherwise you will feel so false, and that you are falling short of your ideals. You must be having some ideal now. Your mother has not done that idealistic thing; now you have the ideal and you have to do it with the child... and all idealism is dangerous.

So be realistic. Don't create a fiction. You must be living in a fiction. Never live with a should. Live with the is - that's all there is. Whatever is, is.

If you can give this much love, this much love you have. How can you do more? From where will you bring more? And if you become worried too much about more, you will not be able to even give that much which you could have easily, because from this worry, depression, anxiety, guilt will arise and you will start feeling in a very bad space - and because of this child! If there were no child, there would be no problem. So the child will become a problem. Drop all this nonsense!

Simply be yourself. Whatsoever you do, do. More is not possible. Accept yourself! These shoulds are all condemnatory. This is how people move from one extreme to another.

The older generation used to think, the mothers used to think, that they were making great sacrifices for their children. They were always exhibiting that they were doing this and that. That was harmful, because love should not be a duty, and it should not be talked about. You love because you feel happy. You are not doing anything to the child; you are doing something because you love to do it.

The child is not obliged to you, he is not to pay you back. You love to be a mother, and you should be grateful to the child.

But the older generation was not grateful to the child. They were always hoping that the child would be very very grateful, and when they found that the child was not grateful, they were very much frustrated.

Now you have moved to the other extreme. This is what can happen through primal and other things.

Now you think that you are doing harm to the child. Your mother was thinking she is doing good, and then she did harm. Now you are thinking you are doing harm to the child. Just think - even thinking she was doing good, harm happened through your mother, and now you are thinking that you are doing harm to the child. What is going to happen?

Just be natural - these extremist points are not good. In the old times children use to be afraid of the parents, now the parents are afraid of the children - but fear remains! The wheel has moved, but it is the same fear; whether from this side or from that side. Fear has not disappeared; and a relationship can exist only when there is no fear. Love is possible only when there is no fear.

If the child is afraid of the parent, love is not possible. If the parent is afraid of the child, love is not possible. How can you love in fear? Now you are afraid of the child - that some harm may happen, that you may do something wrong. You will become so self-conscious about it - so much so that you will do harm, because you will lose all naturalness and all spontaneity.

Just try to be a human being. Don't try to be an idealist and don't try to be a perfectionist. All perfectionistic people are neurotic. A sane person is never a perfectionist. Whatsoever he can do, he does, and then it is finished. So simply be yourself.

And one thing for you and for every body else here: the relationship between the child and the mother is such that it can never be perfect - it is impossible. Some problem will always be there.

You change one problem, another will arise, because the very relationship is such.

The child is helpless, the child has no individuality yet. The mother has an individuality. She is not dependent on the child, and the child is dependent on the mother. Both are not equal... cannot be.

The mother has power and the child has no power. Now this is natural... you are not responsible for it. If somebody is responsible, maybe it is god.

If you give too much freedom to the child, he will die from freedom. If you discipline him too much, you will kill him from discipline. And there is no way to know where the demarcation line is. So whatsoever you do is going to be wrong. If you give too much freedom, the child will be spoiled. If you don't give enough freedom, the child will be spoiled.

And down the ages people have tried all alternatives. Sometimes they have tried to discipline the child absolutely. Then whatsoever comes out is an adolf hitler, nazism, fascism; that's what happened in germany. For a hundred years they had been trying to bring up the child according to the perfectionist ideal - obedience, order, discipline - so the soul was destroyed. A very very powerful german race was created, but there was no soul. Now that failed.

The pendulum has moved in America. Seeing that it failed... it created Japan - Japan is a very very disciplined country - and Germany... seeing that they created such havoc in the world, such hell, the world mind moved. Intellectuals started saying, 'No more order, no more discipline - freedom!'

So the freedom has created the new generation - the flower children, the hippies, the yippies. Now if they win, the society will be destroyed completely, because no technology can exist with hippies; no clean, hygienic society can exist with the hippies. No sort of family can exist; everything will be simply topsy-turvy.

They will create another ugly world, and again seeing what hippies have done, people will start moving. Then by that time they will have forgotten nazi Germany, and Hitler; they will again start thinking about how to discipline the children. This is how it has been happening down the ages again and again. But whatsoever you do goes wrong.

So my feeling is: please don't try to do anything. Simply love the child, and leave everything else to god. Love the child, and whatsoever you can do, do. But that doing should not become such a deliberate act as you are trying to do. Simply love! You are a human being with all the flaws and limitations of a human being, and now what can you do?

The child has chosen you to be her mother - it is not just your responsibility. The child is also responsible. She must have some karmas to be born to you, otherwise why? She could have chosen.... There are so many women always ready to receive. She has particularly chosen you, so not only are you responsible - she is also responsible.

Now just be natural and be happy! Whatsoever happens out of happiness is good. And whatsoever creates misery in you, drop all that nonsense. Now you have become so miserable. Rather than being happy that you are a mother and a child is there, you are becoming miserable. Your misery will certainly be reflected in the child. The child by and by will become aware that her mother is miserable because of her. Your guilt will be reflected, and you will create a complex in the child.

Forget about it! Dance with the child, love the child, hug the child... and be natural! Don't listen to the pundits and the experts - just be natural! Don't you see all the animals? Nobody teaches them how to be a good parent; there exists nothing like transactional analysis - and they are good parents. Who bothers? Only man is very difficult.

There have been societies where the child has not to be hugged, because that destroys the child.

Too much hugging makes him sissy and limp, spineless. He should be strong from the very beginning, he should be forced to stand on his own feet. And there are societies which say to hug the child, otherwise he will miss the human warmth and he will never be able to love anybody.

Now what to do? In the morning, hug, and in the evening, discipline? What to do? How to divide?

One hour hugging, one hour discipline? But then the child will be confused. And he will become very suspicious of the mother - that she seems to be schizophrenic: one hour she is just sweet, another hour she becomes such a great disciplinarian. The child will become very worried - she will not know what to do with the mother.

Whatsoever you are, that you have to share with the child. And whatsoever happens to the child, the child has to take her own responsibility too!

Now, in the american mind, this is such an absurd notion - you go to the psychoanalyst and he will say that something is wrong between you and your mother, so your mother is responsible. Now he has taken responsibility away from you... it feels very good. Even grown-up people are so foolish, mm? - lying down in a foolish way on a psychoanalyst's couch, saying silly things, and the psychoanalyst says, 'You are perfectly right - it is just because of your mother and your relationship with the mother, so your mother is responsible.'

And who is responsible for the mother? - her mother! And who is responsible for her mother? so on and so forth. Finally you find eve! Nobody seems to be responsible then.

I don't say that they are absolutely wrong - nobody is ever absolutely wrong - but people are only extremists, and extremism is wrong. Yes, your mother is a little responsible because she was your mother. Your father is a little responsible, but finally, you are responsible!

Whatsoever you have made yourself, others have helped, but in the ultimate analysis you are responsible.

This is one of the basic things religion teaches: you are responsible. Once you feel that you are responsible, you become free; you have a freedom to choose. And then you are no more worried about the past because how can you undo the past? The mother has happened, the birth has happened - now what to do with it? It is gone!

If you are aware, in this moment of intense awareness, the whole past can be burned out. There is no need for any primal therapy. It is only for mediocre minds that you have to go into such things.

If you are really intelligent, just a single moment of awareness - it is finished! The past is no more there! You can cut yourself away from it in a single stroke. There is no need to go inch by inch.

In a single stroke of understanding, you can cut yourself away from the past - that's what I mean by sannyas.

So just be natural, loving and don't carry any ideals. Don't listen to experts; these are the most mischievious people in the world - the experts. Just listen to your heart. If you feel like hugging, hug.

Sometimes you feel like hitting the child, hit. And don't be worried that some great psychoalanyst says not to hit the child. Who is he to dominate you? From where does he get the authority?

Sometimes it is good to be angry. The child has to learn that his or her mother is a human being and that she can be angry too. And if you are angry, the child feels also free to be angry. If you are never angry, the child feels guilty. How to be angry with a mother who is always so sweet?

Mothers have tried to be so sweet that their whole taste is lost - they become like saccharine... they create an artificial diabetes. Don't be just sweet - sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet as the mood arises. And let the child know that the mother has her own moods and climates - she is a human being just as he is. And the child will see that if the mother can be angry, he can also be angry. And it is good. Yes, sometimes not to be okay is good. So drop this, mm?

[The enlightenment intensive group was present. One member says: It was the question of 'Who am I?' which was very agonising to me.]

It is agonising, because if you go deep into it, it creates the greatest ecstasy possible... but the way to ecstasy goes through agony. It is agonising because the moment you ask, 'Who am I?' you become aware that you don't know. Not knowing is very agonising, it hurts the ego: 'So I don't know even myself?' This is too much. 'I was always thinking I know everything, and I don't know even myself.'

This is unacceptable to the ego. The ego feeds on knowledge, information - and this is very very sad: what else to claim you know if you don't know yourself? What is the point of claiming that you know anything else? The foundation - that you know yourself - is lacking.

The question 'Who am I?' is meant to bring you to your right senses.... It is to hit you hard so that you become aware that you don't know yourself. That is the agony of it - as if you had much, and the question has taken it away from you. You used to think you are this and you are that - and this simple question has taken all identities away. You are left in a vacuum.

Just to feel that you don't know yourself, is so maddening. One wants to cling to something - anything: name, form, body, mind, soul, some theory, some hypothesis, anything - but one wants to cling to something, so that one is not lost in this emptiness. That's why the agony.

But if you persist, if you persevere, if you go deep into it and you accept that the agony is okay, by and by you will see that the agony has disappeared. The clouds are no more there... the smoke has gone far away. You are in a clearance; things are more clear. Not that you will know who you are. This question is not meant to bring an answer - the answer never comes; it is just a device to destroy the false answers.

The real answer never comes, because a real answer never comes inwards. It is not that some day suddenly it will bubble up and you will know, 'Okay, so this is who I am' - no! All knowledge will disappear, and then the agony will disappear. You will be so perfectly at ease within yourself, so rooted, so undisturbed, so tranquil and calm. Now there is no answer, you cannot verbalise - but you know.

This knowing is totally different from knowledge. It has nothing to do with the mind. It is not of the mind. It is an experience - or rather, experiencing. You have encountered your reality face - to-face; you have seen it.

Not that you can say who you are - nobody has ever been able to. Whosoever has come to the ultimate core of his being has never said who he is. It cannot be said - but it is tremendously blissful to see it, to feel it, to be it. It is not an intellectual answer that arises, but an existential response.

You become a babe of bliss. You become a great blissful state. Old identities disappear, and a new identity is not formed. So agony is there - and you have to pass through it; that is the price we pay - and then there is ecstasy.

If there is no agony in asking 'Who am I?' then you are not asking the question rightly. You are just playing around... you are not penetrating deep - it is not like an arrow.

But it has been good. You suffered this - this is good. This is a good indication that you worked hard at it. It is painful. All growth is painful....

[Another participant says: Last time you asked me to try surrendering and I found it was much more difficult than I thought it would be. But during the therapy I found that witnessing and surrender seem to be the same thing when the mind isn't interfering.]

Exactly. In the final analysis, they are the same thing, because in surrendering, the ego disappears, the mind disappears; in awareness, the mind disappears, the ego disappears - different techniques working from different directions, but the goal is the same. The roots differ... but that's exactly how it is.

Now you can choose whichever you feel good with. If you feel to surrender, continue. If you feel awareness, do awareness. They are exactly the same, and now you know, so you can choose whichever feels right. Both paths lead to the same. So whichever looks easier to you, you can choose.

Very good! Your experience has been of tremendous value. Mm? this is what I call an insight.

An insight is something which is not a conclusion of the mind. It is not a conclusion of the mind because the mind can never conclude. The mind will always see that there is contradiction. How can surrender and awareness be the same? They are totally different. In awareness one becomes more and more aware of oneself - self-remembering - and in surrender one loses oneself: how can they be the same? They are absolutely opposites.

If the mind concludes, it will say that these are opposites - only one can be right; the other must be wrong.

I call what has happened to you an insight because in an insight, paradox disappears, contradictions disappear. Suddenly you see in a lightning that both are the same, and it is such a release. Very good!