Only the Innocent can be Blissful
Anand means bliss, happiness, and abodha means innocence; innocent bliss. And remember this - that bliss is never knowledgeable, and a man of knowledge is never blissful. Only innocent people can be blissful, only children can be blissful. Those who don't know, only they can be blissful. The more you know, the less is the possibility of being blissful.
That is the meaning of the biblical story that adam was turned out of the garden of eden - because he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge; he became knowledgeable, he became a knower. He lost his innocence. He was no more a child... the ego entered. The ego always enters through knowledge. Knowledge is a very subtle possession, and knowledge separates you from existence.
So if you can understand this and keep aware of it, don't accumulate knowledge. And whenever you see that you have accumulated something, renounce it! There is no need to renounce anything if you can renounce knowledge. And that is the irony: people renounce everything, but they never renounce knowledge.
Remain ignorant and innocent and you will again enter the garden of eden. Nobody can bar your way, and the doors are not closed to you.
The biblical story is really of tremendous import. There are thousands of parables, but nothing to compare with it. It has great insight!
Adam is not thrown out of heaven because he sinned - that's what Christians go on saying. No. He has not been thrown out of heaven because he disobeyed; no - that too is not the true explanation.
He became knowledgable, he was no more innocent... he became corrupted. Knowledge corrupts.
So if you can avoid knowledge, you will fall into deep peace and silence, and bliss.
The word 'abodha' has both the meanings: it can mean innocent... it can mean ignorant.
Ignorance is innocent, and innocence is ignorant. They are both two sides of the same coin, adverse and reverse. They are not separate. That's why jesus goes on insisting: 'Unless you become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of god.' And how can one become like a child? One becomes like a child when one renounces knowledge.
In fact there is not much trouble in renouncing knowledge, because it is all bogus. In the very nature of things, knowledge is not possible. You cannot know anything. Ignorance is very fundamental, ignorance is eternal - it cannot be broken. All knowledge is on the surface, just go a little deeper and you will find it disappears. You say you know your wife, you know your girlfriend - what do you know? You say you know yourself - what do you know?
Watch carefully each item that you claim you know, and sooner or later you will understand that you don't know. Existence is not available to knowledge. It is closed... adam has been thrown out. It is closed for knowledge. It is available for love but it is closed for knowledge. Love is innocent.
So there is a way of knowing which is more like loving than knowing. And there are two ways of knowledge: One, the way of knowledge, and another, the way of innocence, the way of love.
When you love a person, you know, and yet you cannot claim knowledge. You know in a subtle way, yet the very claim that you know will be wrong - you cannot claim it. The object of your love remains mysterious - known, yet mysterious. And the whole existence is your object of love.
Sannyas is falling in love with existence.
This is my message for you - continuously go on dropping knowledge, and remain innocent. Then you will be able to undo what adam has done.
Each man has to undo it - that's what the biblical story says: that each man suffers because adam committed something wrong... because each man is an adam again. Each man has lived in the garden of eden in his childhood. It is not an historical story; it is a psychological story. Each child is born in that parable again: lives in innocence, enjoys blissfully all that is available, then one day suddenly loses that innocence - becomes corrupt, becomes knowledgable.
The society is the snake, the school is the snake, the college and the university is the snake. The snake was the first scholar of the world.
Change to orange - become mad! (laughter)
[The new sannyasin, dressed in orange trousers and brown shirt, says: I'm half orange!]
Mm? Only half won't do. A half-mad man is not mad, and a half-mad man is always in trouble. Either be fully sane or fully insane, mm? (laughter) Good!
[A sannyasin who is returning to the west says: I feel very mixed up because I feel, in a way, more lost than I was before I came. But it seems more exciting.]
That is true.... In fact, all certainty is false, and only a mediocre mind remains certain. When intelligence starts growing, you become mixed, because the old certainty is no more. In fact you become very hesitant.
Hesitation is the quality of intelligence. Fools are very certain. You cannot confuse an idiot, can you? It is impossible to confuse an idiot, an imbecile. And a greatly intelligent person is always confused, because life is so vast - how to figure it out? Life is so complex and so tremendously huge - how can you figure it out? Hence the confusion, hence the mixedness. It is a good quality, a good indication.
Lao tzu says in his tao te ching, 'Everybody seems to be certain - only I am confused. Everybody seems to be confident - only I am hesitant.' But that is the quality of intelligence.... And that's what has happened.
I have taken much ground away from beneath you. Still there is some ground so you are mixed up.
Sooner or later that too will disappear, then you will be in the abyss. And there is no bottom to it, so one goes on falling and falling and falling. Then one stops clinging - clinging creates blocks. One becomes free. A freedom is knocking on your door - hence you are confused.
It is as if you have lived in a prison for many years, then suddenly the doors are open and you are told to leave. You hesitate at the gate. For your whole life you have lived in a certain pattern, every-thing was settled, and you were not even responsible for it - somebody else, the gaoler, was responsible. You were not even to plan it. You were living a life of complete non-worry.
In the morning, when the bell rang, you had to get up, start working. When another bell rang, you had to go to take your food; another bell and you had to go to sleep. Things were just moving smoothly. No worry for tomorrow of where you were going to get your bread and butter. No worry in the night that robbers might come and rob you. There was no problem at all.
Now suddenly the doors open, and the gaoler says, 'Good-bye. You are free!' - you hesitate. You feel very confused about where to go. You don't know where your home is. You become accus- tomed by and by to this gaol and it has become your home. Now again your address is lost. You are in an identity crisis. That's what Erick Erickson calls 'the identity crisis'. Hence the confusion.
I create the identity crisis. I take away your old name. I take away your old way of dressing, old colours, your clothes, your style - and suddenly I push you into something very unknown. When you are here it is not so difficult. When you go back to the west, you will feel it more. But it is good to go and to experience it and to feel its total penetration.
The confusion is natural, the chaos is natural, because you are becoming freer. The settled groove is not more there; you are no more like a tram running on a track. I have given you freedom. Now you can go in all directions - hence the confusion about where to go. The old style and the old thinking won't help. You cannot depend on the past, and you don't know anything of the future. You tremble... but that's how it should be.
The new leaf coming on the tree trembles. So delicate, and it is going to face such a harsh world.
You are just like a new leaf, and you will be going to the west and facing a very harsh world... but I send you! Feel the harsh world - that will give you spine, that will give steel to your soul. It will make you stronger. It will give you integration.
So this is my deliberate effort - to send sannyasins back, call them again; send them back, call them again, so by and by east and west loses meaning for them... it becomes one world.
For three, four months you will be here; then for eight months you will be there, then again a few months here, again there.... By and by the whole world will become your home. You will neither belong to east nor to west. And you will become for the first time, human... a citizen of the earth.
It is arduous, and you will have to sacrifice many things - but it is worth it. Hence you feel the excitement too - it is very exciting! Your eyes are not able to understand what wonder is.
I have made you again a child, and I have given you a name, unmada - it means mad. I have not only given you back your childhood - I have given something plus. I have given you madness too.
That is the only way to be sane in this insane world.
If you are too sane you will become part of this dead world, this rotten society, this rotten humanity.
You have to be a little mad to get out of the rut.
Go hesitating, go mixed, go a little confused, but go full of excitement. And whenever you feel tired, exhausted, and the world is too much with you, come back.
I'm coming with you! I'm all for my mad people!
You can have as much confusion as you want - I will be your clarity! Good!
Archana: It means prayer. It is one of the most beautiful names possible. Remind me again about it, mm? For a few days be here and you will start feeling what prayer is.... Because in the christian countries, prayer is almost lost, and the formal prayer is thought to be the prayer - it is not the prayer.
Prayer has nothing to say - it is more of silence.
Prayer is not to ask anything from god - rather it is to give.
Prayer is an offering of your being.
Prayer is losing yourself in the divine.
Prayer is not any verbal communication with god. Rather than saying or talking, it is more like listening. If god speaks, you are ready to listen.
So each morning when I am speaking, listen as silently as possible and you will come to know what prayer is - and then you will know the meaning of your name. Mm? It is silent listening, silent communication, silent communion. When your mind is completely dropped and your heart throbs with new life and a song is born in your heart - that is prayer.
It will happen! When I give a name, I mean something.... It is going to happen - you will grow into prayer.
[A sannyasin says: I have decided to stay For a while.... Nice feelings are coming.]
Mm, they will come. I was waiting - once the negativity has left, nice feelings will come. They always come after the negativity has been gone through. And my observation is that if somebody is, from the very beginning, positive, his positivity never goes that deep. If somebody comes here and falls into a negative mood, then it is only a question of time. Once he comes out of the negative, the pendulum will swing to the other extreme and he will become tremendously positive. And that makes things total - the negative and the positive.
If you are simply positive towards me, then the positivity will miss something in it - it will be just sweet. It needs to be bitter too. And when the negativity and positivity are also there, then you are really in a tremendous love affair - then the love-hate both are there. Then you want to go away, and you cannot. You go two feet, and then you come back four feet. Then it is really beautiful.
[Another sannyasin says: I feel very good. I'm so much more relaxed, and.... I feel I'd like to do something so the feeling continues. I've never really let myself enjoy.]
Mm. So after the camp you join the sufi dancing - that will help you and relax your body.
There are very few people who ever allow any happiness to themselves, so then they are miserable.
They go on crying and weeping, 'Why are we miserable?' - and they never allow any happiness. If happiness comes, they will close their doors; they are afraid of happiness.
And there is a rhythm, because whenever you are in a deep joy, you are lost - you cannot control it; it is bigger than you. We have been taught from the very beginning to control everything. You can control misery - it is smaller than you. You can control anguish - it is smaller than you. You cannot control ecstasy - it is too big, too vast, huge, enormous; you are completely lost in it. It is oceanic, and you become a small tiny wave.
This havoc happens because the idea has been implanted deeply into you that everything has to be controlled; to remain in control. I teach uncontrol. I say to be crazy, not to be worried about control. God is enough to control it; you need not control. And the whole existence is so beautifully controlled without any controller.
One who looks after the whole will look after you too. And if the whole is going so smoothly, why be worried? Trust! But we bring in our tiny ego and we start controlling and we want to manage our lives. Of course we manage, and that management is nothing but the way to misery - the sure way to misery.
That's why people have lost all capacity to be loose, to relax, to delight, to celebrate, to dance.
People are no more orgasmic - and a real authentic person has to be orgasmic. Every fibre of your body and your being should be throbbing with joy. But it is huge, and you will be lost in it... nobody knows what will happen! There is no need to know - whatsoever happens is good.