God is not the Goal but the Journey Itself

Deva means divine, ashva bodhi means horse sense. And it is of great value to understand what horse sense is. Man is not as sensible as horses; man has lost all sensibility. Horses still live in the present - man has started living in the future. The moment you start living in the future, you lose horse sense.

The animal exists herenow. He does not plan his life as a deferred payment system. He does not bother about the results. He is not much concerned about the goal - his whole concern is the journey itself.

For example, if you leave a horse loose by the side of the road, he will not look at the stars and he will not look at the horizon; he will not look all around to find where he should go and where he should start eating the grass. He will simply look around in the immediate.

Just half, one step away, there is a clump of grass; he will start nibbling, enjoying. He will be lost in the moment, in the act, in the immediate. Then half a foot away, another clump of grass, and he will move. By the evening you will find he has moved miles away from the original spot - but he has not planned it. He was just moving moment to moment. This I call 'the grazing principle' - and man should live like it.

One should not bother about the future, about the after-life. One should live this moment... and each moment takes one deeper into reality. But one should be more concerned with the immediate, not the far away. God is close by, and far away are only man's dreams. Reality surrounds you and the far away is just a utopia that never comes. The far away is a trick of the mind to escape from the real. That is all implied in the word aswabodhi - horse sense. So start living more and more in the immediate.

There is a very famous saying of saint theresa - I love it tremendously. She says, 'Heaven is not the goal. Heaven is all the way to heaven. Has not christ said, "I am the way?"' God is not the goal but the journey itself, the way itself. We are not going anywhere in particular, we are just being here.

The whole converges on this moment.

When you think about the result, the end, the profit that you are going to gain in the end, you start missing the beauty of the pilgrimage - then you are motivated, greedy, ambitious. Then you are not here.

Enjoy each moment. Be more authentically in the immediate - that is the meaning of horse sense.

Deva means divine, sona means gold - divine gold, divine treasure, divine wealth. And that's how one should look at oneself - as a great treasure. We may not have discovered it yet, but it is there.

And if you really want to discover it, first you have to accept - at least hypothetically - that it is there, otherwise you never search and never enquire. Once you know that the treasure is somewhere, you start looking for it.

That is the only meaning of trust - something that is not known, but is possible... something that you cannot be certain about right now, but somebody else, whom you love, is certain... to take his certainty in trust, and the journey starts.

This is going to be hypothetical. It cannot be absolute. Unless you have known, how can it be absolute? But even a scientist needs a hypothesis to work with, to begin with. He is not certain whether it will prove this way or that, whether it will prove true or untrue. But just to start one has to take a hypothesis - maybe it is so, maybe it is not so, but a possibility is there that maybe it is so.

Then one has to search and one has to do hard work.

Everybody is carrying a treasure, but the idea is lost. In the modern world nobody reminds you about your inner treasure, and everybody reminds you about many treasures which are outside - which you have to achieve, which you have to complete for, you have to struggle for. The struggle is very ugly and very violent - and the end result is just nothing.

Once a person succeeds in the outer world, he comes to know that the whole life has been a wastage. You have the money, and nothing has come. You have the power and the prestige and the respectability, and you remain empty - in fact, your whole life is gone, has gone down the drain.

Now only death is waiting. Of course you will die as a successful man and there will be reports in the newspaper... but you never lived!

You will die as a successful man, but you never lived truly, because life is from the within, and it is never from the without. Life is a welling up of your treasures, an overflowing....

I am here just to remind you of this - and by becoming a sannyasin, you start trusting me, and then you start searching for the treasure. It is there - I say it is there... I can see it. If you cannot see it, it only means that you have to train your eyes to see it. You have to become a little more silent, because the voice inside is very still, very small. You have to drop the noise, the inner chattering, then you may be able to hear it.

It is a whispering, a murmuring, of a very small spring, but it is of tremendous value, because that spring is that of nectar. Once one drinks out of it, one becomes deathless. Once you drink out of it, then for the first time you are alive... alive in a totally different meaning, in a different sense. You are no more alive as a body - you are alive as a spirit.

The body will end because it began. The spirit has no beginning and no end....

[A sannyasin said that in the hypnotherapy group she had images of Osho, and other people, without any faces.]

Mm mm. Some day you will come to know the meaning of it - the meaning is there. In fact, nobody has a face. The face is a mask, the body itself is a mask. The one who is behind is faceless.

Have you seen Bodhidharma's pictures?... the man who introduced Zen in China? He has a big beard, and a very ferocious face very dangerous like a lion, just ready to jump on anybody.

One of his disciples meditating one day came running and told him, 'Sir, I have looked deep into myself and I found you there, but you had no beard!' - and he had a big beard! Bodhidharma laughed, and he said, 'Because I have none!'

And then down the centuries - it is fourteen hundred years old, this story... down the centuries in the zen monasteries, the question has been asked again and again, 'Why has Bodhidharma no beard ?' Because he has none!

I have no face! Nobody has any face. Faces are masks. We are hiding behind those faces. And that facelessness is called the original face. Just think, just meditate a little: you look through the eyes, but the one who looks through the eyes has no eyes. You smell through the nose, but the one who smells through the nose has no nose. You eat through the mouth, you digest through the body, but the one who is behind, who feels the hunger, who feels the satisfaction of eating and being wellfed, has no mouth and no stomach. It is very strange to come around it - it is very shaking... uprooting.

It can be maddening.

Gurdjieff lived with his disciples for three months in a far away monastery. After three months they came back to the town. For three months everybody had remained absolutely silent - not a single word was uttered, and not a single gesture was made. And those who could not do it were turned out. Thirty persons started; only three remained by the end of the three months - because even a gesture!...

For example, I pass by the side of you and something falls from my hand on you - I am not to make a gesture that somebody is there. Even if I have dropped fire on you, I have to behave as if nobody is there. We cross each other in the room.... And in a small house, thirty persons - in one room, ten, twelve persons were there - and they had to remain as if they were alone; they could not even communicate by their eyes. Those who made any sort of communication, were turned out.

He brought these three persons who remained, back to the town after three months, and those three persons, seeing the town, simply shrieked! They said, 'We want to go back - because people don't have any faces! The whole town and people are talking, moving... and without any faces! Just bodies without any heads!'

You have seen it in meditation - some day you will see it in Poona! So be ready! And it is good to begin from me... it is good! It is a good experience. It is of tremendous significance. That's how reality is - it has no face.

Have you looked around here? You will find some hindu statues - they find any stone and paint it red and it becomes god. And it has no face! The Shivalinga - the statue of Shiva - has no face. It is a phallic symbol without any face. It shows that life is vitality and has no face. It has elan but it has no face.

[A sannyasin says: I have done all the groups, and since doing them I realise that I don't know if I'm ready to be a mother, but I feel it is unnatural to have an abortion.... I want to be natural. If something comes out, I'm ready to receive.]

No, if you are feeling good, then good - nothing to be worried about. If you are not feeling any problem, then just be natural! Just remember that one has to take the consequences, that's all.

If you are ready to take the responsibility of being a mother, perfectly good - be a mother. The responsibility will be with you It is responsibility.

If you are ready and happy, that's okay, mm? But if you are confused or wavering, then it is better not to take the responsibility. Never give birth to a child when you a not certain about it - never! That is more unnatural. Never give birth to a child who is not welcome.

Just to be natural is not enough; one should be very consciously ready to be a mother - only then become a mother, otherwise from the very beginning.... Have you not watched? - if somebody comes and knocks at your door, and if he is unwelcome, you open the door, you tell him to come in, but have you seen the difference? If he is unwelcome, the whole house vibrates with rejection.

To be polite, to be mannerly, you tell him, 'Come in.' You say, 'I am glad to see you,' but you don't seem glad - your whole being seems to be rejecting. But one lives in society, and if somebody has come, you say 'Okay' - you offer him a cup of tea. But if somebody is welcome, it is a totally different thing. You are really glad. You need not say that you are glad - you are really glad! A dance comes to your being.

So be a mother only when the child is going to be really welcomed and you accept him dancingly, in joy, as a gift. Otherwise it is better not to. Wait - when the time comes, next time, some other time when you are ready to be a mother.... I am not saying anything positively this way or that - I never say. I don't want to dictate anything to you. Mm? I simply say, then you have to decide.

If you feel that you are ready.... But I don't think that you are ready. You are more fascinated with the idea of being natural. The child is not the question... you are not concerned with the child - you are concerned with your idea of being natural. Then you are bringing the child in in a wrong way. It is better not to. He can find some other womb... he can move to some other womb.

And about being natural, one thing has to be understood - that we are not natural in anything, but one tries to be natural only about this.

If you suffer from tuberculosis, will you take medicine or not? It will not be natural! The natural would be to die with tuberculosis. If you have diarrhea will you take medicine or not? The natural will be to suffer diarrhea and if death comes, let it come.

With death we are not natural, and with birth we want to be natural. That is creating the whole trouble in the world - the population goes on increasing. Either decide to be natural about both - birth and death, then it perfectly okay.... But about birth we want to be natural, and about death - we go on pushing death as far away as we can. Then the population goes on increasing, and the world becomes poorer and poorer, and uglier and uglier.

I'm not saying anything - you simply decide, mm? If you feel good... whatsoever is good is good.

But decide soon, so something can be done, mm?