When you drop Knowledge you drop the Mind The Mind dropped you have Attained

Deva means divine and barakha means rainshower - divine rainshower. And that's how the whole life is - a divine rainshower - and every moment god is showering. We just need to be receptive, we need to be open, we need to be porous, so that we can absorb god. To become a sannyasin is to become a sponge. Ego makes one very hard, nonporous... and sannyas is surrender. So surrender your hardness to me, and become soft, receptive, open, vulnerable.

There are reasons why people are hard... because they are afraid. It is only because of fear that people become very hard... because they want to protect themselves, and if you are too protective, god will not enter in you. He can enter only when you are completely unprotected. It is a dangerous path, but the risk is worth taking. This is the only way that one becomes that which one is meant to be.

We are almost like seeds: if we don't die, and if the hardness is not dropped, we will never become a sprout. And for the seed the rainshower is meaningless. For a sprout, it is a great benediction.

The rainshower is a benediction for a sprout, for a plant.

Deva means divine and punitam means purity - divine purity. There is a purity which is human; the human purity is against evil. The divine purity is so pure that it can absorb the evil - it is not against it.

All human concepts are dual - good and bad, god and devil, moral and immoral - and you achieve to the divine only when all duality is transcended.

ATTAINED So punitam does not mean purity in the ordinary sense - because it is not against impurity. It is beyond purity and impurity. It is a higher concept... a transcendental concept.

[Osho suggested particular groups that punitam could do, adding that he should use everything available here... ]

... And don't waste time. Whatsoever time you have, put it to meditation. And there are many groups available. T'ai chi is there... karate is there. So whatsoever you feel like, you join. African dance is there - you may like it - mm? Join it. Just look around and don't waste time.

Each single moment is precious - tremendously precious - because we don't know what is going to happen next moment. You may not be here, I may not be here. Anything is possible next moment.

So don't lose this moment - don't waste it. And the greatest use that you can put this moment to is meditation. Everything else eventually proves meaningless. Earn money, become respectable, have political power, mm? one day death comes and everything is taken away and you are a beggar again.

- Only meditation cannot be taken away by anything - not even by death. One can continue meditating while one is dying. One can not remain rich while one is dying - one can remain a meditator. One cannot have power while one is dying, but one can keep silent, one can remain silent. And if you can remain meditative even while death is happening, you have known something which is indestructible; even death cannot destroy it. That's what life is really. You have known life.

That which can be destroyed by death is not life. It is a misnomer. How life can be destroyed by death? So we must have been thinking that it was life - but it was not... we were deceived.

Eventually, finally, one comes to know that only death is the criterion, and that only meditation passes through the gates of death, nothing else. So devote all your energy to meditation. Your life will be enriched and your death too.

When you are enriched, everything is enriched - your life, your death, your love. When you become centred, all your activities are enriched because you start functioning from a totally different realm...

from your innermost core. Even if you say 'hello', it comes from your heart. If you shake hands, it has a warmth, a spiritual quality to it. So use your time, mm?

[A sannyasin says: I've been painting and doing sculpture, but in the last year I've started making films. And I'm going more towards films, I think.]

Mm, good. Things are good. Use the modern media to create more... Just one suggestion - that you don't stop painting and sculpture. Do film, but don't stop painting and sculpture. If you continue to paint and sculpt, that will keep you very very creative, and your films will have a different quality.

If you stop, then filmmaking is more technological than creative. It can be creative, mm? but most of it is more technological, and it depends on a thousand and one things. You will not be so free as when vou are painting. You will not be so free - you have to think of a thousand and one things when you make a film.

And then it depends on technology' you are not alone: the camera is there and the whole technology is there. You will have to use many people and you will have to use many devices. By and by you ATTAINED will feel that the creative part in it is very small - the major part is noncreative, mechanical... and you can be lost into that morass.

Make films - it is very good, because every new media has to be used for creativity. But with painting there is a freedom. With sculpture there is absolute freedom - and you are alone there. The market is not there, the finance is not there, the audience is not there. With filmmaking everything comes in. Somebody will finance it - if you are making a big project, then somebody will have to finance it. Then the financer will bring in his own ideas. If you want to succeed, you will have to look at the third-rate audience, and what they want.... These are the complexities.

With painting, you are alone. Even if it is not sold, nothing to be worried about. And a painting can find at least a few people to appreciate it - you need not worry about the lowest denominator.

Films are a mass-medium - you have to think about the masses, otherwise you cannot be in it long.

Your film will be a flop, and you will be bankrupt and broke and finished. You will have to think about the lowest denominator - what he wants - so the story moves around him.

Even films of people like samuel beckett never succeeded. Wherever his films were shown the audience simply revolted - there were riots. People simply demanded their money back, because to them it looked nonsensical, absurd. His films were tremendously creative - he was a rare man - but it was not possible for the masses to understand his insight. He failed badly....

So my suggestion is: do filmmaking, go into it, but never lose contact with your individual freedom.

Let that remain an oasis for you, so whenever you are tired of filmmaking and things like that, you can always fall back on painting. And that will keep you green and the sap running.... Otherwise your creativity will by and by dry out.

That is one of the difficulties with the modern techniques - they are mass techniques. Science has made everything on the mass scale - and all beauty and all good is very very individual. Whenever a mass medium is used, creators are lost, because only a very few people can appreciate them.

The higher the work of art, the less is the possibility for it to get appreciation. So continue to sculpt...

and it is beautiful to do something with hands.

When the camera comes in between you and object, the camera decides much. You are still free to move the camera, to do many things with the camera, but still your freedom is not as much as when you are painting - and it can never be as much!

Each medium of expression determines the degree of freedom. For example, if you make a film, the degree of freedom is very much less, because you have to use mechanical devices. If you use painting, you are free. If you use dancing, you are still free, because the canvas, the colour, the brush - even they are gone. Now the dancer is simply alone.

If you play on a flute, the flute will decide something, certainly; you cannot be absolutely free - the flute will have its own determining impact on it. And if something is wrong with the flute, then whatsoever you do is going to be wrong.

In that way dance is the most free art, mm? - you don't need anything. Just you yourself are enough... and you can start anywhere, in any moment - under the stars, under the sky, in the light, in the dark - anywhere. Not even a brush is needed; nothing is needed.

ATTAINED So remember, the more technological the medium, the more are the things that are needed and the less and less freedom will be there. Go into it certainly - it is beautiful to go into it, and if the idea has arisen one has to go into it - but keep contact with your old creativity. Don't drop out, otherwise one day you will feel that the old has gone out of existence, and the new is not as satisfying as you were dreaming it would be.

So continue to paint, and continue to sculpt. Give a little time to it, and forget filmmaking in those moments. It will be good relaxation too. And one should be available to many mediums - that is one of the ways to rest.

If you are following a mathematical puzzle, one part of the mind works. Then you shift and you study poetry - another part of the mind works; it is a rest, the first part is in rest. Then you shift to music - another part of the mind works.

A really creative person will try to have many media to express himself, so he can use his life in a manifold way. Otherwise, if you are just attached to one medium - films - when you are tired, you are tired; you don't have any rest. Even when you are Lying on your bed, you are making films in your mind. It continues... it becomes an obsession.

It is good to have many doors to your being, so that when one door is tired, you close it, and you move to another door and get absorbed in the other door so deeply that you completely forget the first door - as if it exists not... at least not for now. And while you are here, join the music group, sufi dancing, do the meditations, and next time come for a longer period. A few groups will be very very good... will help you to become more creative.

To me, therapy is not for ill people - therapy is for those people who really want to grow beyond the average. Therapy is not for those people who are maladjusted - they need help - but therapy is really for those people who feel that just to be adjusted to the society is not enough... it is not enough life.

The society is sick, and to be adjusted to the society is to be sick. One wants to have more well- being than the average, and one wants to explore new ways of being other than the average. One wants to go ahead of the mass and the collective.

For people who are creative in any way, meditation and the new humanistic groups are of tremendous value. They will give you many insights into your being... they will release many repressions... they will unburden you... they will give you new visions, new possibilities... new combinations will happen.

So when you come next, come for a little longer time so you can go through a few groups, and you can be here and feel me more.

[A sannyasin says: I feel whatever questions that I come up with, you already know I have those questions... so there's no point in asking them.]

That's right!... There is no point, mm? there is no point. And I am answering them - whether you ask or not. Sometimes I answer your question in reference to somebody else's question - you have just to listen rightly; just keep alert. All your questions will be answered.

ATTAINED In fact there is no need to ask, but if one feels like asking, that helps - not because it will help for me to answer you; it simply unburdens your mind. You feel good that you asked... you feel unburdened.

So the question no more haunts you - you know that it is finished: 'I have asked'; that's all. If those questions haunt you, you can ask. They are not needed. I will be answering them without your ever asking them. But that may take time. The question may haunt you today and I may have answered yesterday or I may answer it tomorrow.

But if it is haunting you today and it is creating a certain anxiety, a tension, then simply say it. Just by saying it one is relieved. I will answer tomorrow. Even if you ask me, that doesn't matter much.

When the right time comes, I answer. And it is not necessarily that when you ask, that is the right time.

Sometimes people ask a question when the right time has passed, months ago, and I have even answered them months ago. Sometimes they ask and the right time has not come, and it may take months to come. And unless the right time is there, you will not be able to understand it. My answering is not important - your understanding is important. So you decide.

If you feel the question haunts you, creates a subtle anxiety, then you simply unburden. Whatsoever it is, you just tell me mm?

[She replies: What's the difference between celebration and passion?]

There is much difference... tremendous difference. Passion is a very excited state... tense, narrow, feverish. Celebration is a very relaxed state. Ecstasy is there, but no excitement. You are overflowing - you are not feverish. There is a certain coolness in celebration - warmth and coolness both.

Passion is very hot - it knows no coolness.

So if you are in a passion, passion will tire you. And celebration will rejuvenate you; celebration never tires. Passion is always tiring... excitement is tiring. You live in a tense state. You cannot live in that state long. Sooner or later you start feeling that the energy has to be released, so all passion basically becomes sexual. That's why the word passion has become almost a synonym for sex. It is meaningful.

When you are excited too much, the energy is stirred and you cannot contain it, you need release - and then sex is needed. All passion is sexual. And when the energy is released in a sex act, you feel relieved, unburdened. Celebration is not sexual, not at all. It has no relationship with sex.

Celebration is a tremendous, cool enjoyment. You are enjoying. Just being is so joyful; you are delighted. There is no fever to relieve... there is no heat to be relieved. Celebration will never tire you. If you were tired, celebration will give you energy - you will come out of it fresh. That is the difference. The difference is great.

Passion is a very low state; celebration is a very high state. Celebration is almost divine; passion is animal. With passion you touch the boundary of the animal; with celebration you touch the boundary of god. Both are boundary phenomena.

If in passion you are drowned, you will become an animal. If in celebration you rise a little more, you will become an angel.

ATTAINED Angels are always celebrating. That is the christian meaning of the symbol of angels playing music on the harps, and dancing around god - heaven is a continuous celebration. Passion can never be continuous; it can be only momentary. It can never become a natural state.

[The Sahaj group is present. A member says: I feel like I don't get in touch with my own power. I feel like I've had low energy all my life... in the group it was really clear to me how I lethargically sit back... I'm passive. When I become afraid, rather than the energy coming out into some anger or some kind of action, I freeze or feel helpless.]

Mm. A good insight... a good beginning. Now things will change. Simply remain aware... there is no hurry to do anything. Simply watch it more and more. You have watched in the group - now in ordinary day-to-day relationship, life, watch it.

There is no hurry to do anything. One should always remember: never be in a hurry to do anything, otherwise some good insight can be destroyed by hurry.

Perfectly true - you have seen something about you. And this very vision will bring a change. Now this vision has to be a deepened, this awareness has to be made more and more clear. You feel that it has become clear, but my feeling is that it is still not as clear as it can be - it is still clouded...

less clouded, but still clouded. Because whenever awareness is completely clear, out of it is action - you don't do anything then.

It is almost as if you are crossing a street and a snake passes by. You see the snake; then there is no gap between the seeing and the action. You don't logically think, 'There is a snake. Snakes are dangerous. I should take a jump and be by the side.' You don't think like that. There is no syllogism.

It is not that you think that the situation is dangerous. therefore you should jump - you simply jump!

There is no gap between the seeing of the snake and the jump - they are simultaneous.

This act - where awareness itself becomes the action - is a total act. And this happens whenever your awareness about something becomes absolutely clear. You need not do anything. Out of that very awareness, things will start happening. You will be surprised that you are not doing anything but things are happening. You are no more holding yourself back. You are no more passive. Initiative has come into your life - you take initiative. You are no more a helpless victim - you have taken your life in your own hands.... And not that you make some effort for it!

So my suggestion is: simply watch it. You have watched it in the group; watch outside the group.

Mm? keep continuously alert. Whenever something is going to happen, watch how you do it.

Somebody has insulted you and the anger is coming; just watch what is going to happen. There is no need to do anything - just watch how you behave, so each experience will bring more and more awareness, and will bring more and more clarity, and the clouds will disappear.

Any moment when there is no smoke around your understanding. and awareness is hurning bright.

suddenly you will see that action has changed. And this is the beauty - when the action changes itself, it has no tension about it. It is very simple, very ordinary, yet extraordinary. It is very graceful.

[Another group member says: I still feel caught up in deep shame feelings about my body... I have a hormonal imbalance which makes it quite hairy, and I don't like my weight. Before, I was thin - I still didn't like it.]

ATTAINED .... Because nothing is wrong in being hairy, mm? And nothing is wrong in being fat! They are just ideas that have been put in your mind by others.

In fact all human bodies are hairy - it is an unnatural state that they are not hairy. It is because of clothes that hairs have disappeared. Naturally, it is not an imbalance - you are more natural than other people!

It is just as animals have hair - that is their only protection from cold. When man was nude and in the caves, he had that as protection. The body is still the same. Just because of clothes, shelter, the need is not there, but sometimes a few people's bodies function in a very natural way, so those hairs come.

I don't take it that you are in some way abnormal - you are simply normal. In fact, it is how it should be. The body's inner hormone system has not changed just because we have started using clothes.

The body has not changed its hormonal system - it is still there.

And if people start remaining more and more nude - on the beaches, in the rivers... and by and by in the future centuries when people will be more nude.... Because to be nude is so beautiful and so healthy, and such a joy, that next century is going to be of nude humanity - and again hairs will start coming.

So I don't think that there is anything wrong, or that you have to worry about the hormones.

And I don't think that you are fat. There are ten times more fat women than you! - this is nothing.

In fact in india, at least this much fat is thought to be beautiful. The west has a very different notion.

Have you seen indian film actresses' pictures? They are all fat. You will not find a single woman who can win the world contest in the west - not a single film actress. In india, unless a woman is full of fat, nobody likes her! And my feeling is that they are right... natural.

When a woman is skinny and bony, and the fat is not there on the body, that simply shows that she is not yet able to become a mother, that's all. A woman gathers more fat than a man. It is a natural thing because when the child is in the womb, the mother needs some reservoir of fat - the child takes too much fat out of the body. By and by, as the pregnancy grows, the mother will not be able to eat much. So it is a natural protection for nine months. So women gather more fat than men - they have to; that is simply natural.

And in the west, women who are trying not to become fat, not to become weighty, and who are continuously on a diet, are doing very unnatural things. They are constantly torturing themselves - their dieting is a torture. They cannot eat what they want to eat, and they have to eat what they never want to eat. They have continuously to fight with their body. Again and again they relapse, and again they eat something. and again the weight grows. All nonsense! one should be simply natural. And I don't think that you are overweight or anything.

Drop your ideas - these ideas are simply nonsense! Start enjoying yourself! And if you have these ideas, they are dangerous. If you feel that you are not beautiful and you are not this and you are not that, then even if somebody comes and falls in love with you, you will not trust him. You will say, 'He must be deceiving; how can he love me?' Even you cannot love yourself, so this man must be ATTAINED a cheat! He must have some other design, some other trick - you are not going to be trapped! And you will try to prove that you are right. You will try to destroy the relationship in every way so your whole idea can be again protected - that 'Yes, I am not beautiful. Look! that man has left me.' And you will create such a situation that he has to leave you!

This is a very suicidal attitude. Drop all nonsense! Start loving yourself. If you love yourself, only then can somebody else love you - otherwise you won't allow anybody to come close to you. If you are so afraid of your body, how can you tolerate somebody else adoring your body? You cannot tolerate! Either he will look a stupid man or like somebody who is trying to deceive you. Drop this!

It is a simple understanding. The world is so vast, and everybody has a different body... and they have to be different! You fall in love with your body! Mm ? there is nothing wrong.

... but you drop this nonsense - it is simply just nonsense! It is nothing much to be made a fuss about. Don't make it a big problem. It is nothing. Drop it... and once you have, you will suddenly see that doors have started opening, and some fool is going to fall in love with you! (chuckling) Mm? When you have found some foolish person in love with you, bring him to me. Soon it is going to happen. Mm? I can predict it! Just start smiling and laughing, and get out of this. Nothing to be worried about!