To Know is to Know that to Know is not to Know And not to Know is to Know

Sharanananda.

It means bliss that comes through surrender, bliss that comes through trust. Sharanananda means one who has absolutely relaxed in a total let-go, and who is no more projecting his own ideas.

Whatsoever god's will, he accepts. He becomes just a vehicle. He says 'yes' to god, and there is no resistance, no conflict. He cooperates with god... just as if somebody is floating with the river - not even swimming, not making any effort on his own; just floating with the river - and wherever the river leads is the goal.

Not to have a private goal is what I mean by surrender. Mm? this is the meaning of your name. And don't let it just be your name - let it become your very life. And it will be possible. I can see it - the seed is there... just a little caring, a little effort.

[A visitor said he had been in love with a woman for eight years and that he was very possessive about her. Osho spoke at length about giving the other freedom, and then suggested that becoming a sannyasin would be helpful. The visitor said he was afraid.... ]

.... You are afraid, otherwise sannyas would be helpful - tremendously helpful - because this is also a way of love. If you can love me, your love will become purer. It will be very difficult to love the woman in a pure way, because you are already associated with her. If you can love me, or anybody else, non-possessively, you will learn the way to love non-possessively. And then you can spread that same quality to any relationship; it becomes easier.

Sannyas is a love relationship. You need it, you need it badly - but you are afraid. It almost always happens; people who need something are really afraid to go into it; people who don't need, they sometimes go into it just out of curiosity. So think about it. It is going to happen. It can take your love from the mess where it is, to a higher altitude.

And once your love starts moving to a higher altitude, only then will it be possible to give freedom, because your mind can never give freedom. Only when you have something beyond the mind, can you give freedom - never before it.

You can give freedom to your beloved only when you have tasted something of freedom. You have not tasted anything of it. In fact you want to be possessed - you want to possess and be possessed.

In fact you want to move into a secure relationship. You want to have a shelter for your love against the hazards of life. You want to be on certain ground.

All those things are creating trouble. It is not love itself that is creating trouble - love never creates trouble. Some foreign elements are mixed in.

But this is how everybody comes to know love. In the beginning you cannot have the pure love. Only through experience, much sacrifice, suffering, one by and by eliminates all that is wrong, and goes on saving all that is beautiful. One day it happens that only the purest is left.

It is possible... it is humanly possible. It is nothing impossible....

Have you done any groups in the west? What type of groups have you done?

[The visitor says: Almost every type!]

Every type? Good! Start meditating here, do the sufi dancing, and in the night, join the music group and try to be lost - get lost!

Any day the idea of sannyas will become a great urge in you, then come back, mm? And book for a few groups. A few groups also will be good. Just have a taste here and see how you feel....

[A middle-aged sannyasin said that soon after his first marriage he felt disgust with sex and has been unable to have an orgasm since, except after smoking marijuana, and although he is in love with his present girlfriend.]

And do you feel any real necessity that something should be done about it?....

Because sometimes we create unnecessary problems and once we have taken them as problems we are continuously worried about them. And now not having an orgasm is becoming more or less a psychological problem in america, because there is too much talk about it.

It has never been a problem down the centuries - nobody ever bothered about it. But during these twenty, thirty years much research has been done - kinsey and masters and johnson - and that research has become public. People are reading about the beauties and the great experience of orgasm and the great relaxation that comes out of it, so they have become greedy about it, and that's why the problem. And it is not one person who is in trouble - it is almost everybody who is in trouble.

[Osho went on to say that there should be no standards in sex, no comparison of one's sexual performance with that of anyone else. It is because of various researchers that people have become comparative - judging themselves according to the 'average'. 'Nobody is a standard. Your sexuality is yours.' (see 'god is not for sale,' tuesday, november 2nd, where bhagwan talks more about this.)]

The problem is arising through comparison. And now every day you will be becoming older, so if you don't drop this problem, it will become more and more serious every day and you will be obsessed with it. People really become interested in these things only when they start becoming a little older.

And particularly in the west, it is thought that sex is life, so if sex is finished, life is finished; they are synonymous.

Once a person becomes a little older and starts feeling that now sexual energies are not going as they used to be, he becomes hectic! He wants to do something or other - take some medicine, smoke something; or do some exercises - yoga, this and that; or find a better woman - more knowledgeable... go to the prostitutes, or to the substitutes - but do something!

And then a trembling arises, and this trembling will increase every day because you will be getting older; you will not be getting younger. The more it is there, and the more you think about it, the more problematic. And if you think too much about orgasm, then even the natural orgasm that was possible to you will become impossible, because for an orgasm to exist and happen, a totally unworried mind is needed.

The mind is the problem. For example, if you are making love, and deep in the background the idea is there that you are going to miss again, orgasm is not going to happen as it should - now you are coming up... now you are coming up... and the fear, and the trembling, and the mind and the whole body is divided - you will miss again.

My suggestion is that you drop the problem rather than solving it. Simply drop it - it is foolish! Why bother about it? Whatsoever is happening is good - enjoy it. And one day suddenly you will see - it has happened. It happens only when you are unworriedly in love.

You love her, and she loves you, so there is no problem. When we love each other, we accept each other's limitations too. If she loves you deeply she will know that now you are growing a little older, so in course, it will not be as it used to be. It will be a little different; it will not be so often. But love will discover new intimacies. It will be less sexual... it will go deeper.

In fact when love is sexual, it never goes very deep. It remains a body thing. When bodily sex by and by starts disappearing in the natural course of life, a new love affair starts - between two minds.

That is deeper. And if you are meditating, then a still deeper possibility: a love affair can start without the mind - without the body and without the mind. That is the real benediction.

Benediction has nothing to do with orgasm. Even if it happens, you will throb for a second or two, and it is finished. Even if it happens, nothing much has happened out of it. Even if you have a perfect orgasm, you are not going to get anything out. Animals are having perfect orgasms; every dog is having a perfect orgasm... but what is the point of it? At the most, you can have a perfect orgasm just like the animals.

I am not saying that it is bad - I am saying that it is nothing much to worry about. It is much ado about nothing. But the western mind is unoccupied and wants some occupation; otherwise life is disappearing.

You have the car, you have the house, you have the bank balance - now have the orgasm. Orgasm is the new religion. Now god is not there. Who knows? Life is not there after death; may be, may not be. Now the only thing left is orgasm, so cling, hold onto it, and to the very end go on clinging and thinking about it.

My suggestion is that you simply forget about it. Simply throw it away! Say, 'It is okay. Whatsoever is, is good, and I am to remain contented with it.' One day out of the blue, you will see it happening.

And if it happens, don't try to desire it again and again. If it happens, okay; if it doesn't happen, okay.

Don't take much account of it.

If it happens, be finished with it - forget about it. Otherwise the happening will again create the obsession that it can happen. So it has happened - now it should be repeated again and again.

Simply enjoy being together. In fact one should not even try to make love unnecessarily. It is not a must, it is not obligatory. Sometimes just sitting together, holding each other's hand and looking at the moon is enough... and goes far deeper!

Sometimes not doing anything - just sitting... not even thinking about anything....

Sex has become a doing type of thing. You have to do it, you have to prove yourself, otherwise the woman will think you don't love her; you will start feeling that you have not done anything to her.

What type of love is this? Do something!

Never make any effort about love. Just be together, care about each other, feel for each other.

Meditate, pray together, dance together, and sometimes out of dancing and meditation and prayer, suddenly you feel you are making love. Not that you are making; suddenly you see that it is happening. Then it has a tremendous beauty.

Then it is not you who are making love - it is god himself making love through you. Then you are not worried. It is not a problem to you at all! Whether he wants to have an orgasm or not, it is his business. Why should you be worried about it? If he wants to have one orgasm, he can.

So meditate, pray, dance, listen to music, look at the stars, and sometimes if it happens, just naturally, spontaneously.... Don't prepare it, don't think about it. Don't rehearse in the mind. Don't think in the.

office that you are going home and you are going to make love... childish!

Forget about it! Some day it will happen, and for a few days you will simply forget about it - that's how real love should be. There is no need to prove - the woman knows you love her, you know she loves you. There is no need to make any extra effort. And then you will see a subtle quality arising in your being. Orgasm or no orgasm, you love each other, mm? And some day it will start happening....

I am not promising! Otherwise you will start waiting for it. I am not predicting. I am simply saying it is natural. It happens only when you are unworried. It is consequence... a natural consequence.

When there is no tension, how can it be that it should not happen? It has to happen! In an unworried bodymind, the throb goes deep, the thrill goes deep - you start pulsating.

So the first basic rule is: forget about it. The second basic rule: if it happens some day, enjoy it, thank god, and forget it again. Don't expect it tomorrow.

The mind is very very greedy, and hence all misery. Something happens today and the mind starts planning for tomorrow - it has to happen tomorrow too. Now it happened today because you were not thinking about it. Now you are thinking about it - now you are changing the whole condition.

Tomorrow it cannot happen. And when it does not happen tomorrow, you will become more hectic; then the day after tomorrow it has to happen! Now you are making it impossible.

You looked at a flower and it was beautiful, and you enjoyed. Now after twenty-four hours you wait again. You will come back home and you will go to the flower. You will again have that thrill. This time it will not be there, because no repetition can be thrilling. It was a thrill because yesterday, suddenly you came there. It was an encounter - the rose and you. Neither were you waiting for the rose nor was the rose waiting for you. A sudden encounter - you looked at each other and something flashed.

Now you have come with a cunning mind, calculating that now you will go and you will look again at the flower and you will be happy. This time it is not going to happen - and the flower is not guilty.

The flower was ready there because he was not waiting for you again. It could have happened - there is nothing missing from the side of the flower - but you have done something wrong.

So whenever god happens in any way - a beautiful moment, a loving moment - enjoy it, feel grateful, and erase the memory. Never carry any psychological memories. That's why children are so happy.

And the older one grows, the less happiness. Because children are not expecting; their unexpecting attitude gives them thrills. They are always new.

So keep that in mind... and nothing else to be worried about.

[A sannyasin asks: If there's only one god, one totality, why are there so many different religions?]

Because one god can be looked at in so many ways. For example there is one rosebush in the garden.... A painter comes by - he will see the rosebush in a very different way... he is a painter. He will see through colours. He will be thrilled by the colours, and he will start thinking of how to paint it.

A poet comes - he will not think of colours. For him, the same rosebush will give birth to an inner music. He will start singing - sound will be his medium. He would like to sing a song... he would like to dedicate a song to this rosebush.

A dancer comes. Seeing this flower moving in the morning wind, playing with the sun, he would like to dance and express his experience about the flower.

A scientist comes, a botanist comes - he will think in totally different terms. He knows much more about the rosebush than any of these people - its species, from where it comes, to which country it belongs, what kind of rose this is.

If they will write their experiences and you come across all the impressions, you will never be able to think that they have come across the same rose; their descriptions will be so many. That's why there are so many religions.

God is one... the experience of god is one - but when a buddha comes to that experience, of course, he expresses it in his own way. When Jesus comes to the same experience, he expresses it in his own way. Their expressions are different; their experience is not.

They are different personalities - they gather different types of disciples. And a different type of church arises around Jesus and around Buddha - and the different philosophies and the arguments.

There are three hundred religions in the world, but my feeling is that even if there are three million, nothing will be wrong.

If I am allowed, I would like each individual to have his own religion. That will be the true world. Why have a second-hand religion? Jesus has his - why shouldn't you have yours? Buddha has his - you should have your own.

In a better world, when consciousness has developed more, each individual will have his own religious attitude. There will be as many religions as there will be men. That will be the right world... and then there will be no conflict whatsoever.

Conflict arises because people gather together into organisations - christians and hindus and mohammedans - and then there is conflict. If each person has his own concept. of god, there is no problem.... With whom to fight? And what is the point of fighting?

As humanity is progressing, there will be more and more religions, more and more religions. And one day it is going to happen - there will be as many religions as there are individuals. That will be the real religious state of the world....