Darshan 30 July 1976

[Through a translator, a visitor said he had come to Osho because he needed a friend.]

Good... but coming to me is dangerous because it means going away from the personality that you have been up to now. The only way to come closer to me is to die in a certain way. Only then is one reborn. So if you really want to come close to me, physical closeness won't help. And spiritual closeness means a deep surrender - surrendering the mind, surrendering the intellect, surrendering logic, surrendering aristotle. Because when you surrender logic, love starts functioning - and they never function together. It is a question of either/or - either logic or love.

Logic is very poisonous for love, because love needs a totality, a simplicity, a trusting heart, almost blinded. Then things are very simple and much can happen. Otherwise, on one side you start coming towards me, on another you start going away. And that's what happens to the logical mind. By one hand it creates, by another it destroys. So that has to be the very basic thing to be understood.

If you want to be with me, it cannot be a half-hearted measure. So if you really want to come close, the Brst thing is to become a sannyasin. That is just a gesture from your side that yes, you are ready; even if I kill you, you are ready. Otherwise much energy is wasted in resistance.

[The visitor says that his problem is that he is not sure of himself, of his own ideas.]

That's everybody's problem. It is the modern human problem. The contemporary mind is that way because we have lost our roots and the sense of direction. We are just standing on the crossroads not knowing where to go, why to go at all, why we are here in the first place, what the point of going is, and if it is going to benefit us anyway if we go. This indecisiveness is the very characteristic of

the contemporary mind. It is not your problem. It is the problem you are born in, the world you are born in.

So you can come out of it because this is not your problem - it is just the atmosphere around. It is the noo-sphere, the thought-sphere around you which has given you an indecisiveness. But you can come out of it; there is no problem in it. It needs courage not thinking, because by thinking you will never come out of it. Thinking goes on emphasising the same problem again and again. Deep down, thinking is the cause of the whole problem. And only love can be the cure.

So if you go on thinking and deciding what to do, what not to do. and how you are going to come out of it, it is just pulling yourself up by your shoe-strings. You will need the help of somebody who is not in the problem and can pull you out. Look at me - I am not in the problem. I am absolutely decisive - even about you, that you can come out of it. So don't think about it, because that is not going to help. That is the basic eastern approach. If you are asleep, you need somebody to awaken you; otherwise there is no way. You can even dream that you are awake.

So awakening is a chain reaction. I make you awake, then you become capable of awakening others.

I pull you out, then you become aware that it is so simple and you can pull others out. It is really simple, but you will have to hold my hand. And if you think that you have to decide about it, you can think a few days and decide.

Anand means bliss and prem means love. Only love is bliss. and only a blissful person can be loving. Bliss and love are two aspects of the same energy. On one side it is love on another it is bliss. Approach it from both the sides: be loving and be blissful. And don't think of which comes first; they come together. It is just like the hen and the egg - nobody is primary. The egg is nothing but the hen's way to create more hens, or vice versa - the hen is nothing but the egg's way to create more eggs.

Bliss creates love and love creates bliss. Just as there is a logical term they call 'a vicious circle', this is a virtuous circle. One virtue creates another. Then you are even more ready for the first than before.

[A visitor says that he has done therapy, meditations, tantra yoga: I feel now that I'm at a point where I can sense a bit of the life force within me and at the same time I don't know how to go on.]

I understand. Much more is waiting to happen for you.

This problem arises only when for the first time you start feeling a glimpse, a sense, that something is possible, that you are not going to waste your life. When you come in contact for the first time with the cosmic energy, howsoever small, this problem arises - of what to do and how to grow more and how not to waste energy and effort. how to put the energy into one direction. One should be happy that the problem has arisen, because there are two types of problems.

One type of problem is pathological. Somebody has anxieties and cannot sleep, or somebody is so tense that he's feeling split, or somebody is obsessed with some idea and cannot get rid of it.

These are pathological problems. All problems are not pathological. There are growth problems also, which are very healthy.

This is a growth problem, and one should be really happy that one has a growth problem, not a pathological problem. Because even if the pathological problem is solved, you become more comfortable, that's all, but nothing is gained. You sleep better, you are less tense, you become more efficient in your worldly affairs, in your business, in your work, in your job, but nothing is solved.

When a pathological problem is solved you function more normally, that's all. But that is not the goal; just to be normal is pointless. Unless something of the beyond happens to you, unless there is a breakthrough, unless you can see the significance of being here, unless you can perceive your place in this cosmos - why you are, who you are, and for what function you exist, what your destiny is - unless you have that perspective, you simply vegetate.

A few people vegetate efficiently, a few people non-efficiently, a few people comfortably, a few people uncomfortably, but in the end it is all the same. Whether you had beautiful dreams in the night or nightmares makes not much difference when in the morning you find that it was all dream.

This is a growth problem, and now you will have to commit yourself to some path. Up to now, you have been dabbling in this and that. Good - in the beginning it is very good; one has to grope - but now don't continue that. Now choose a path. At least for three years be committed to a path so totally that whatsoever can happen on that path, happens. If nothing happens on that path after three years, move, choose some other path.

But at this moment a deep involvement will be needed, otherwise you will wither away. Don't do many things any more. In the beginning it is good. One goes shopping and looks in this shop and that, and is attracted by this window display and that, one looks at many things, but then finally one decides; then one chooses.

If you choose, immediately many things will start happening. And I am not saying choose this or that, but choose. It is a risk because one chooses in deep ignorance, and there is no other way to choose. Maybe it is right, maybe it is not right. It remains 'perhaps'. That's the risk, but one has to still choose.

Choose some path and be devoted to it totally - because energy should not be dissipated. As I see, you have been doing many things, so you have gone to the south a little, to the north a little, to the east, to the west, and you have been going in all the directions together. It is good in the beginning - one has to feel - but now choose.

If you want to grow, then you can grow only on one path. And all paths are true. When I say choose, I don't mean that others are wrong. All paths are true. In fact, every path ultimately leads to god because ultimately only he is. Even people who go astray cannot go astray. Even going astray leads them to god one day - because where can you go astray? There is nowhere where god is not.

So even a sinner is on the path of being a saint; there is no other way. He may delay. So I don't call a sinner a sinner, I call him a delayed saint. Delaying, postponing, running hither and thither, but how long can you do that? One day one decides.

So be decisive. If you feel that you have a certain love for me, then I am ready. You can come along with me. But if you feel that somewhere else you have a deeper involvement and a possibility

of a deeper involvement, then go there, but be committed. And put aside all wanderings now. A man needs to be a wanderer, but one day one stops wandering and follows a certain path. Then direction arises and things start falling into line. Then all your effort moves in one direction, gives you an integration.

So you have groped in all directions long enough. And the problem with you is that if you don't choose and you don't get committed, this may become your habit - this dabbling. Then there are a thousand and one paths one can go on. That becomes a sort of befooling oneself. One is always engaged with one guru, then another guru, with one school and then another school, then another school, with one technique and then another technique. By and by, one becomes addicted. So one is nowhere with anybody but one goes on changing paths, techniques, and by and by this can become a habit - that you cannot stay with anything for long. Then growth is impossible.

So it is a growth problem - good in itself, but you will have to do something. So feel, be here, meditate, do a few groups. And if you feel that there is a certain affinity between your heart and mine, then be committed, become a sannyasin.

... Think about it. The problem for you to solve is whether to be committed and become a sannyasin, or not. So think about it. I will do almost ninety percent. Ten percent you think, mm? Good!

Deva means divine and salila means a river, a divine river. And that you have to remember.

You are holding your energy. You are not allowing it to stream, to flow. It is as if a river has been prevented, blocked, and a dam has been created. The energy is there, throbbing, vibrating, and wants to explode, but you are holding it. Unless you release it, you will feel many troubles. Once you release it, you will be free of many troubles. Once you release it, it will take all garbage away from you.

So that's why I give you the name deva salila. You have to remember that you have to become a river - flowing, always flow-ing. Unless you come to dissolve into an ocean, don't stop: No other place is your goal. Go on farther and farther. One has to reach to the ocean where all boundaries dissolve. But you are holding it hard, and if you hold you create conflict. You create a contradiction in your being.

The energy wants to ga out and you want to pull it in. In this conflict, anxiety arises. And if this conflict continues for long, you create blocks. Then to hold becomes an unconscious habit. The energy is ready and there is not much of a problem. If you don't try to hold it, it will start flowing. I don't see any other block except that you are holding it. So do some groups and don't hold at all...

just be completely flowing. Don't be miserly about it.

Many people are so miserly about energy that it is unbelievable why they are so miserly. From the very beginning every child is taught to be miserly. The mathematics of life is that the more you spend your energy, the more energy you get. The less you spend. you less you get, because there is no need. If you don't spend at all. you don't get at all. Then the old energy remains like a stagnant dead thing, and it becomes by and by poisonous. Energy has to be fresh, continuously fresh.

I can see it... every pore of your body needs flow. So in these five weeks that you will be here, dance, sing, relate with people. meet, have contacts, love. In these five weeks completely forget

your old habit of holding. Here, things are allowed. Even if you are standing and trembling, nobody is going to say that you are mad or something, gone crazy.

There are greater crazy people here than you, so you need not be worried!

[A sannyasin says: I'm sitting here and thinking just so many things to say to you - (my wife) gone, feeling alone - and it all seems nonsense.]

Mm, that's what I am continuously indicating. That's what is my message continuously. That's why sitting here you continuously feel it. Everything is really nonsense, toys to play with. When you are immature those toys are good, teddy bears. But when you become a little mature, a little understanding arises and you simply start feeling what nonsense you have been doing up to now.

When you are here with me, your understanding starts moving with me a little higher than it is ordinarily. With me it starts flying into the sky, so you look downwards and everything seems nonsense. The altitude changes. Back in your room again, those things will start seeming sensible.

So try to understand something while you are here - that it is a question of your altitude. If you are a little higher, then in the valley things seem to be just meaningless, nothing to be disturbed about.

They don't belong to you, you don't belong to them. They are just irrelevant.

Back again in the valley, you have to remember what happened on the peak. Then only, you grow.

Otherwise, again and again you are with me and again and again a vision arises and you don't use it. Back home you again become the same; you fall victim to your old patterns. Then it is not going to help. It is going to be only a momentary glimpse. These glimpses should become the very base of your being. So while you are here with me, whatsoever happens, whatsoever you start feeling, carry it while you are not with me. Carry it there, take care of it so that it is not lost.

When you come to me be very alert about what happens here, because a darshan is not a conversation. It is not even a dialogue. It is a subtle transfer of energy, a subtle communication.

In a subtle way I try to enter you. I knock at your door. There are moments when it becomes possible and you open your door and suddenly in that light, in that new breeze passing through you, you can see what things are meaningful and what things are meaningless,, what is essential and what is non-essential. When you go from here, carry that insight, treasure it, protect it, remember it.

Then wherever you are you will be with me, because if the insight is with you, then you are with me.

And whenever you are again getting lost in old habits, jerk your being, shake yourself out of it and just remember that it is meaningless, it is irrelevant. And suddenly you will see it is irrelevant, it is meaningless.

Deva means divine and prasadam means a gift, a divine gift. And that's how one should try to see life - as a divine gift. It is of tremendous value. Just to be is such a benediction, but because of our complaining mind and our grumbling mind, we never see the beauty that has already happened. We never see the treasure that has already been handed over to us.

For small things we go on being negative and the great blessing of life simply passes by us. So try to see it. There are troubles, but they are nothing compared to the beauty that life makes available.

There are anxieties... I am not saying it is all a bed of roses; there are thorns - but negligible. And in fact they make roses more beautiful. They help, they enhance life by contrast.

There is hatred and there is anger and there is jealousy, but they all function as a contrast to love.

Without them, love will not be possible. There is death, there is misery, there is illness, there is disease, but they all make life possible. So always look to the positive - that is the meaning of the name.

If you start looking towards the positive, the negative loses meaning, because whatsoever we look at, we pour energy into. Then it surrounds us more and more. If you pay attention to the wrong, you are feeding the wrong. Attention is food - very subtle food, very vital food.

So just don't pay attention to the wrong. Don't pay attention to the black side of things. It is there - accept it. Nobody is denying it, but what is the point of paying too much attention to it? That is a little pathological. It is a perversion, but everybody is doing that. That's how we go on missing god.

God is possible only when your eyes are absolutely positive, when your eyes have no flaw of negativity in them. Suddenly you see that god has always been there. He is your surround. He is within and without. This is what I call preparation - to make eyes absolutely flawless... and negativity is the flaw.

So whatsoever happens, take it rightly. Even if it gives pain, remember that it must be there, because without it pleasure is not possible. Accept it. That is the meaning of prasadam. It is one of the most beautiful words. When you go to a saint in india, he gives you something as prasad... maybe a little sweet or a fruit.

I don t give you any sweet, any fruit. I give you to yourself - that's my prasad.