Darshan 3 August 1976

[A sannyasin said she had done much work on herself in the states, participating in arica, est, fischer-hoffman therapy, and a vipassana course. She felt that the arica course lacked heart.

Osho said that he could see some traces of a lingering hardness in her face, but that it was no cause for concern and could be dropped.... ]

... and there is no goal, so all goal-oriented things are dangerous. The goal is here.

Whatsoever you are, you have to relax into it and celebrate it. Once you have a goal in the future and you start struggling for it, you are going into trouble. You are creating a sort of neurosis and a great tension. Then wherever you will be, you will be discontent. You will always be striving and reaching for something which does not exist. You exist - all ideas are fantasies. Never sacrifice yourself for any fantasy.

The real growth is not against you - the real growth is through you. The real growth is not even a struggle and effort, because it is not against you, so there is no fight. The real growth is effortless:

one simply enjoys oneself, celebrates one's being, and growth happens as a consequence, on its own accord.

But it is good that you did these things, because when people come directly to me it is sometimes very difficult for them to understand me. When they have been to many groups, teachers, therapies, occult schools, then their understanding of me is more direct because their whole experience helps.

So here I would like you to do a few groups... groups which are going to help you become more warm, more relaxed, which can help you to enjoy things as they are and which don't enforce any goal in the future. And start meditating....

But remember that my meditations are not just techniques - love them. Joy is more basic, so when doing them, don't carry a seriousness in your mind. Nothing is serious. Take more fun in things.

When doing meditations here, don't carry the idea that you are doing very great religious work. No.

You are enjoying them like a dance, like a song. Make it more fun. Then you will relax more deeply and much more will become possible.

With aricans, that's a problem. Many aricans are here, and by and by they understand what they have been doing - pulling themselves up by their shoe-strings - unnecessarily - because there is nowhere to go.

All that can happen has already happened. Nothing is expected from you, but only one thing - that you just look around. Life is beautiful, god is hidden everywhere and in millions of ways... the celebration is already happening. The invitation has been given to you - simply participate.

There is no need to prepare. From this very moment one can participate. So don't carry seriousness.

Nothing is wrong with man basically. It is just that one has to put one's seriousness aside and be a child again.

[The sannyasin said: One of the therapies I did put emphasis on not being reincarnated again...

I'm trying not to hurt anybody, and even if I'm angry, just seeing that I'm angry but not putting it on somebody else.]

Mm... these are very dangerous notions, and once you are caught in them, ,they can crush your whole being. These are very fallacious attitudes. There is no need to think about the future or future lives - this moment is enough. And there is no need to be worried about past karmas, because nothing is there in really. It is just a memory, nothing else.

All the past has been nothing but a dream, because you have been asleep. It is as if somebody has been asleep and in the night he dreams that he murdered somebody. In the morning he awakes and is very guilty. Now he starts thinking, 'What to do? How to cancel this karma? I have killed somebody!' But in a dream, whether you kill somebody or not, whether you help somebody or destroy somebody, makes no difference.

All the past you have lived, you have lived in a sleep. You have not been aware, so all that has happened has just been a dream. Now there is no need to be worried about it. That worry is dangerous because it continues to help the dream as if it is real. It goes on giving reality to the dream. Just see that you are the witness.

A man is not a doer. And karma means action, doing. Man is not a doer; everything happens. Your basic nature is just of a witness, of an observer, so there is no need to cancel anything; it is already cancelled. You are not carrying any past burden - it is just in the memory. If you want to carry it, you can, otherwise it is nowhere. The past exists not, and the future also does not exist. So there is no need to fight against the past; it is not there. You are fighting with shadows, and in fighting with those shadows you are destroying something very substantial, something very real, that is real right now.

This moment is the only reality - and the religious person is one who understands this.

The past is already cancelled and the future is not yet born. So enjoy this moment and allow your being to be true to yourself, because that is going to become the foundation. All future that is going to happen will happen through this moment which is passing by, slipping by. If you live it truly, then your future is bound to be beautiful because it will be based on this moment. So there is no need to be worried about it.

If you have lived this moment truly, authentically, lovingly, prayerfully, out of this prayerful moment the next will be born. It will have more intensity of love in it, more intensity of prayer. It will be more alive. Out of that moment another moment will be born. But you need not think about them; there is no need. Why waste this moment?

And be true.... Sometimes if you feel like being angry, be angry - nothing is wrong in it. The problem is that if you are not angry you will not be loving. All emotions are so together that if you repress anger you will repress love also. If you repress anger you repress compassion also. If you release compassion, suddenly you will become afraid that anger is also being released. You have to just sit upon the whole pile of your emotions - and that is very uncomfortable.

Release all that. When you are here with me, just be true. Then by and by I will give you certain methods in how to be aware and yet not repressing, because if awareness becomes a repression, the whole point is lost; then the medicine is already poisoned. Awareness is really good, but it should not be in any way repressive. First allow, first be expressive. Nothing is wrong.

Be human; don't try to become superhuman. Just be human and accept the limitations of a human being. Sometimes, yes, there is anger; sometimes there is jealousy, sometimes there is hatred.

Accept. Man has these limitations. Don't enhance your ego and say that you don't have all these things. They are there and they are good. They make man humble.

So here just be relaxed, expressive, and live the moment. By and by I will tell you how to take hold of awareness in such a way that it is never repressive. Then it makes you happy and aware. It makes you blissful and aware. Otherwise you can become aware and can become very unhappy.

[A visitor says: I've been practising yoga for about two years... and reading and reading and reading.]

Yoga is good, but meditation is still needed. So rather than putting your energy into reading, put your energy into meditation.

Reading is good after meditation, very good, but before it, it can be dangerous. If you read too much you can become addicted to books and they destroy you, because then information goes on being piled up and it becomes a heavy burden. Then it creates confusion, because you can read the bible and the koran and the gita, and they are different languages, such different attitudes, so opposite to each other, diametrically opposite to each other. Your mind simply starts falling into parts. You don't know what is true and what is right and what to do. Then a person becomes just a head, and goes on spinning. That is not going to help much; it can be very destructive.

Books are good when you have been meditating. Then you can see the point. If you read the gita you will be able to see that it is only a difference of language; it is the same thing as the bible. Then you read buddha and you see it is exactly the same thing as the gita. You can go on reading a

thousand and one books but you always fall upon your own experience. You have something like a touchstone, a criterion; you can fall upon it and you can judge through it. Then things are never going apart, they start falling into a harmony - but that is possible only when you have your own experience.

Reading is not going to give you that experience, but if you have the experience, reading can give you much confirmation that you are on the right track, that you are not groping in darkness. Scriptures can become witnesses to you - that many have passed and many have come to know, and you are not alone. It can give you great courage and confidence. Otherwise it will give you conflict.

So reduce reading a little and put the same energy towards meditation... and meditation is totally different.

Reading means thinking and meditation means no-thinking. It is a totally different dimension of consciousness - where thoughts have to be dropped and one has to attain to a pure, silent space - the zero space, where no object is. One is simply conscious but not conscious of anything... pure subjectivity - as if a lamp is burning in total emptiness. Light is there but nothing is lighted by it. It is not falling on anything... there is nothing. In that state of consciousness you will start experiencing something. And only experience is going to give you truth - not logic, not argument, not reading.

Reading can give you philosophy, but meditation can give you truth.

[A visitor said he was in some doubt as to the value of growth groups as one had to use verbal communication for things of the heart, which he felt could only be expressed heart-to-heart.]

I understand what you mean, but to reach to that communication of the heart you will have to pass through the mind; there is no other way.

The contemporary man is hanging around in the head. Even if you want to go to the heart, you will have to pass through the head; there is no other way. And you cannot simply say that you will communicate from the heart - you will remain in the head. Even to say this, you will need the head.

It is perfectly true.... What you are trying to convey to me is that a heart-to-heart communication is needed, but to reach the heart you have to pass through this jungle of the mind; otherwise you will never reach to the heart. And whatsoever you say about the heart will be just a mind thing. Even the word 'heart' is in the mind. What we go on talking about as feeling, is nothing but our thinking.

Even when we say, 'I love this man,' in fact it would be right to say, 'I think that I love this man.'

The heart has been lost. For centuries, man has been away from it. So it is going to be an arduous effort to reach the heart - and these groups help. Just do them here. You have done something in the west, that's one thing. Just do them here so I can see what happens - and do them hard. Don't go with this notion of what can happen with mind communication. Much is going to happen.

The way you have come here from the place where you are staying is the same road you will pass along when you go back. Just your direction will be different, but the road will be the same. If you say that this is not the right road because this road leads away from my road.... But the same road will lead towards your home, just the direction will be different.

Thinking has led one away from the heart. Now there are ways of thinking so that you can reverse the process and go back to the heart, but you will have to pass through thinking; there is no other way. Thinking cannot simply be avoided.

We have to accept the fact of our contemporary minds. We have to accept the fact that we are in the twentieth century. We have to accept the fact that our heads are cultivated too much.. It is already the case, so there is no point in just crying and weeping and complaining. It is the case that our minds are cultivated too much and our hearts are almost neglected.

So even when we talk about the heart, it is just in the mind. Even when you say that your heart is here, that too is just an idea in the mind. So do a group, and do it as intensely as possible - and much will happen. Just be open to me.

[The leader of the hypnotherapy group said: I'm always thinking that I should be doing something more for my personal growth. I'm not too sure about the balance between my pushing or letting it happen.]

Don't push it, because that way it will not happen to you. There are people for whom it always happens when they push, but for you it will not happen that way.

Let it happen. When I say, 'Let it happen,' I don't mean don't do anything. I simply mean don't push.

Enjoy doing things, but in a very relaxed mood. Hurry slowly. Don't be too impatient, because that impatience will be your barrier. That's why I have called you 'santosh'; it means patience, it means contented. Wherever you are, you have to remain contented. In that let-go, many things can happen to you. There is no need to run.

So just relax here. Whenever you have time, do something, but do it in a very very joyful mood and without any expectations. If something happens, good. If nothing happens, that too is good. One should not demand that things should happen. That 'should' creates tension in the mind, creates misery, a rift and a split. So enjoy small things more... taking your breakfast, drinking your tea, walking... just sitting doing nothing. Make them points of deep gratification, great joy. That is your meditation.

You can do any other meditation you want, you choose, but the mood should be playful. It should not be serious, that's all. And things are going perfectly well. I am continuously watching you, so you need not worry.

[A sannyasin says: I don't have any great experiences, visions or memories of past lives.... ]

There is no need. There is no need for great experiences. On4 fools have great experiences - and all great experiences are somehow ego-oriented. The very idea of greatness is an ego projection.

The real experiences are just ordinary experiences, very ordinary. One tends to ignore them - and they are the real experiences... just taking a shower and you feel peaceful... working in the garden and suddenly the clouds disperse and the sun has come and one feels good. Just sitting doing nothing... and one is in this moment here-now. One is in heaven, and paradise has happened. But these are not great experiences and you cannot talk about them. If you do, people will say, 'What are you talking about? There is nothing to talk about.' But these are real experiences.

Real spiritual experiences are these - very ordinary. When peo-ple are talking about extraordinary experiences, then it is some ego-projection. So be aware of that. Be ordinary and you will never be unhappy. These great experiences and people who have great experiences, sooner or later fall into the ditch. They have great miseries also. People like [you] walk on the balanced ground. They never have peaks - they don't have valleys.

So, very good. Just enjoy your silent experience.

[A sannyasin said: I had some experiences with kundalini where the energy felt so strong that it seemed that I almost strained my heart and I became frightened after that and stopped.

Osho checked his energy.]

Very good. It is going very well but you are still holding it a little. It is natural and you are not consciously holding it; it is an unconscious hold. It will re!ax by and by, but things are going very well - don't get frightened.

... It is powerful but it is not going to tear you apart. In fact it will weld you into a whole. You are already apart, so it cannot tear you apart.

Through it, you will become crystallised and one, but it is of tremendous power, so one gets afraid.

But just allow it. Very good.

[The primal therapy group was present tonight. Osho has said about it:]

Primal therapy simply means taking people back to their childhood. They will have to relive it in imagination, and whatsoever has remained incomplete will have to be completed in imagination.

Then these problems will simply disappear. It is sometimes very hard to go back again to those old wounds and to let them overpower you again, to again suffer those things that you had been thinking had completely disappeared, but the wounds are there and they have to be healed. The primal therapy group will take you on an inner journey.

[The groupleader said: It's difficult.]

Mm mm, it is difficult... the process is difficult. And helping people is not an easy thing, cannot be, because they are like rocks. Much work has to be done - only then they melt They have a thousand and one fears and so many defences, but all those defences can be broken and all those fears can be dropped. Hard work is needed.

Primal is an arduous group because it leads you deeply into the past. There are problems with the birth. There are problems with the childhood, with the father and mother, the parents. The whole problem is somewhere near the age of three or four. Ordinarily, a person has learned all his problems by the time he is four. Then he goes on repeating the same nonsense again and again on different planes, in different situations, but the secret he has learned is the same.

He may be eighty, but he will repeat the same tricks that he learned by the time he was four. So to break that barrier is going to be hard. You are unconditioning the person; you are bringing him back

to his childhood, to the rejected, denied part of his being. He will be afraid and will try to escape again and again.

So hard work is needed, and it can only be done when you have much compassion and love for people. The more you love, the less hard it will appear to you. The less you love, the harder it will appear to you.

If you love totally, there is no problem - so love more, mm? Good.

[A group member said that though he felt he was beginning to move, fear made him tend to dose up again and he didn't know what to do about this.

Osho said there was nothing to do but be aware of it. Only consciousness can help one break old habits and when one was watching, one could not remain closed.

Another sannyasin said he felt stuck, as if he was scared to go any further because all those things that gave him security and held him together would be threatened. He said there was one moment when he felt he might have broken through, but he let the moment slip by.

Osho reassured him that this always happens the first time, and that next time he should be more courageous, otherwise he would remain stuck and his life-energy would become stagnant. He said there was nothing to fear because that which could be lost, would be; there was nothing one could do about it. And that which could not be lost, would never be, because whatsoever belongs to you belongs to you forever.]

[A group member said that the memory of his mother hitting him when he was small caused him to close up.

Osho tells the group leader to enact the situation in the group the next day... ]

And you just become a child. Lie down and let her hit you - and don't reply to her, because a child cannot reply. If you start replying you will miss the point. You are not to hit her. A child cannot do anything - he is just helpless - so be helpless. And just tell her exactly how your mother was hitting you, so that she will do the same. It is just to enact the whole thing again, so you can relive the moment.

It is not a question of hitting your mother, because a child of two cannot hit. You can hit, but you don't have the problem. The problem is with the child of two years, and a child cannot hit the mother.

So the only thing that is going to help you is to move through that state consciously, that's all.

Consciousness is an eraser. Just let the whole scene be enacted so that you can again become the child and you can consciously see your helplessness, your fear, the danger to your life, your insecurity, your mother behaving like an enemy and you not being able to do anything. Just see it.

Cry if you want, weep, scream, but don't hit her back. The whole point is that you pass though it very consciously, alert. Once you relive it with full consciousness, it is erased. Nothing else is to be done.

And you are going so well, that's why you have come to this point. Otherwise it is difficult to get beyond the age of four. Three is difficult, two is very difficult. And once this barrier is crossed, you may be able to pass even to the moment when you were born, and there will be such a release. You will come out totally new.