Darshan 4 August 1976

[Osho suggested that a visitor do the camp, because one cannot observe what meditation was from the outside; one needs to participate. He added that participation does not mean following or becoming a follower, but simply seeing for yourself what it is about. Osho recommended that simon do the encounter group, saying... ]

... at your age a man needs to know many things about his own being, then he makes less errors in his life. Otherwise, everybody repeats the same errors, and by the time one becomes aware that these are erroneous things, so much is lost - so much energy is wasted, so much time has slipped away - that even when you know that something is wrong, there is no point in doing anything. It is too late. Those things can be understood at a very early stage of life. When your energy moves on better paths, with more awareness, and you experience life more intensely, you understand many things which many people never understand. They are born and they die, but the understanding never happens to them.

A life lived without understanding is a life wasted.

So first do the camp. And before the camp you can also start participating in the morning and evening meditations, just to get the feeling. And don't be afraid of sannyas. I am not going to make you a sannyasin, so don't be defensive. Even if you ask, I am not going to make you a sannyasin, so just drop that fear. Otherwise that fear will not allow you to be here. Physically you may be, spiritually you cannot be. And it always happens that if your. parents are on a certain trip, you become afraid.

It is very difficult to agree with one's own parents, very difficult.

So just drop that fear. Even if you ask, you will have to ask thrice, then I will give you sannyas, not before (laughter). Just enjoy being here and participate, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin says: I killed the cat today. But I went through a lot of changes seemg how my love, even with an animal, goes through both extremes - either really pouring love into it, or being extremely hurtful, and anger arising when love doesn't return.]

Mm mm... nothing to be worried about. You have also killed the cat inside you with it. There is nothing to worry about - that cat will be reborn - but you have killed something cat-like within you too, and that's good. That's why you have become so shaken: you have killed the animal within you.

That cat was simply symbolic; you projected it on her.

But it is good to cry and weep and feel sad inside - good, but don't be worried. Something in you which was boiling to a point, has evaporated. Something within you has died and you will never be the same again. If you can watch it, it will never arise again. So bury your violence, anger, rage, with the cat; mourn for it.

Every woman carries a cat inside, and one day or another that cat has to be killed. And unless that cat is killed, a woman remains a witch. These are just symbols. In mythology they have become stories, myths, parables, but they are really beautiful symbols. A woman is cunning like a cat, intuitive like a cat, slippery like a cat, illogical like a cat. All these things you can drop, and this moment can become a great opportunity, so just don't miss it.

For three days be in deep mourning... really sad. Somebody very very deeply related to you has died. A part of you, a member of your being has died, an aspect of your being has died. But use this opportunity, otherwise you can re-grow that part again, that's the trouble.

Many times it happens that a certain part dies, but if you are not alert you can grow it again. It is just as when a branch has been pruned and another branch arises and replaces it, maybe even stronger than the first. So for these three days just meditate and feel sorry, sad - but something of tremendous import has happened.

Just close your eyes and go into as deep sadness as you can, and if something happens in the body, allow it... be possessed by sadness. Let it penetrate, as deeply as possible... a dark night of the soul.

[Osho had given a sannyasin, who habitually said 'no' to everything, a meditation to say 'yes' to everything for seven days. Tonight she reports back: Once I stopped saying no and started saying yes, and I felt all my confidence going and I felt really shaken, really at a loss.]

Mm, that's bound to happen, because no has become your personality. That has become your definition. That's how you know who you are - a no-sayer. That has become the very centre of your ego - and no becomes very easily the centre of the ego. In fact, yes cannot become the centre of the ego.

That's why so many people are no-sayers. Even if they don't say it outward4, deep inside they say no. Sometimes they even say yes on the outside, but that yes is diplomatic, utilitarian, because they know that no-saying will be too troublesome. But if they were allowed all freedom and all facility, they would have said no. Because of the force and the pressure of circumstances they say yes, but that yes-saying is valueless unless you say it from your heart.

No-saying is a vitamin for the ego. So whenever you say no you feel good, because then you feel that you are somebody - you can say no. When you say yes, you feel shaken; then you are not. But by this no-saying, whatever you are gaining is just a tension. It is not really being.

That is the meaning of the ego. The ego gives you a feeling of being, and it is not; it is only apparently so. It is a substitute being, a false being, a pseudo being. It gives you a feeling that you are somebody, without really giving you any hold, any roots in the being. It simply deceives you.

It robs you of your real being and gives you false notions.

[She says: I want to make the yes come from the heart. I mean, it's difficult - it rarely comes from the heart.]

Just go on trying, because there is nothing else. This no-saying is not coming from the heart. It can come from somewhere else, but it can never come from the heart, because the heart is always a yea-sayer, and the heart has no ego.

No always comes from the mind so it is just a habit - and a habit can be broken. To break it you have to create the opposite habit, that's all. So that's why I told you to say yes. Even if you realise after half an hour, that too is good. At least you realised. By and by, you will realise twenty minutes, ten minutes, one minute afterwards. Immediately you say no, you will realise. And then a moment comes, that before you have said no, you realise. But it comes slow4, so there is no hurry.

[She asks: Do I have to say yes to everything?]

In the beginning, yes, because if I give you any opportunity to say no, you will continue to say no.

Once you have started saying yes to everything, then I will say that now you can decide. Then you will be free to say no or yes. Right now, say yes to everything. What can you lose by saying yes?

Yes, somebody can take your money - so let him. Somebody can deceive you a little - so what basically is lost? But you will be gaining so much out of your yes-saying.

It is not for your whole life that you have to say yes to everybody and everything. This is just a temporary measure to help you break the old habit. So if you really want to come to a point where you are free to say yes or no, you have to break this habit of no-saying. You are not really free. You are obsessed with the no; you are not free to say no. Only a person who is capable of saying yes is free to say no, otherwise no is obsessive. It is a bondage. It is not your freedom.

[She then says: I've always believed that old habits can't be changed.... Because I tried it before and nothing changed.]

If habits can be cultivated, then why cannot they be changed?

... You have not tried. You never wanted to change them. If you want to change them, in fact no effort is needed. Effort is needed because deep down you don't want to change them. If you want to change them, this very moment they drop. I can take them away. This very moment you can offer them to me and be finished with them. Then there is no need to say yes to everything. I can make you free from tomorrow morning to say yes or no, whatsoever is right.

Habits can be changed because habits are just cultivated things. They are not your nature. You are not born with them - you learn them. Whatsoever can be learned, can be unlearned. It is simple arithmetic. You learn a thing and by and by you slowly practise it. You condition yourself for a certain thing....

You start smoking. In the beginning it is not very pleasant. One feels suffocated, nauseous; one starts coughing and breathing feels difficult. But by and by you go on practising. The body has to adjust - it adjusts - and then that which was uncomfortable in the beginning becomes one of the most comfortable things. So whenever you are in tension you smoke, and it gives you a certain kind of solace and comfort. It may not give, but at least it helps you to release your tension and stress momentarily. Then you find it difficult to drop. You have to go backwards the same way, slowly; uncondition it.

Every habit can be dropped. There is no habit which cannot be dropped. If there is some habit which cannot be dropped, then it is not a habit at all. It must be deeper than a habit: it must be your nature. And this no-saying is not natural because every child is born as a yea-sayer. No-saying is learnt from the society. Try it, mm? - and enjoy it.

See what happens. You will be shaken, but that is the whole thing to be done. You have to be shaken... you have to be completely destroyed. And when you have become capable of saying 'yes', then I will allow you to say yes or no. Then you are free. So do it faster if you want to be free of it! (laughter)

[A sannyasin said he did the Encounter group and a great deal of anger came up. He found it hard to accept that it was inside him: I accept its being there but I don't feel it's part of me.]

Exactly right - that's how it is it is inside but it is not part of your nature. It has come inside from the outside. It does not belong to you. You have possessed it, it has possessed you, but it can be dispossessed; you can drop it. It is something that has entered because you were unaware.

The master of the house is fast asleep, and robbers and thieves come and enter the house and take whatsoever they want, or people even start residing in the master's house because he is asleep.

When he awakes it is very difficult to throw them out. They have lived there for so long. A few of them even start thinking that they are the masters. A few of them will give you a great struggle; they will not leave easily. And they not only believe - they feel that they are the masters, because they have been masters for so long.

Anger has been your master for so long. You have never tried to claim your mastery over it.

Whenever it was there, it was the master and you were the slave. You have functioned as a slave for so many lifetimes that when suddenly one day you say, 'I am the master,' anger laughs. He says, 'Have you gone crazy? I will put you in your place! Let somebody come across and insult you - then we will see who is the master. Let somebody come and hurt you, and then we will see who the master is.' And it is not going to leave its throne easily; nobody does. It has been so dominant and so dictatorial.

But your understanding is correct - that it is a foreigner, it is something from the outside. It has corrupted you, but it is not part of you. It has lived long enough in you, so it almost seems that it is

inside, but it is not. And both things have to be remembered: that it is inside and has been there for long, and yet it is not really inside, because at the deepest core only you are there - no anger, no greed, no lust; nothing of the sort... only pure consciousness.

But good. You have understood something very meaningful. Good.

[A sannyasin says: I feel that I've been running and hiding from you... I feel afraid and ashamed actually to be saying that with you around. It seems silly - what I'm saying.]

It is not silly - it is natural. But what exactly is the problem? Can you pinpoint it?

... Mm, but good that you feel ashamed, because that means that you really want to face it. Because if you don't want to, there is nobody who is making any effort to force it on you. I'm not here to make you feel in any way guilty or ashamed. If you don't want to do a certain thing, if you don't want to face up to a certain situation, it is for you to decide. If you decide not to face it, there is no need; but deep down you want to, because you know that without facing it you will never grow.

So you feel ashamed. It is not really hiding from me - you are hiding from yourself. And that's what actually happens: when a person starts hiding from me he is trying to hide from himself, because what else is the point? I never condemn anybody. I never judge anybody. I am not a christian at all (laughter) and in my cosmology there is no hell, no heaven. Whether you sin or you don't sin, you go to heaven! In my cosmology, heaven is the only place one goes. There is no other way; one cannot escape from it. So that's not the problem. Nobody need to be afraid of me in any way.

But the problem arises because you start feeling guilty - because you know what is right, and that knowing creates guilt. It is not some commandment enforced from the outside. It is some insight within you - that you know that this is the right thing to do, and you don't do it. Then you start feeling guilty that you have not been able to follow your own awareness.

This guilt is beautiful. If somebody else makes you feel guilty, that's very poisonous. Then that person is very destructive. That person is trying to dominate you, to cripple you, to paralyse you.

That person is trying to enforce his own ideas on you - and that's not good.

But if your own awareness gives you the idea that you knew what was right to do and still you have not been doing it.... And there is no other outside authority to decide what is right and what is wrong; only you are left alone to decide. That's my whole effort here - to leave you alone to decide. Then real guilt arises and you cannot escape from it. How can you hide from it? Wherever you go, you will know.

But good, you have understood it. Now it is up to you whether to continue hiding or to face it.

Facing, one grows. Hiding, one avoids opportunities to grow. So never lose an opportunity, because an opportunity lost is lost forever. That same opportunity will not come across you again because the time that is gone cannot be recalled. The moment the situation is gone, it is gone forever... it is gone utterly. You missed it. So don't miss it in future.

Whenever an opportunity arises that gives you a challenge to face be courageous and face it. By facing it, you will transcend it. By fighting with it, by giving a good fight to the situation, you will attain

to a sharpness of consciousness, to a certain aliveness in you. You will really feel very alive when you overcome the situation. Otherwise one becomes dull. By and by one becomes almost dead.

Good.

[Osho gives someone a 'come close' darshan.]

Everything is going well.

You have said it - and to say it through energy is a better way to say it. If you can be possessed by my energy and you can let go and can sway, you can convey more deeply that which cannot be conveyed by any verbal communication, because verbal communication is very superficial communication. All that is significant can only be conveyed through energy communication.

Two lovers hold each other's hands and something is communicated. Or two lovers kiss each other, and something is communicated, or they embrace and something is communicated. When you allow yourself to be possessed by my energy, something in the deepest core of your being starts conveying, because those movements are not coming from your mind. It is a code. Those movements are coming from the very source of your being.

Whenever you feel that you have something to say and you cannot find how to say it, say it through energy. You can dance, you can sing, you can just sit and allow things to happen. And all of my sannyasins by and by have to learn how to communicate through non-verbal energy, because by and by you will start feeling that it is more difficult to say anything, and you still want to say something.

You have something to convey, but you don't know how to put it into words, how to tackle it through language; you cannot figure it out. So you want to say something and you don't find the right words to say it. Language is not adequate. It is a good indication that something deeper than the mind is happening.

That which can be said simply shows that it is happening only in the mind; you have still not crossed the boundary of the mind, still the heart has not been touched. When the heart is touched, one feels almost incapable of saying anything. And there are even deeper layers than the heart.

When the being is penetrated, one is simply at a loss. There is no way. One is simply dumb. That's what's happening to you. Good... be happy about it. Be happily dumb (a chuckle). Good.