Darshan 8 August 1976

This will be your name, so completely forget the old one as if it never belonged to you, not even a relationship with it. Just completely break away from it, slip out of it just as a snake slip out of the old skin. And don't look back.

It is simple, but it does miracles. The moment you can drop the old name and the old identity you simply feel unburdened, because it carries the whole past. It is not just a name; it is the very nucleus of your whole past around which your whole life has been revolving. All the anxieties, the problems, the difficulties, the hangups - they are all there in the name. So just drop it.

It is difficult to change the old personally - it is very simple to drop it. Difficult to change because whatsoever you do, it persists. You can change it a little bit here and there but the major part of it always remains old. And that is too powerful. You can paint it, decorate it, modify it, but basically it remains the same - and it persists. And with it persist all its problems. Changing of the name, changing of the dress is just a symbol, to come clean out of the past... as if [you are] dead, gone forever and she cannot be retrieved.

Deva means divine and shruti means remembrance. It is one of the most significant words in hindu mysticism. Shruti means continuously remembering that one is divine, that everything is divine... a constant mindfulness that all is divine, whatsoever it is. Even the devil is divine. Nothing is wrong, can be wrong. If something appears wrong, it must be because of our attitude. If something appears wrong, then certainly it is because of our misunderstanding and misinterpretation. So sometimes you may not be able to understand, but still deep down go on remembering, 'That too is divine.'

Somebody insults you; that too is divine.

That will make you so protected that nothing will be able to distract you, disturb you. If once you start growing this atmosphere around you - that everything is divine - then suddenly you start living a new life. Just start this very moment - there is no need to postpone anything.

Just from this very moment start feeling that everything is divine. Many times you will forget - in the beginning, that's natural. Whenever you remember again, catch hold of it, bring it back, relax into it. Look at stars, at people, at animals, and just deep down have the feeling continuously bubbling inside you, that everything is divine.

That's the way towards god, because whatsoever we remember, we become, and whatsoever we sow, we reap. So sow this remembrance. These seeds will by and by start sprouting.

[The new sannyasin says she is a teacher.

Mm, very good. Very good to remember that everything is divine. (laughter) It will be difficult - children are almost devils, mm?

... Remember that they are also divine. They are the most divine people in the world but very devilish.

[She says she has done two intensive groups but wants more.]

Good, mm.... The inner exploration is such that one can never have enough. The more you have, the more you will have the feeling that you don't have anything the more you have it, the more your thirst grows. It is a non-ending journey - and it is good that it is non-ending. It is good that you cannot have enough of god, otherwise you will be finished with it. You cannot have enough of bliss and enough of peace and enough of serenity, because if you have enough of it you will be bored with it. So it is always so - that the more you get, the more you start feeling thirsty. And it is good.

God is a non-ending journey. You are always coming but never arriving.

So remember it: the very idea to have enough is of the mind. The mind is always greedy. It is always thinking in terms of having more than is needed - then one feels secure. But of god you cannot have more than is needed. It will always be less than you need, so the need continues and you are never bored, you are never finished with it. One starts the journey but one never ends it.

The mind becomes greedy - and there is nothing wrong in it; in the beginning it is natural. When you feel that something is very satisfying, you want more of it. But just think, if you really have more of it, what will you do? You will be finished with it.

I am going to give you more... but much more thirst also!

Deva means divine and kalayani means a blessing, a divine blessing. And that's how one should think about life. It is a gift of infinite value, and one should not waste it. It is a great opportunity to grow, to be, and one should not just go on drifting. Because we have got it without paying anything for it, that's why we think it is valueless. One goes on living as if it is of not much significance.

We pay attention, more attention, to the very trivial things - a big house, money, prestige, respectability - but we never think about life and its intrinsic value. Everything else is just trivial in comparison to life. So the greatest blessing has already happened. By being alive one has already been accepted by god, has already been presented with a great gift. By being alive you have already been loved by the whole. That's why you are; otherwise you would not be. The whole

wills you to be, the whole celebrates your being, the whole is happy that you are. So never put anything above life - everything else is just below it. Life is the ultimate value.

Everything can be sacrificed for life, and life cannot be sacrificed for anything whatsoever. People have been taught to sacrifice life for worthless things. For money, sacrifice your life. For respect, sacrifice your life. For honour, sacrifice your life. For politics, for christianity, for hinduism, for so- called religions, sacrifice your life. People have been taught to sacrifice life at the drop of a penny.

Whatsoever happens, simply sacrifice your life.

And life is the ultimate value. Everything can be sacrificed to life. Life cannot be sacrificed to anything - because life is god.

So I give you this name - deva kalayani - to continuously remember that you are blessed, that the benediction has already happened, that you are not to search for it... that it is there and you have to celebrate it. participate in it... that you have to allow it.

[A sannyasin said that he feels a struggle making decisions... if he looks at it, it disappears.]

No, but in practical life that won't be of much help. For example, you have to go tonight and the conflict arises of whether to go or not. What will you do? If you simply see it and it disappears, what will you do?

[The sannyasin replies: I experience it on two layers. There's a lower layer which is happening anyway, and on the upper layer is the decision to go or not to go. But I get tempted into the drama and I create the drama until I drop out of it.]

Then in fact it is not a problem. You are enjoying it, so you can enjoy it. The problem arises only when you are really split. This is not a problem at all. The problem arises only when you are really split.

In fact, deep down if you know that the decision is there, then these waves of no and yes are only on the surface. They are meaningless. You can enjoy them because deep down there is no problem.

The problem arises only when one is split all the way through and on one side there is yes, on another side, no. One cannot find a substratum in oneself where one can stand on firm ground.

Then the problem arises and something has to be done. If you want to enjoy this, enjoy. Play the game of yes and no, and when it is finished and you are bored by it, drop it.

It is not a problem, that's why it disappears just by watching.. Real problems never disappear by watching. Only unreal problems disappear by watching, but ninety-nine percent of problems are unreal, so watching helps tremendously. But the one percent of real problems will never disappear by watching. In fact, by watching, it will become more and more crystal-clear, more and more transparent; you will be able to see through and through. If the problem is real, watching helps you to clarify the situation, the confusion. The cobwebs disappear but the real problem remains. And if the problem is unreal, then the whole problem disappears, root and all.

[The sannyasin answers: I know that deeper layer and I always want to be there instead of enjoying the more superficial layer.]

No, by and by you will come to be more and more in it, but don't be too greedy. And a little enjoyment on the surface is not bad. One can swim and splash water on the surface a little bit and then one can dive deep. And it is always there, so what is the hurry? So don't make it an anxiety, and don't think that you have to always be there. That very idea of always being there will create a sort of tension inside you. When the game is finished, you can always go.

And my feeling is that whenever you want to go in the middle of the game, then it comes in between you and your deeper layer. You are not really finished with the game, you are still taking interest in it, and then the greed arises; why bother? Go down. Then it comes in between. Be finished with it!

You can make a meditation out of it, and that will be very very significant. If any problem arises and you are in a yes/no, just give it fifteen minutes, and enjoy those fifteen minutes. Pro and con, for and against; bring all the logic that you can bring - and from both sides, because you are not in any way prejudiced against anything. You can play the game from this side and that side; you can fight and argue from both sides. It will be a good sharpening experience to your intelligence. You will be benefited by it.

In fact, psychologists say that a person who is always thinking of pro and con, for and against, becomes very logical, very acutely logical. A person who daydreams too much becomes capable of solving many problems which others are not capable of solving, because a person who daydreams too much, rehearses too much. Daydreaming is a sort of rehearsal. You have not done the thing really but you are rehearsing inside the mind. Such a person be-comes more imaginative, more creative.

For example, you want to rearrange the furniture in the room. A practical person will have to rearrange it and then look and see, then rearrange again and look and see. It will take too much time. A daydreamer will simply sit in the chair and daydream that he has arranged the furniture this way. It takes no time in dream. Then he arranges it the other way; it takes no time. Then the third way and the fourth way, and then he comes to a conclusion. The practical man will take too long.

The dreamer will solve it very easily. So dreaming can become a very creative activity.

And in the same way, a person who is always arguing for and against will become very logically acute, can become almost a scientific thinker. You can use your faculty, and you are always confident that deep down you know that there is a layer where there is no conflict, so whenever it gets too much you can simply get out of it. It is your game, so play it knowingly and consciously - that's what rm trying to bring you to. Play it consciously. Don't make it a problem; it is a beautiful exercise.

If there were no solid ground underneath, I would not say this to you, because then it can be dangerous. The playing can be very very dangerous and harmful. That playing can become your very life, and then you cannot get out of it because there is no other space to get out of it. You are obsessed, and that yes and no will go far away and then that will become a split between you and you. You will be divided into two persons. A sort of schizophrenia will come out of it - but that is not the trouble with you.

Enjoy it and give it time, and whenever you have time just close your eyes and enjoy it. It will give you much new light, seeing things through so many viewpoints. There are many people unnecessarily poor because they cannot view life from so many viewpoints. They remain focussed, as if they

are standing at one window of their house and they cannot move, and they don't know that there are other windows and other views also available. You remain focussed on one window, very poor.

There are so many windows and you can see to the north and to the west and to the east, and sometimes it is sunrise and sometimes it is sunset, and sometimes the moon is there but at some other window.

One should be capable of moving and one should not get obsessed too much with one viewpoint.

That gives a sort of freedom. And I allow you the game because I don't see that there is a real problem. It is a sort of luxury, a deeply-paying entertainment. But do it consciously and then you will not be burdened by it. You know that you are playing it. It is not that yes and no have overpowered you. It is your game of chess.

[A visitor says: I've been travelling around.]

Good. Be really here, because for travellers it is very difficult to be anywhere. They are always travelling - if not physically then mentally. They are always going somewhere else.

[She tells Osho: I like the encounter groups, the ones where you're dealing with people, relationships and the present energy, and just sort of meeting people.]

So do two groups here - one that you will enjoy and one that I suggest. You may not enjoy it because sometimes a thing that you enjoy is not necessarily the thing for you, may not be of any benefit. It may be a sort of entertainment, you may feel good doing it, but it may not change you.

And sometimes something that you don't enjoy may be able to change you.

In fact, people never enjoy the thing that is going to change their minds because the mind feels afraid, sort of apprehensive. The very possibility of change gives you fear. One feels scared because of the unfamiliar space that you will be led into. Who knows what type of space this is going to be?

People are even happy in their misery which is familiar to them. They cling even to misery if it is familiar. They don't like to choose and change for something new. Maybe it is very beautiful, but who knows? With the familiar there is security.

[She said that she was an anlytical psychotherapist, but recently had changed to encounter groups.]

Encounter is moving into a totally different dimension, but your experience as an analytical psychoanalyst will be very very helpful. It is a very different dimension, but your experience in analysis can give a new depth to your encounter work.

Analytical psychology in itself is sort of dead. It is non-relational, impersonal, more intellectual - less grounded in the body, more conceptual. It does not take account of the whole person as a whole person. Analysis can never take account of the whole person. The very attitude of analysis is against the whole. Only synthetic attitudes can take account of the whole. So analysis itself is out of date - it has no future really, but encounter alone is very superficial.

It is more alive, but it doesn't have depth. So if an analyst becomes interested in new therapies like encounter and gestalt and bio-energetics, then something beautiful can happen, because this will

be a cross between analysis and the wholistic movements. You can bring much richness to it, and by it you can make your own intellectual concepts more alive.

It will be difficult, but if you can attain to a sort of synthesis between the two, it will be a very enriching experience for you and your patients and the people you help. It is always good to bring contradictory systems together. Something beautiful is always born. That's what cross-breeding is.

And it is true in concepts, philosophies, systems, as it is true in animals, human beings. When two people from two different countries come and meet and give birth to a child, that child is something new, more alive, because those two parents are so different and their meeting has a great tension and challenge in it. That's why no society has ever allowed you to marry your own sister or your own brother, because you are so alike. The children will be almost dead; they will not have tone. So cross-breeding helps, and it helps in intellectual systems also. Whenever something original arises, it is always out of a crossing.

Freud himself was trained as a medical man. Hence, when he started being interested in hypnosis, something beautiful, psychoanalysis, was born. Now people who have just learned psychology and have no other understanding of any other system will not be very original - they cannot be. In fact, nothing original exists - only two different sorts of systems meeting together and something new arises.

So go deeper into encounter groups, but don't lose your moorings in analytical concepts; don't go against it. Keep it with you, take it with you. It will be hard work because both are against each other, but continue working in both dimensions, and you will be very much enriched.

That sort of enrichment is needed because there are encounter people all over the world doing much beautiful work, but it is going to be shallow because they have no training, no discipline, no scientific background, so they go on playing around. Of course, when you play around many things come up, but depth is not possible. So they cover a big ground but depth is not possible. Analytical people go on digging OR one spot and they go deeper. They don't cover big ground, they don't cover continents, but they dig wells - and very deep wells. And if you can do both then much will become possible.

So don't lose your moorings in your training. Keep it alive and don't allow it to become a hindrance in your encounter work. So somehow deep inside your brain they will settle, they will come to a reconciliation. And you will be surprised how two contradictory systems can meet and can create something which is bigger, higher, deeper than both.

[A visitor says: I don't really know why I'm here. I was invited by my friends.

I find in my life maybe three things that give me joy - not just ordinary joy, a divine joy - my work and being in love and my children. I want to try to see if there's more because I still am unable to understand what has drawn, what has magnetised my friend, to give up her children to come here.]

You will have glimpses. And whatsoever you have known as joy up to now is a good background, but it is not the end of the story. Children and work are good, beautiful, but not the end of the story...

just the very beginning... the beginning of the beginning. Much more is waiting.

And for people like you, much is possible very easily. People ordinarily become interested in meditation or that type of thing only when they are miserable, only when they have failed in their love, only when they have not been able to be joyful with their children only when their work is frustrating them. So people come to meditation in a very negative mood. Even then, meditation gives them deep glimpses of joy.

So for a person like you.... It is very rare to find a person like you who can say, 'I am feeling joy - not just joy but divine joy - with my children, my work, and with my love.' It is very rare... these people have disappeared from the world. So for people like you, meditation can become a tremendous transformation because you come with a very positive background. That's why you don't know why you are here. People who come out of misery know why they are here. They have some problem so they have come to solve it. You don't know because you don't have any problem.

[She answers: Oh, I certainly have problems, but ... ]

No, in this way - you are not miserable, you are happy, you enjoy your children, your work, your love; you have something in your life which you cherish, you feel a sort of contentment with your life.

Everybody has problems, but those problems have not destroyed your work, have not destroyed your relationship. So those problems are growth problems - everybody has to face them: they are good, they enhance life. But if you start with this background, a sort of happy background, positive, then much more is possible because you wiO be floating with the current - and people are fighting against the current. Even then, they attain to many blissful states. So just try.

Forget why you are here. Just be here for these ten days and put your mind aside. And meditate.

Meditation will enhance everything. It is not against anything, so whatsoever you do, it will make you more contented. You will be a better wife, a better lover, a better mother.

Only one thing has to be remembered in meditation: that is, don't wait for the result. Don't go on looking out of the comer of your eyes to see what is happening. That is a disturbance. Simply do it - and you can. Enjoy it. Let it be intrinsic. The value is not in the result but in the very activity of it. Dance, sing, breathe and feel... and move into it. Don't think that something great is going to happen out of it. It happens - but it happens only when you are not waiting for it.

People who are too interested in the result, miss it. But I can see that it will be possible for you.

These ten days can become something of tremendous import in your life.... And you will be coming for a longer period!

[A visitor says: I'm a designer of fashion.]

Very good! Anything that enhances beauty in the world is good. If we can make the world more beautiful in any way it is good. It is religious work.

[The visitor said she had been doing tm for about two years and felt good about it and was confused seeing the kind of meditations that were happening here.

Osho said they were both completely different but there was no need to be confused. While she was here she should try these meditations and then choose whatsoever she felt most comfortable with.

Osho said tm could only give one a shallow sort of silence, but even that was better than nothing.

He said it was very primary and a help initially but that it was not enough... ]

... sooner or later one feels, 'Now, what to do?'

Nobody can be satisfied only by silence. It is very negative. One needs an overflowing ecstasy.

So my emphasis is not on silence, it is on ecstasy. Unless you can go dancing to god, never be satisfied. Unless your life can become a celebration, a tremendous joy, don't be satisfied, don't be contented. Go on searching: there must be some method, there must be some way where you can lose yourself completely, madly, in ecstasy.

Ecstasy is my key word. So my whole effort here is to make you a singing and dancing phenomenon.

Silence is good as preparation, but it is negative. It is as if you are creating a new garden and you uproot all the weeds and grass and throw it out. It is good preparation but this is not the garden itself. Now you have to plant seeds, flowers, trees. Just clearing the weeds away is not going to be of much help. Good, necessary, but not enough.

So tm can only work that way. It can clean the ground of the mind. So continue it and do the camp - but do it wholeheartedly so that you can choose. And I am not emphasising that you choose these methods. Whatsoever feels good to you, is good for you. If you feel good with tm, tm is good for you. Then never listen to anybody. It may not be good for somebody else, but it is good for you.

My emphasis is not on methods. My emphasis is on persons. If some-thing suits you, beautiful - continue it. But give a try to these methods also.

Because I can see that you are in need of a sort of ecstatic life. You look so sad, so serious. You are carrying a catholic church around you. So my feeling is that these meditations will help you. I can see it, mm? Something is on the way....

[A sannyasin says: It's easy for me to be in a situation that I'm in control of - when I'm in control I'm perfectly okay. As soon as the situation gets out of control, somebody else is in control then I get scared and defensive. I don't like that.]

You will have to change this pattern, because if this is your condition of being okay, then you cannot be very okay. If you make it a condition that you will only be okay when you are in control, then you cannot be very okay. You will remain miserable - because in fact there is no possibility of your being in control.

Life is such an interdependence; how can you be in control? Even when you think you are in control, you are not; that is fallacious. Nobody can be in control. Life is so vast, so big, so complex, and we are so tiny, so small - how can we be in control? So you have a very wrong notion. Many people have that - that's why they suffer. That is what the ego is. The ego feels okay when it is in control.

When the control is not there the ego starts feeling suffocated, it almost feels like a death. It is a death - but it is good that it dies.

So seek situations where consciously you can see that you are not in control, and try to be happy - because that's how life is Surrender to life, then you can be happy almost twenty-four hours - day

in, day out, year in, year out. Then nobody can make you miserable. You go beyond misery. You are no more carrying a burden on your head.

Surrender to life. How can you control it? It is absurd, the very effort is absurd. You can be possessed by life but you cannot possess life. Just think, one of my fingers is trying to control my whole body - it will be absurd. The finger can only be controlled by the body. It is a part, and if it is surrendered to the body it will be happy, it will be healthy, nourished by the body. If it is fighting against the body and trying to control it, it will become ill. It will be paralysed; it will be cut off by the body. By its own struggle it will be cut off. So don't fight life - surrender to it.

In the beginning it will be difficult because we have been brought up as egos and we have been taught to fight. So we have learned nonsense, and that is driving people crazy. There is no point.

Just look! Such a vast universe; how are you going to control it?

Drop the fight. and then you are simply okay. Nobody can make you miserable. Misery simply disappears for you and a deep acceptance arises, a total acceptability arises. Then you can feel blessed. Not only that you feel blessed, you can bless the whole existence. Your blessing can pour into existence. Blessed, you become a blessing also.

That is the meaning of jesus's beatitudes, 'Blessed are the meek, because they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the poor....' What does he mean by this?

Blessed are those who are possessed by life and are not fighting and conquering and struggling against it. Those are the real poor people, humble people, meek - but they are blessed and they will attain to the kingdom of god.

So don't create a hell around you. For one month simply relax and see what happens, and then tell me. Good.