Darshan 10 August 1976

Prem means love, parimal means fragrance, love's fragrance. And that is the only fragrance there is, so remember it. Remember it so constantly that it becomes a deep truth in your being. Constantly remember it. By remembering something constantly, it creates a milieu around you. And as I see it, if one can attain to love, one has attained. If one misses love, one has missed. One can forget god, nothing is lost, but one cannot forget love. One should not forget love, because if one starts living and loving, god happens.

So love makes the real religion. The word 'god' creates only a theology, a philosophy at the most, but something that is intellectual, something fragmentary, rational. Love is the only experience that possesses you totally, so when love knocks at your door, never say no. And don't wait for love to knock at your door. Go on knocking on love's door also. One should make love one's prayer.

There is a deep fear about love. People talk about love but they are really scared. Sometimes they are even in love, but never totally. They move only so much. They move only to the limit from where they can return any moment, from where they can withdraw easily. They never make it a commitment. That is one of the miseries of the modern mind. It has lost the capacity of commitment, involvement. The modern mind lives in a hit-and-run affair - always afraid. And if you are afraid, you can only touch the periphery.

So be brave and try to go as deeply into love as possible. Even if sometimes there is deception - the possibility is there - even if sometimes you are hurt by it - the possibility is there, because one becomes very soft and vulnerable - even if it brings misery, it is worth it.

A life of no misery without love is worthless. And a life of love, even with much misery in it, has tremendous value.

So never decide for any reason against love, whatsoever the cost. Drop all fears and move into the world of love.. And that is the very shrine of god... that is the only shrine.

Prem means love and dheera means wisdom; wisdom that comes out of love. And wisdom comes only out of love. If wisdom comes in any other way, it is pseudo. Then it is just verbal. It is not real and lived and experienced. You can call it knowledge but not wisdom. So love more - that is the only way to know more.

Reality opens its doors only to those who are deeply in love, god unveils his face only to those who are in deep love.

[A sannyasin with her young son, says: Last time when I came to darshan, afterwards I felt very frightened.]

So what should I do? Should I make you more frightened? (with a chuckle)

[Osho said that as one came closer to him - as in any love relationship - fear was bound to arise. It was indicative of a fear of losing one's ground... ]

Something deep is going to happen, so the mind is afraid, trembling. There is every possibility you may escape, but that you do at your own risk - because escaping from me is basically escaping from your own possibility. Fighting with me is really fighting with your own future and your own destiny, because I have nothing else to give you.

I can only give you to yourself, nothing else. I have no commandment to enforce on you, no ideals, no discipline, nothing whatsoever. I can just make you available to yourself. I am just a midwife, as socrates used to say. That is the right term, a midwife. I can only help delivery, that's all.

And of course before delivery there is much labour - and that's what you are passing through. Much is going to happen. It is very close, by the comer. The treasure is not very far, hence the fear. You are afraid of arriving home.

[Osho tells her that it would be good to encourage her son to meditate, adding that:]

... that which can be done very easily now becomes very difficult later on. The more one grows in age, the farther away one is from god.'

[The Tao group is present. The leader said said: One thing that helped a lot was that we did a silent prayer and let you come into everyone in the room - and it worked well.

There's an issue for me in that I felt that for me to sit in the centre would set me apart from everyone else. So I sat with everyone in the group. I wondered what your thoughts were about that.]

You felt a little uncomfortable?

... But continue to sit in the centre and drop the discomfort, because that discomfort is coming not because you are sitting in the centre - that discomfort is coming because by sitting in the centre

you are becoming special; it is that idea. Otherwise whether in the centre or the periphery, it is the same. So drop the idea - that is the real thing. By and by, you will be as comfortable in the centre as with the group. Then if you want to sit with the group, you can, but not before it. That idea has to be dropped.

That is a sort of subtle ego that creates discomfort - it is not sitting in the centre... a sort of subtle ego that starts feeling important. So that ego will not go just by not sitting in the centre. It will not be so apparent when you are sitting with the whole group. It becomes apparent, more focussed, when you are in the centre. But it is good that it is there and it is good to drop it consciously, deliberately.

Go on sitting in the centre.

You can do one thing that will be very helpful. Touch everybody's feet and then sit in the centre.

Suddenly you will enjoy it and it will be so comfortable. Try it whenever you feel any ego arising, touching the feet of anyone who is passing will be tremendously helpful. Suddenly it becomes ridiculous to think of yourself as special. So ridicule the ego. Don't try to move into situations where it is not apparent. No, let it become as apparent as possible and let it become ridiculous.

Nothing kills the ego like laughter. Seriousness never kills the ego - it enhances it. So first touch the feet of the whole group; that will help the group also. A tremendous surrender will happen. They will be more close to you and your work will become very easy. And tell me next time.

And whenever you need me, call me, I enjoy these trips myself! (laughter) Whenever I am needed, call me.

[A sannyasin said that he had discovered a violence inside himself, and a fear of women. He said he felt the fear of women was connected with his birth, which he had relived in the group and which had been very painful for him.]

They are all interdependent and connected. The fear of women is basically the fear of the mother.

And everybody has to come to a reconciliation with the mother. Unless you are reconciled with the mother you will never be reconciled with any woman, because every woman again and again reminds you of your mother. Sometimes it may not be consciously, but unconsciously it will hit.

And every birth is painful now. Civilisation has completely destroyed natural birth. No child is born naturally. The mother is so tense that she does not help the process of birth. In fact she starts obstructing it. She does not allow the child to go out. She starts closing her womb.

This is in tune with the whole tense life that we are living. The modern idea, the basic idea on which all anxiety is founded, is that we have to fight with life and with nature. So it is nothing special to you. Every child more or less has suffered birth. So the only way is to relive it, to make it completely conscious again. Once you can live it consciously, you can understand and forgive your mother, because that poor woman was suffering. It is not that she has done anything to you. She was herself a victim. Nobody is at fault because the whole situation is faulty. She was loaded with her own birth and she again re-enacted it with you. That is the only way she knew how to do it.

So once you become alert, conscious, aware, you can forgive. Not only that, you can feel compassion for her. Once compassion arises in you for your mother, reconciliation has happened.

Then you don't carry any grudge. And dropping that grudge suddenly will help you towards other women. You will not be afraid; you will be loving.

A woman is one of the most beautiful phenomena in the world; not to be compared with anything else. The woman is the masterpiece of god. So if you are afraid of woman, you will be afraid of god.

You will be afraid of love, afraid of prayer. You will be afraid of all that is beautiful, because woman personifies beauty and grace.

And once this happens - that you start flowing towards feminine energy around you - then your violence will disappear. Violence is nothing but the energy that has to become love and is not becoming love. Violence is nothing but love unlived. A violent person is one who has too much love- energy and does not know how to release it. Love is creative, violence is destructive, and creative energy turns into being destructive if not used.

The group has made you aware of some very beautiful, meaningful things.

[A middle-aged visitor says: The group was very good for me. We did it in the nude and I was having a little trouble with my ageing body. They helped me to accept it.]

Mm, that's very good. That can make you more young. A very good feeling about one's own body helps life tremendously. It makes you more healthy, more whole. Many people have forgotten their bodies; they have become oblivious and they think about the body as if it is something which has to be hidden behind clothes, something which has to always be covered and not allowed to be seen; something obscene, impure. Absurd notions, neurotic notions.

The body is beautiful. The body as such is beautiful; young or old makes no difference. Of course youth has its own beauty and old age its own.

The young body is more vital. The old body is more wise. Each age has its own beauty; there is no need to compare it. And, particularly in the west, the old body has become a very frightening experience because life is somehow thought synonymous with youth, which is a foolish idea.

The east is better. Life is more synonymous with the old, because an old man has lived more, experienced more, loved more; has known many seasons of life, ups and downs. The old man has lived youth. The youth has yet to live old age.

The old body simply carries all the experiences, the scars, the wounds, the grace that comes through ripening experiences. And once you start enjoying your body and loving it at whatsoever stage it is, suddenly you feel it is again beautiful, and that releases many things inside.

It has been a really beautiful experience.