Darshan 11 August 1976

[A sannyasin recently returned from japan, formerly had long flowing black hair. Tonight his hair was cropped very short.]

It was looking good - grow it again! Because long hairs are very symbolic, very significant. It is not just accidental that the new generation has moved towards long hair. It is indicative of a very deep change in the world mind.

Man has always lived denying the woman within himself - and man is both man-woman, as woman is both woman-man. The whole old culture, the old tradition, has been an effort to demark the lines very clearly, to make it very distinct that man is different from woman and woman is different from man.

Long hairs are symbolic of the feminine, of the yin element.

When a man has long hair he is more total, more whole, more holy, because somehow he is no more denying the feminine element. He accepts it as part of himself: 'I am man-woman, both; yin-yang, both.' So he is not in any conflict. He is no more schizoid; he is no more split. It is not only the long hairs, but the very approach that man should allow his inner woman expression also. There is no need for man to be just male; there is no need for any woman to be just female. If you try to be just male you will never become a whole person, and you will never be healthy. The denied, the rejected, will take its revenge on you. It will go on asserting itself. Accept it, absorb it.

A man is born out of a mother and a father. Half comes from the father, half from the mother. You are both. I love long hairs. They give you grace, they give you more roundness. They help you to be less cruel, less pointed.

So always remember, the woman has to be allowed. There are moments when you are more of a woman than of a man. It goes on continuously changing around the clock. So there is no need to have a fixed attitude about yourself. Sometimes you are a he, sometimes you are a she; there is no point in having any fixation. So one day you are male, another day you are female. It goes on changing like the climate.

In the morning it was raining. In the evening it is not raining. In the afternoon it was cloudy; now it is no more cloudy. That is the beauty of nature because it is in a flux and flexible and has no consistency to follow - no ideas, no rules, nothing like ten commandments; do this, don't do that. It simply goes on moving in a very haphazard and absurd way. That is its beauty. It goes on moving into the other; there is not even a little hitch. When the day becomes night, there is not even a slight hesitation. It simply slips into the night. Then the night slips into the day.

That is the meaning of the yin-yang symbol - each slipping into each other. Then man becomes holy. Whole is holy, and there is no other holiness. And holiness is not against sin. Holiness is against split, fragmentation.

So to be a man is a sinner; to be a woman is a sinner. To be both is holy. Let your hair grow again.

And I am not only talking about hair. I am just giving you an indication that you have to absorb the woman more and more. Talking about hair is just a parable.

Anand means bliss and kapoor means camphor. It is used in hindu worship. You burn it... it gives a beautiful fragrance. And when it is burned, it bums totally; nothing is left behind. That's the beauty of it. It simply disappears - not even a trace is left. Because of its total disappearance it has become a very meaningful religious symbol in india.

Camphor comes from kapoor - the same word. The english term is derived from the original sanskrit. That name will mean bliss is like camphor. If you disappear, only then, it is. When a self is completely gone, not even a trace is left behind, then only are you blissful. To attain to bliss, one has to dissolve oneself completely.

Bliss is not a pursuit. Happiness is not a pursuit as they say in the american constitution - that the pursuit of happiness is one of the most fundamental rights of man. That is one of the most stupid assertions of man ever. And that has led the whole american continent into madness.

You cannot pursue happiness. If you pursue it, you will become more and more unhappy. The more you pursue it, the more unhappy you will be. You have to disappear for it to come; you cannot pursue it. It is not a right. It is a grace. You cannot demand it. In the very demanding, you will destroy it. It comes to you when you are not. It comes in your total emptiness. When you have effaced yourself utterly, suddenly it is there. You are the hindrance, so you cannot pursue it.

That will be the meaning. Anand kapoor will mean to disappear like camphor so there is no hindrance for bliss. It is already showering. If you are not there, you will be fulfilled.

[An Argentinian visitor who has been in Japan said he was learning gardening: There are zen gardens but there is nobody to teach them.]

I can teach you! Zen is almost dead in japan. It used to be there; it is no more there. That's why [the sannyasin who brought you] has to come here. Zen is part of history there. Because zen is not something tangible; it exists only when there is a zen master. It is very fragile like a flower. When the master is gone, the flower is gone. Of course the fragrance lingers on a little. But how longer can it linger? It also disappears. So zen exists only with a living master. It cannot exist as a tradition.

And it is not a question of zen gardening or zen archery or zen calligraphy. That is not the question.

If you know zen, then whatsoever you do becomes zen. You do gardening and it becomes zen.

It depends on your vision. Whatsoever you do.... You do cleaning and it becomes zen. You go swimming, and it becomes zen, because zen is a quality that you bring to something.

Zen is an approach, a vision, an attitude. If you can look at something without the mind.... If you look at a garden without the mind... you don't want to manoeuvre manipulate, you don't have any plan; you simply sit in the garden and you surrender to the garden, to the spirit of the garden, you become possessed by the spirit of the garden. Not that you plant trees here and there and you cut and prune; not that. You simply allow yourself to be a servant to the garden and you tell the garden, 'Now you tell me what to do,' and the garden leads you. The spirit of the garden possesses you and it starts functioning through you... then the garden itself shows you the way - where to put the rock, where to plant the trees, where the moss is needed, where the sand is needed. It is not that you do it. You simply allow the garden to do it through you. You become a vehicle.

I will teach you. How long can you be here? Three months? Very good. First things first: become a sannyasin! Close your eyes....

You are absolutely ready for me. This will be your new name, so forget the old: swami anand anshumali.

Anand means bliss, happiness, the ultimate happiness, and anshumali means the source of life, the sun. Literally it means the sun; the sun of bliss. But symbolically the sun is called anshumali because mali means a gardener and ansu means light, so the sun is called the gardener of light, because in the morning it comes and sows seeds of light. So symbolically it means the gardener of light. And that will be your path - to become a gardener of light and bliss.

So it is not a question of something to do on the outside. It is something that you have to do inside.

You sow the seeds inside but you harvest the crop outside, because one functions like dark soil - the flowers come on the outside but the seeds and the roots remain deep underground. So bliss will come outside, it will stream out, it will flow in many ways, but the basic work has to be done inside.

Many flowers will come, you will bloom, but the work has to be done inside. All that is significant needs darkness, privacy. When it is ready, it expresses itself.

God is like roots. The world is like the tree. The roots are hidden, god is hidden. We can see the world; we never see god. Whatsoever we see is just the visible part, the tip of the iceberg but the real goes on remaining hidden behind.

You are ready. Much has already happened without your knowing. You have been groping, but coming closer and closer to the path. And much is going to happen. Just relax and cooperate with me.

[A sannyasin returns from the West with her boyfriend. She said that he just wanted to be friends, not lovers; and her heart is broken.]

We have a very wrong idea about friendship. It is a higher state than love. It is the very essence of love. In fact, if love grows deep it becomes friendship. But we have a wrong idea about friendship.

We think friendship is just so-so, just acquaintance; love is very deep. But then you don't know what friendship is. Love has its own turmoils, ups and downs. Friendship is very tranquil. It knows no ups, no downs. Yes, it will not have those peaks that love has, but it will also not have those valleys that follow the peak. Love is a restlessness. Friendship is tremendously restful.

Whether lovers say it or not, by and by they become friends. In fact, many things by and by disappear. But in the beginning if you have some very wrong idea about it, your heart can be broken.

But you are unnecessarily becoming miserable. You have known love, you have been intimate with him. Now try to know friendship also. Taste it also.

... So don't take it in any negative way. It is painful because we value love more than friendship. That is because of our evaluation, otherwise friendship is a very high state of love. When love has come of age it becomes friendship. When love has lived through happy and unhappy moments and has matured, ripened, then it becomes friendship. Love has many miseries in it. It is a mixed pleasure.

It is a very confused state. Much possessiveness, jealousy, domination, much ego and a thousand and one things go on in the name of love.

Friendship is totally different. But friendship can happen only out of love. So don't be worried.

Accept it, welcome it, and now let love move even deeper and you will be benefited.

[The sannyasin then said she was unsure as to whether she should go back to her husband from whom she had separated when she was with her boyfriend. She said she loved him as a friend but not a lover. Osho said to move with her feelings... ]

If you feel good, be with him, otherwise be on your own; that too will be good. And don't be heartbroken.

Life has to be lived in many many ways and one never knows what is going to happen next. So always remain hopeful and always remain trustful and go wherever life leads. Don't cling to anything; don't cling to [your boyfriend]. It is life that brought you together. It is life that made you fall in love.

It is life that has brought you to a state of friendship. Whatsoever life brings is good. It is a gift from god. Welcome it unconditionally and you will become more and more capable of receiving more and more gifts.

Never hanker for the past and never ask that it should be repeated. Always remain available for the future - fresh, hopeful, waiting, patient. One never knows how many more riches life is going to reveal to you. So never carry any negativity about anything and never take too much interest in any sort of misery, otherwise that becomes a vested interest. Then you have invested much in it. So don't cry or weep. Whatsoever has happened is good. Accept it, float with it. What can you do?

The very idea to manage one's life and to control one's life is absurd. We cannot manage it, we cannot control it. We are such a small atomic part in such a vast network that the only way is to relax and go with the stream.

So don't waste the days you are here. Be friendly, be loving, be together, meditate... enjoy being here.

[The boyfriend says: All my life I have felt confused and have been searching, and feeling fearful. I feel at this point my life is disintegrating. I say to myself that I want direction, and in the same breath I feel okay.]

Mm, that is the direction for you. Feeling that it is all okay is your direction. There is nowhere to go and you are not to become somebody else. Whosoever you are, you are good. So, no need to search. Just be and enjoy and never carry any condemnation, because this is the only way you can be, this is the only way god has chosen to be in you. So don't create any ideals. Don't have any shoulds in the mind. Atl shoulds are criminal.

One should live without shoulds, without any commandments. One should live without any enforced discipline, and then one will never feel that one is disintegrating. Then that chaos itself has its own order1 and when the chaos has its own order it is beautiful. When you enforce an order it is ugly.

How can your order be very beautiful? Enforced, it carries violence, it carries bloodstains. And against whom are you going to enforce? Against yourself. So you become divided into two parts:

one that you bully and one that becomes the enforcer. It is a very violent game, a self-torture. You have already tortured yourself enough. There is no need. Drop all torturing... just be.

And be like a child. Wherever life leads you, that's your direction. There is no need to carry any compass, no need to carry any maps. Without compass, without maps, just go on moving. Life is already directing. Relax into it. This is the way, this is the direction.

This is what in the east we call 'tao'. One simply allows oneself as it happens, as it comes. That which happens on its own accord is natural. That is the meaning of the word 'tao' - that which happens on its own accord, without any conflict. It is chaotic, but still it has a centre. And the chaos also has an order in it but that order comes from within; it is not enforced from without. That order is organic.

The seed is planted in the soil and it bursts forth. In that bursting forth, in that chaos, an order arises and the tree starts growing. Out of such a small seed, out of such a small centre, such a big periphery, such a big circle, so many branches, so many flowers.... Nobody is putting this order. It is coming out of the seed, it is growing out of the seed. It is coming from inside the seed. This is organic order.

So whatsoever man can do will be mechanical, and whatsoever man allows to happen is organic. I believe in the organic. I believe in the inherent, intrinsic order that is already there. You simply allow it. Even without your allowing, it has been functioning - that's why you have come here. In spite of you, it has carried you all along the way. So drop all nonsense that one has to bring any order or any direction.

The seed never thinks of what direction to move in, where to go. The river never thinks of what direction to go in; it simply goes. Zig-zag is its path. It doesn't move in a straight line of course - sometimes to the north, sometimes to the south. Sometimes this way, sometimes that way, it goes on moving, zig-zag, but finally it reaches to the ocean. It is not a straight line; it is not very

economical, that's true. If a map were given to the river and engineers were to manipulate it, it would go in a direct line, straight, but then it would not be alive. It would not be so beautiful. It would not be a river at all. Something of tremendous import would be lost in that enforcement. So just be a river.

There is no need for any direction. This is my direction. And you have been moving beautifully; go on.

The disintegration is not there. The disintegration will happen again and again because you go on enforcing an outward order. Then that order disintegrates because the organic chaos cannot tolerate it. It is against it, so it goes on sabotaging it. Then. you feel disintegrated. Stop ordering and then there is no disintegration; then there is nothing to disintegrate. It is such a beautiful experience then to live moment to moment without any outward direction... just like a cloud. Wherever the winds take them, the clouds are always ready to go.

Be a white cloud.

[A sannyasin says: I have much doubt... About you. This darshan I don't feel doubting. I feel at home again for a few moments.]

That will not last. That will not last much. You have to come to a deep understanding. These things won't help.

The doubt arises because you are trying to believe in me. Who has told you to believe in me? If you believe in me then doubt will arise - that's natural. All believers have doubts. So stop believing in me, then doubt will stop - because when you don't believe there is no question of any doubt. And when you don't believe, you will be able to see me and then trust will arise - and that is a totally different thing. Now [the previous sannyasin] ... he has trust. Doubt can never arise because it is not a belief.

That's the difference between trust and belief. Belief is pseudo, with effort. You try to believe in me, you do hard work, but how long can you do hard work? Some moments you relax, then doubt again bubbles up. Your belief is a sort of a tension; you enforce it. Doubt is there. No belief can kill doubt, never. At the most it can overpower it, but then for twenty-four hours you have to fight, and it is tiring.

And when you fight so long you have to rest. When you rest, the doubt will sit on your chest. Then again you start fighting. You drop belief and doubt will disappear. And when there is no doubt and no belief, the eyes are open.

Just see me. Just be with me, that's all. There is no need to believe. Forget all belief. That's what happened just now. Sitting here you were not trying. You forgot your struggle between belief and doubt. You just listened to me, you just felt me. For a few moments there was trust, but you again translated it as belief. You said that for those few moments there was no doubt. Again you have missed. You have not understood how it happened in those few moments. There was no belief and there was no doubt. It was a totally different dimension.

You were simply here. You felt my presence. It was a direct encounter, that's all. Now don't interpret it as a belief - that for a few moments you came to believe and then doubt came again. By the time you are out of the gate of the lao tzu house, you will get the doubt. Exactly when you see krishna - the moment you pass the gate-guard - doubt will arise. This is not going to help.

Try to understand. Don't try to interpret it as belief. Simply try to understand how it happens, just herenow. I am the same, you are the same. Why for these few moments did it happen? Then why cannot it happen forever? Just try to understand those moments, the mechanism of how it happened. And relax yourself into those moments more and more. There is no need to believe in me; then there is no point in doubting. I allow you complete freedom from belief.

Don't relate with me through belief; there is no need. And belief is never really a bridge. It is a false bridge. It only appears to connect you with me; it never connects. It is just a hope, not a truth, not a reality - a fiction, not a fact. But in those few moments a bridge happened. But again the mind came back and gave you an afterthought of, 'Look, these are the moments of belief, when there was no doubt.'

Remember, when there is trust there is neither doubt nor belief. Both are absent. When there is belief, doubt is not absent, only invisibly present. Behind the belief there is always doubt. In trust, both disappear. The very terminology becomes irrelevant. So just try - but stop believing and let us see what happens.

[She adds: You told me some time ago that I need a lover and that it would take one week. I was so confused about it because it took one month. And you told me to bring him here to darshan and I didn't know why you said I need a lover, or what kind of lover.

You told me to knock at the doors and I would find many closed doors, so I really knocked... and sometimes it was funny.... ]

Mm, if you had knocked a little more intensely you would have found a lover in one week. You must have been sluggish and slow; that's why it took one month. It can take one year; it depends. If I say one week, it can happen even in one day. It was just tentative. to give you a certain idea a certain hope. These are not scientific statements - that one week means one week. It depends on a thousand and one things.

If you had worked, if you had trusted me, it could have happened in one week. I am surprised that it happened at all. Even in one month it happened; that's a surprise. If it had not happened even in one month I would not have been surprised, because you still look very unloving. So it must have happened from the other side; not by your knocking. He must be standing with his doors open.

He must himself have been in search. It cannot be totally your effort because you still seem very unloving. That's why you ask what is the need and why did I tell you to find a lover. You don't even feel the need of it. You are so dry, desert-like, that a little rain will be good; that's why I said it. A little melting will be good.

And you call it funny.... Call it fun, not funny. A little fun is good. It will make you less serious, more joyful. You look so serious, deadly serious... as if the whole world depends on you and if you are gone the whole will disintegrate. Why are you so serious? Just take a little more fun in life. That's what I mean - it will relax you.

Be a little more playful. You will learn much more about life and you will know more meditative moments, because a playful moment is naturally a meditative moment. And meditation never happens to serious people. It never happens to people who are too grave. They destroy it. Sol

mean that you should be a little fun-loving, laugh a little more, do a few foolish things. And love is the best that one can do as far as foolish things go. I meant fool around a little, that's all. Be a little foolish; that will help. That will give you a little spice in your life. But no need to believe in me.

I am a madman. I go on saying things (laughter), but there is no need to believe in me, because then doubt arises. Simply listen to me. If you feel like doing, do; if you don't feel like doing, don't do.

There is no question of belief and no question of doubt.

And I am not responsible for what I say, so never quote me again. Because I myself have forgotten completely. Gone is gone! I am irresponsible and non-serious. So whatsoever I say, listen to it and then if you feel like doing it, do. If you don't do it there is no need to feel guilty. If you do it don't feel that you have obliged me, or something.

But still I would like to repeat, if you become a little more playful, a little more foolish, it will be helpful, tremendously helpful, mm? Good.

[A sannyasin says: I wrote you a letter... about not feeling worthy or being good.

He passes bhagwan a short note, which Osho reads.

Mm, this is a human predicament. It has nothing to do with you. Everybody feels that he is unique.

There is a joke, a mohammedan joke, that when god creates anybody he plays a trick. He says in each person's ear, 'You are the best that I have created yet. You are unique.' And he goes on saying this to everybody, so everybody believes that he is unique.

And nothing is wrong in it. Everybody is unique. But when I say that everybody is unique, I don't mean in any comparative sense. You are not more unique than the other. The other is also as unique as you. To be unique is a common property of every human being or every being. To be unique is a universal quality, so there is nothing to feel guilty about. It is natural. But don't take it in a comparative sense. Don't think that you are better than others, higher than the masses. Then you are becoming neurotic. You are unique because there is nobody like you. Unique you are. There has never been such a man as you and there never will be again because god never repeats his mistakes (laughter). You understand me?

... So there is nothing to worry about. And the second thing that creates the predicament: when you feel you are unique, at the same time you feel that there are many inadequacies. That too is human. To feel unique is human, to feel inadequate is also human, because humanity is a limited phenomenon. We are not unlimited, and there are always possibilities to learn more, to be more.

So one is never satisfied. But it is good, otherwise there would be no growth.

Only idiots are content. They think they are perfect. Otherwise everybody thinks there are a thousand and one things yet to be learned.

So this is the predicament - that one feels unique and still one feels inadequate. But there is no contradiction in it. Both are natural. The problem, the practical problem then, is what to do?

If you are thinking that you will start doing things only when you are perfect, then you will never be able to do anything. So start doing; howsoever inadequate, start doing. Because by doing, you will become more and more adequate. You will learn by doing. There are things which can be learned only by doing. There is no other way. So whatsoever you feel and love, do it. It is not going to be perfect, that's true. But that is the only way that one day it can come closer and closer to perfection.

Don't make your feeling of uniqueness egoistic. It is simply natural to everybody. This is how everybody thinks he is unique. So you are not unique in thinking it. It is very ordinary.

And the second thing: man has limitations. In a small span of life, how can one be perfect? So don't get miserable about it. Polish yourself a little here and there, try to do as much as you can, and don't become mad about it. Perfectionists always go mad because perfection is not possible. We are imperfect. We are perfectly imperfect. So you can do a little here, a little there, but don't think that you will come to perfection. Closer and closer we come, but we never arrive. No, we go an arriving, but we can never say, 'I have arrived.'

And the third thing: start doing whatsoever you want to do, knowing your limitations. Knowing them well, start doing - because what else can you do? If you wait, then when will you start? The time will be gone. Soon life slips out of the hands; it is running away already. So everybody has to start when he is not really ready to start. Everybody has to start before he is ready to start. But that is the only way.

So I don't see any problem. Simply go, help people for my work. Take my message, spread it. And I accept all your limitations. I never expect any perfection from anybody. I am not a perfectionist at all. I love people with all their limitations and imperfections.

So just go, start doing, and learn by doing.

[A sannyasin said that while he was in a residential group his girlfriend moved in to live with someone else. Now he has difficulty smiling at her, and that makes her feel guilty.]

Have a good laugh. A smile will be difficult. A laugh will be easier. Laugh at the whole ridiculousness of it. This is how human beings are. Nobody knows what is happening. why they are doing this and that.

[Osho said that we are all moving so unconsciously so what can one do? (See 'get out of your own way', tuesday april 20th, where bhagwan talks about this at length.)]

So when you see her and you cannot smile, have a good laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Not that you are laughing at her.; you are laughing at yourself also. It is a situation for you to transcend, to see how fragile everything is. You call it love, and it disappears within moments. You were ready to die for this woman, and now you can kill her! Watch this violence, this aggression, this domination, and just watching will help you to transcend it. You will transcend it.

(to vivek, at his side) A handkerchief for him.

Do one thing: whenever you see her, put it on your head (bhagwan, by way of demonstration, places the handkerchief on his own head... much laughter) and it will immediately bring laughter. And she

will also laugh at what you are doing. But always remember that life is ridiculous, and don't try to make it a tragedy. Always help it to become a comedy.

Put it on your head and let me see what happens. You will look foolish and it will do the trick!

[The enlightenment intensive group was present tonight. A group member said she had some wonderful experiences, and then today has just gone back again.]

No, no don't be worried. This is a rhythm. It happens; one goes up and down. It is a hilly track. It is not a super-highway - and at least not an american super-highway... indian (much laughter). And the season is of rains and everything is muddy.

So this is how it goes. When you relapse, just watch and just see. Just know deep down that this will pass - and it will pass. Do the camp totally - you are ready for it. Dance and be ecstatically mad.

[She then says: I don't know what it is, but I have this fear inside. I mean I was really looking forward to coming to darshan tonight and then just sitting here... opposite you and facing you, just made me want to... cry (beginning to sob).]

Yes, I know! You can cry. I love people crying! It is good. Crying is beautiful. Don't take it amiss. It is beautiful... it is as beautiful as laughter.

And I can see that it is not because of any misery that you want to cry. In fact you are surprised at your capacity to be happy. So you want to cry, that's all. Those tears are perfectly.... You cannot believe. It is too good to be true. That's why it is happening. It is so much that you cannot say it in any other way so it comes out in tears. It is an overflowing heart....