Darshan 12 August 1976

Anand means bliss and karunesh means god of compassion. So the whole name will mean god of compassion and bliss. And compassion is going to be your path. Feel as much compassion as possible. Feel unconditionally compassionate. And give as much as you can give of your love.

Share your life as much as you can share.

Sharing your energies will be your surrender. Through sharing you will attain to surrender, and through compassion you will arrive.

You are ready for me and much is possible now. You have prepared it.

... Much is going to happen, just allow it to happen. In fact, there is nothing needed to be done; one just has to allow. A life goes on happening on its own accord. We unnecessarily make efforts and struggle. It is not needed. Just a trust is needed - that whatsoever happens will be good. Nothing wrong ever happens, cannot happen, because we belong to this universe and this universe belongs to us. We are always at home. We are not strangers.

And there is no question of any fight. There is nobody to fight with. People who have notions of fighting and conquering and reaching somewhere and doing something, and who feel that if they don't do, nothing will happen, are fighting with their own shadows, and they will be and feel, in the end, very ridiculous, because whatsoever happens was going to happen. If they had allowed, they would have saved much trouble for themselves and much torture.

So simply be here - meditate, delight... delight in just being here, and enjoy it....

Anand anupam.... It means unique bliss. Anupam means unique, incomparable and anand means bliss; bliss unique, incomparable. And bliss is always unique. Whenever it happens, to whomsoever

it happens, it is unique. Nothing like it has ever happened before. Whenever you come to realise your being, it is a unique experience; it has not happened to you ever before. It has happened to other people but never in the same way as it is happening to you, because each individual comes in his own way to god. And each individual is so unique and so different from others that his experience cannot be compared with anybody else.

That's why buddha is so different from jesus and jesus is so different from mohammed and mohammed is so different from lao tzu. And they have all arrived home. They have all known what truth is. They have all attained to the ultimate bliss, but they are different. Their experience is different because the experiencer is different. Their expression is different.

When buddha attained he became so silent, so unmoving, so still, that he almost became a statue.

When meera attained she became almost mad, and started dancing. When chaitanya attained he exploded in songs. It happens to everybody in a unique way. Everybody comes to the same truth.

The truth is the same, but because we are different when we come to it.... It is not only that truth happens to us; we also happen to truth. It is not only that god happens to us; we also happen to him. And of course that combination has never happened before, so the experience is going to be absolutely unique. That is the meaning of anupam.

I believe that each individual is unique. Nobody is superior, inferior, because no two individuals are alike - so how to decide who is superior and who is inferior? All categories of superior, inferior, are just false, created by society to harness people into ambition. Society also teaches you comparison.

Somebody is more intelligent, so you have to be more intelligent. Somebody is a good dancer, so you have to be a better dancer. Somebody is good at mathematics, so you have to be good at mathematics. Somebody is good at earning money, so you have to compete - otherwise you are inferior. So everybody is driven crazy by this competitive state.

A man becomes silent and happy only when this competitive state is dropped, when one comes to feel that there is no point in comparison: 'I am myself Somebody else is somebody else. I am myself and I cannot be anybody else. There is no way to get out of myself.' All efforts are doomed to failure, and if you try too hard you will become pseudo. That's how hypocrisy is born. Then one has a mask, a carbon-copy personality and then one is unhappy.

Nobody can be happy pretending to be somebody else. Happiness happens only when you have accepted yourself totally and you have decided that now you have to be yourself. When you have accepted and welcomed whatsoever you are with deep gratitude and with no comparison with anybody, then you are not anywhere in any hierarchy with anybody - lower or higher. Nobody is ahead of you and nobody is behind. You are simply unique, alone, and once you can see it, it is tremendously beautiful. All anxiety and all tension, all effort to prove, simply disappears, and then one starts enjoying because the whole energy becomes available. One's whole energy was involved in competition, fighting with others, trying to prove one's worth. You are intrinsically valuable. Each individual is. The value does not depend on what you do. The value depends on what you are.

So look at yourself as unique and look at others as unique, and never compare, never, never. Drop the whole comparing mechanism of the mind, then you will relax and bliss will arise. In that relaxed moment it arises on its own accord.

You are going to become very very blissful... simply relax.

(to another sannyasin) The energy is moving really well. Start one meditation from tonight. This will help energy come to a climax. Let things happen on their own accord.

Hold the hands in a very prayerful mood and start a mantra 'Ah... ah... ah', loudly, but not very loudly. And move with that 'Ah... ah... ah'; move with it. Do it for just five to seven minutes not more than that. Just before you go to sleep, sit in your bed and just bring the energy out. Move very slowly, very gracefully; don't become violent. That's why I am saying not more than five or seven minutes, because if you do it more, you will become more and more agitated, and then the prayer will be lost.

After seven days, be in the same posture but change the sound 'Ah' to 'Aha'. That will go still deeper - 'Aha... aha... aha'. After fifteen days tell me how you are feeling. First 'Ah' for seven days, and the 'Aha' for seven days. The sound 'Aha' can give tremendous grace.

God happens as an 'Aha' experience. God is not a proposition but an exclamation.

So you start. The energy is going very well. Prayer will be helpful... and this is your prayer, nothing else.

[A sannyasin said that since his girlfriend left he feels a hole: I realise that everything I do, I try to turn into an ego trip.]

A good realisation in a way. That's what people go on doing with love-affairs. They are not really love-affairs, they are ego-affairs. People call them love-affairs, that's one thing, but they are not.

Love is not such a cheap thing. It is very difficult to attain to love. One has to pass through many transformations. One has to become so pure and ready for it - only then it happens. All that we call love is nothing but an ego phenomenon.

We go on fulfilling some holes in our being by the other, the object of love. And we go on looking into the other's eyes for our image. So when the lover or the beloved disappears, suddenly there is a hole. Because you miss the mirror in which you could see your face, you miss your face. You don't know now who you are because [your girlfriend] was giving you a definition. She was demarking your boundary - that this is you - and she was holding together that definition. In the same way she must be feeling lost because you were functioning as a mirror to her ego.

That is the real problem when lovers separate. They have invested too much in each other. I hat's why many people continue to remain together even though love has disappeared long ago - they cannot afford to lose the other. Husbands and wives cling, knowing well that now they are clinging to nothing; there is nothing to hold it together. Love has disappeared long ago, or maybe it had not been there in the first place. And they know it, they are aware of it, and they feel miserable about it, but they cannot do anything. A thousand and one times they think to separate, but the very idea of separation brings fear because the image is in the hands of the other. Once the other is no more there, you don't know who you are. Suddenly you lose your identity. You lose your soul, your self.

Suddenly everything becomes messy.

Good, that this has happened. This should make you aware. Now you are trying to fill it and there is no way to. This is not the way. You can eat too much; it will not help. It may be just avoiding. The

hole is not in the body, so you cannot stuff it with food. You can get involved in too many activities, but the hole is not in the mind either, so activities are not going to help. You can at the most forget it for a few moments when you are occupied; again it will be there staring in your eyes and frightening you.

No, the hole is deeper than your body and mind. You have to understand this hole and you have to start living with it, because the more possible and probable thing is that by trying food, work, activity, this and that, friendships, the club, the movies, the radio, by and by you will see, 'No, these are not the ways to fill it.' Then you will start looking for another woman, and again you will settle. Again this new woman will give you a definition. Then you have missed an opportunity. Again you are in the same trap. Again it will happen in the same way.

This time start living with your aloneness. That is the hole. This time don't try to fill it. Let it be.

Difficult, hard, arduous... you will feel very ad, depressed; let it be, but learn to live alone. I am not saying to be alone for your whole life, but first learn to live alone and then find a partner. Then the relationship will be on a totally different plane; it will not be a mirror. You can live alone, and only then can you love. Then love is no more a neurotic need. It is no more something on which you have to depend for your definition. You can be alone. You know now, without your love, who you are.

Love becomes a sharing. Then, because you have, you want to share. Then love is not a need but a luxury. And when love is a luxury, it is beautiful. You follow me?

Something can be a need; then it is ugly because you have to be dependent on it. And you always feel annoyed, angry, because you have to be dependent on somebody. You can never be at ease with anybody if you have to be dependent on him or her, because you know that this is a bondage and your freedom is lost. When you are capable of living alone, happily, joyfully, and the need has disappeared - you don't have any hole inside and you don't feel lonely, you enjoy your aloneness; it is no more absence of the other, it has become presence of your being - then you share. Then love is freedom. It is not an imprisonment. It is beautiful and you start growing. If somebody is there to share with you, good. If nobody is there, that too is good.

So this time try to be with your aloneness and don't make these absurd efforts. They can be harmful to the body. Too much eating can be harmful to the body. Too much activity can be harmful to your inner silence, meditation. Too much occupation can be destructive. So don't fill this space; allow it.

Feel grateful to [your girlfriend. She gave much to you when she was with you. She is still giving you much now she is gone. She has given you this opportunity to be alone and to see how dependent you have become.

Meditate more because these moments can become very meditative. And don't hanker for any love- affair. Just be. For a few days just enjoy aloneness. And only when you are enjoying it and you are contented, then move into a relationship. And it will be on a different plane, a higher plane. Good.

[A sannyasin says: I've been feeling bad and very confused for the last few days, with no energy and feeling so helpless. Then it was the full moon and the next day when I woke up the feelings were gone. Now I feel much better.]

Very good. The moon sometimes can affect one very much, so watch it and use it. Keep a record at least for two months, each day. Keep it according to the moon. Start from the first-day moon and

keep a record of how you feel on the whole that day, then the second moon, the third moon, then the fourth, and the full moon. As the moon starts declining, go on making a record. You will be able to see the rhythm - that your moods will be moving according to the moon.

And once you know your chart exactly, you can do many things with that chart. You can know beforehand what is going to happen tomorrow and you can be prepared for it. If it is going to be sad, then enjoy sadness. Then there is no need to fight with it. Rather than fighting, use it, because sadness can also be used.

[Osho went on to say that problems arise because we resist the moods we find ourselves in and create conflict, but all moods can be used and enjoyed.]

[A sannyasin says: I find that I keep counting things - money, what food I have eaten - and I can spend half an hour or so just counting and then I do it over and over again. I know it is stupid but if I don't do it, I don't feel right.]

So do one thing. Rather than counting in the mind, count it on paper - because counting in the mind can become an unconscious thing. You can go on counting and counting and counting. And anything that becomes unconscious has more grip on you. So the first thing is to make it conscious.

To make it conscious, it is very helpful to put it down on paper. So carry a small notebook with you and when the idea arises to count, write it down, clearly. Just make a list.

[She answers: You know, I also feel guilty about it. I don't like it.]

No, there is something else behind it. If you feel guilty, you will repress it. Something else is behind it. It will develop. Just do what I am saying. Soon you will become aware that counting is not the real thing; there is something else hiding behind it. It is just a signal. There is some other problem, which you don't want to face, hiding behind it.

But don't feel guilty about it. Nothing is wrong in it... and you have a scientific mind, that's all (laughter). And so have a notebook - and don't just do it by the way. Do it very particularly, in a scientific way - each item. money. everything. Whenever you have the idea, immediately do it Forget everything else This is your meditation.

For ten days do it in writing. If in these ten days you become aware of something else, come. You will become aware of something else. When it becomes a conscious thing, you will see immediately that the curtain has disappeared and you have become aware of something else - some anxiety, some fear, some problem, you are hiding behind. This is just a facade, a trick of the mind to get engaged in something so you can avoid a deeper problem.

To bring out the deeper problem, it has to be released. So don't feel guilty. I am giving it to you as a meditation. And when you come next time, bring your copy with you! Good.

This evening there were over fifty sannyasins at darshan, as compared tO the usual twenty or so, most of them being members of the ashram's music group or resident sannyasins who had come to dance with the group.

Before the group performed, bhagwan initiated several people, giving all four of them names in keeping with the mood of the evening....

OSHO (to peter, a large, blond-headed american visitor): Your new name: swami deva nartan.

It means divine dance. Deva means divine, nartan means dance. And that has to be your approach towards god. No need to be serious about it. All seriousness is illness. Laugh and dance your way.

To be joyful is the only prayer. And to learn how to dance so deeply that the dancer disappears in the dance, is the only worship.

To remember itj your name will be a constant reminderBJust be joyful. Religion is a way of celebrating life. It has nothing to do with that church-type seriousness; something has gone morbid.

Otherwise there is nothing to be serious about.

God is not serious, otherwise he cannot create such a beautiful world with so much music and delight in it, with so much love in it. He must be more of a dancer, a singer, painter or poet. It is difficult to conceive of him as a theologian or a priest or a catholic monk. It would not be just to imagine god that way. Hindus are more colourful about it.

Just see... (indicating the luxuriant green foliage of the trees and shrubs around the auditorium) all around, it is so green. This world cannot fit with a theological god. It can fit with a poet, a painter.

So let this be your constant reminder - that you have to dance your way to god, to laugh your way to god.

Anything you would like to say?

NARTAN: Osho, this is so far away from what I am now.