Darshan 16 August 1976

Anand means bliss or blissful, and sugatta is a name of buddha. Literally it means well gone, because in india we call those people well-gone who are not going to come back again, who are gone forever. They have gone so well that they will not be returning. It is a beautiful term, very significant.

In the east the world is taken as a place of learning. One has to experience the truth of life. Unless you experience it, you are thrown back again and again into the world. It is just as if somebody studies in the university and goes on failing so he has to come back again and again to the same class. Once you have passed, you don't return to the university. The world is taken as a school, as a training, as a discipline for something beyond. Once you have learned the art of how to be, there is no need for you to come back. A person who has gone in such a way that he will not be coming back, is called sugatta; well-gone, gone forever.

So become a sugatta. Experience life as deeply, as totally as possible. Never be afraid of any experience, because fear is the only cause which delays. If you don't experience something, then somewhere deep down inside, you will continue to cling to it. Unless you experience it totally, you cannot be finished with it. So whatsoever it is, go into it as deeply as possible, so if there is something in it, you learn it. If there is nothing in it, you learn that there is nothing in it.

But either way you are benefited. Don't go into any experience unaware, because if you go unaware, you will go again and again, and you will not learn anything. It is as if somebody goes into the university drunk. Many things will go on happening, but he is drunk and he cannot understand what is happening. He comes back, again misses. He comes back, and again misses. So don't be drunk. This drunkenness comes by attachment. Drunkenness comes by ego. Drunkenness comes by greed, ambition, but the root cause is always unawareness. So become more aware and experience whatsoever life makes available. Don't say no. Say yes and go into it.

If it has something, it will deliver. If it has nothing to give you, you will come out of it completely freed - at least from that dimension. Now it will not have any attraction for you; it is finished. By and by, in this way, one goes on finishing in every direction of life. Then one day suddenly, this whole life is simply known as futile, just a vicious circle leading nowhere; one goes on in circles.

In the east we call the world the wheel. It is like a wheel; the spokes go on changing, one goes up, another comes down. If you look at the spokes, you may think that something is changing, but if you look at the whole wheel, you know that nothing is changing. It is the same wheel going round and round and round.

Become aware so that you can see the whole wheel of life going round and round and round - the same anger, the same greed, the same sex, the same conflict. One goes on repeating it. I'm not saying don't go into it. I'm saying if you have to go, you have to go - but go alert. If there is something, then go strongly into it. If there is nothing, then be still....

Prem means love and pramod means joy; joy that comes out of love. That's the only joy there is.

Whenever you love, you are joyful. Whenever you cannot love, you cannot be joyful. Joy is a function of love, a shadow of love... it follows love.

So become more and more loving, and you will become more and more joyful. And don't be bothered about whether your love is returned or not; that is not the point at all. Joy fOllows love automatically, whether it is returned or not, whether the other is responsive or not. If you are loving, you are joyful, and that is more than enough, more than one can expect. That is the beauty of love - that its result is intrinsic, its value is intrinsic. It does not depend on the response of the other. It is totally yours.

But people are in very much confusion. They think you become joyful only when love is returned.

That's where they miss. Their whole analysis is based on wrong presumptions and their whole life becomes a misery. Joy follows love. It has nothing to do with whether it is returned by somebody or not.

That's why, even if there is no god, a man who prays deeply becomes joyful. There may not be any god, but that is not a necessity. The devotee loves - god is just an excuse. It triggers, that's all. It will be difficult to love without somebody there, so you simply imagine that somebody is there in the heavens, and you become loving towards that reality that you have imagined. Joy follows; it is just a by-product of your love. It has nothing to do with the object of love. The object of love may not exist at all, Still one can be joyful. The object of love may exist and you may be joyless if you are not loving.

People are continuously asking for something in return. Their love is conditional. They say, 'Make me happy, make me joyful, then I will love you.' Their love has a condition to it, a bargain. They are completely blind. They don't know that by loving, joy automatically arises. It is a spontaneous by-product. So just be loving.

And it makes no difference to whom you are loving - to a dog, to a cat, to a tree, to a rock. Just sit by the side of the rock and be loving. Have a little chit-chat. Kiss the rock... Lie down on the rock.

Feel one with the rock, and suddenly you will see a shudder of energy, an upsurge of energy - and you are tremendously joyful. The rock may not have returned anything, or may have - but that is not the point. You became joyful because you loved. One who loves is joyful.

And once you know this key, you can be joyful for twenty-four hours - if you are loving for twenty-four hours, and you are no more dependent on objects of love. You become more and more independent, because you know more and more that you can love - even if there is nobody. You can love the very emptiness surrounding you. Sitting in your room alone, you fill the whole room with your love. You may be in a prison; you can transform it into a temple within a second. The moment you fill it with love, it is no more a prison. And a temple becomes a prison if there is no love.

So love is freedom, love is joy, and in the ultimate analysis, love is god. Jesus says, 'God is love.' I say, 'Love is god.'

... you are just on the threshold, and many more inner journeys are there. This is just the beginning of the journey.

So go and come back, and if you can postpone it a little while, that will be good. If you can stay for two more weeks, you will become more settled with your new being, and you will go more centred.

Otherwise you will go in a limbo. The old is no more, the new is still being born. It will be a little difficult for you. But if it has to be so, let it be.

Everything is good. Much is going to happen - just allow me.

[Osho gives another visitor sannyas.]

Open your eyes... come here. You are ready for many things that you may not have even dreamt about. And that is your anguish - that something is ready to explode and you don't know what it is, so you go on groping in the dark. And it is not without - it is within, so groping is not going to help.

The seeker is the sought.

We can go on searching for millions of lives, from one planet to another, from one earth to another, from one stage of life to another stage of life, but we are not going to find, because that which we are trying to find is already there inside. It has already happened... it is a given fact.

God is not an object of search. It is already a given fact. It is the very presupposition of all that is. It is the very base of all that is.

But this is how things are. Very few people are ready to explode, and those very few people who are ready to explode, don't know. And in a way it is natural, because unless it happens, how is one supposed to know? One comes to know only when it happens.

So just help me to help you.

This will be your name: swami anand vasudeva.

Anand means bliss and vasudeva is a name of god; god of the world. The whole name will mean god of bliss. And vasudeva is one of the most beautiful names....

[Osho asked vasudeva what meditations he had done before coming here. Vasudeva said he had done some kundalini yoga and enjoyed the fire breathing that they did, which was like the breathing in the first stage of the dynamic meditation. He said he liked it, but it was hard.]

It is hard because it changes many things in the body structure; that's why it is hard. It changes the whole pattern of your body. Once it has changed it becomes very very easy.

It is just as if you suddenly start walking. Your muscles have to be ready for it, otherwise you feel very tired. But by and by when the body adjusts to it, your muscles get the tone and the shape and the strength. Then it is a simple thing and you can walk for miles with tremendous joy. You don't think about the body at all then. In fact if you know how to walk, you can completely forget the body.

You can almost fly... you become weightless. And the same happens with all sorts of new trainings.

And this meditation is a training on many levels. First the body level; it has to change the musculature - particularly the breathing musculature which is the most important and which has much to do with your mind and the mind structure. Then it has to change your armour that you carry around your body - a very subtle armour, protective, defensive. And that is the hardest part because you have completely forgotten that it is there.

... It is there, but it will go. Don't be worried.

Then the mind structure.... Much repression is there that has to be brought out. The whole mind has to be stirred from the conscious, subconscious to the very unconscious - and even beyond that.

Everything has to be stirred, thrown out and cleaned. It is a house which has not been cleaned for millennia. Much dust has gathered, and when you start cleaning it, it is arduous. But once you have cleaned it, it becomes a temple. This very body becomes a temple. This very mind becomes a vehicle for no-mind. And then there are still deeper layers which have to be changed.

So the whole pattern is going to be arduous. But it pays, it pays tremendously; the pay-off is very great. Continue it, and continue these two meditations - the dancing and the humming.

[The new sannyasin said he was a psychologist and therapist running encounter-type groups in a mental hospital and also privately.]

It is always good to help people. It is always good to work for their growth. That helps your growth, because whatsoever you are doing, you become. And the best way to learn is to teach. The patient may be helped, may not be helped, but the therapist is always helped. In fact in a better world the therapists should pay the patient, because whereas it is not necessarily that the patient should be helped, the therapist is bound to get much out of it.

[The sannyasin says he wants to see some of India.]

Mm mm, first try to see me and then go and see india.

... You may not even need to go if you can see me. Because the india that you are going to see is already dead. It used to be - it is no more that. It is just a history and a past. Reading about india you are reading some myth which used to exist but has been long long dead. Reading about buddha or buddhism or the upanishads, one starts feeling very much for india, but what one finds is something totally different So it is good. First be here with me.. When you see something of the alive india, then you can go.

... then you can go and see the ruins.... Change to orange!

[Osho gives a sannyasin an 'energy darshan', after which the sannyasin said he had been feeling increasingly frustrated by the unending chatter of his mind.]

No, it is going well. It just takes time. We have cultivated the habit of continuously chattering for so long that it has become autonomous. Even when you are asleep, it goes on. You go on doing other things, it goes on. It has taken on its own autonomous status. So it takes a little time, but it goes.

And there is no hurry and no need to be impatient about it. Impatience destroys many things and makes things difficult. Go slowly, hurry slowly. There is eternity available.

In the west, time consciousness has become too much of a heaviness. So people are in a hurry because time is short and there are so many things to do. Time is running out and nothing is happening. That creates a tremor, a fever, a delirium.

The eastern attitude is far more beautiful and true. It is eternity. Time is not running out - it never runs out. You can go on patiently. There is no need to ask for anything instantly. That very asking creates anxiety. It never happens - and then more anxiety. Then you become more tense and more hurried, more rushing.

Take it easy... it will go. It has happened to me - why cannot it happen to you? There is no reason why. If it can happen to one single human being, it becomes a birthright of everybody else. It has happened to many people - you cannot be that exceptional!

[He answers: It does happen to me occasionally.]

Yes, that shows that it can happen more often, and it can become a permanent state of affairs. Just go very slowly, very calm and collected and quiet. Go in grace and grandeur. Slowly, slowly, the mind disappears. And it is good that it disappears very slowly, otherwise if it suddenly disappeared it would drive you mad. You don't know what you are asking. Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be good. Even if it were possible for me to stop your mind right now, I would not do it, because you would be completely lost. You would lose all your moorings. You would not know who you are and where you are.

It would almost be a death, and the shock would be too much; you would be shattered. No, it has to be taken in homeopathic doses, very minor doses. By and by one has to acclimatise oneself for it.

That's why it happens naturally, very slowly. It happens just for a split second in the beginning... just a glimpse and it is gone. It was just there and then it is not. The moment you recognise it, it is gone.

It seems to be very very shy, feminine... an old type of lady, not modern at all. The moment you look at it, it hides itself. By and by it happens more and more. Sometimes the old lady sits by your side for many minutes. Then you will understand the wisdom of why it happens so easily, so slowly and in so minute doses.

That's the way you absorb it. Your capacity to absorb grows, and then one day suddenly, the mind is gone, suddenly evaporates. But you are not shocked. You were ready for it, you were waiting for

it. The jump is not from one degree to one hundred degrees. The jump is from ninety-nine degrees to one hundred degrees. The jump is so close that it almost looks as if nothing has happened - and yet everything has happened.

Sometimes it has happened that the disciple has not realised that the mind is gone, and he keeps meditating. The master has to hit him over the head and say, 'What are you doing? It is finished.

For what are you waiting?' - just an old habit of meditating.

[A sannyasin says she is going through strong emotional ups and downs: I'm afraid to be by myself, afraid of being split.]

The fear is absolutely baseless, because ordinarily every human being is already divided. It is useless to fear about it - it has already happened!

If you really want to be afraid, you should be afraid of becoming one - because that is what is going to happen. Unity is going to happen. You are going to become one through all the meditations.

Integration is going to happen. So you can drop that fear - it is futile; not even worth considering. It is as if a person has died and then he is afraid of death. It has already happened.

Everybody is a split personality. The whole society is schizophrenic. This earth is a big madhouse and you are one of the most important inmates! (laughter) So there is no need to be worried about it. Now the whole thing is how to become one. Put your whole energy into it. Once you put your whole energy into becoming one, it is going to happen. That is the meaning of yoga. Yoga means to become one, integrated.

And the second thing: stop the humming meditation. Don't do it; it may not suit you. You need something vigorous, active, then your mind is working less. So put more energy into active meditations and use your body as much as you can. When the energy is flowing into the body, the mind doesn't get much energy and the chattering stops.

And the third thing: if you are afraid of being alone, then love, because there is no other way. If you don't want to be alone, only love can help, nothing else. You can be in a crowd - even that won't help you if there is not love. You can gather many persons around you, but if there is not love you will remain alone. Non-loving is the only loneliness there is.

So first meditate and become one, and second, love and drop this loneliness. There is no need.

Create friendships, mm? Good.

[Another sannyasin says: My ego plays so many tricks on me. I don't know where I am really.]

Don't fight with it. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the ego game but enjoy it consciously, that's all. Just make it aware, deliberate. When you see that the ego is playing a game, play it deliberately. Knowing well that it is ego, support it. Then it is no more your master. You have reduced it to being a servant. Do you understand me?

You are trying to fight. If you try to fight, you will become old, very very old - and you have to live long... many many days of many experiences. Don't become old. Don't be serious about it. Play the game - it is good.

... There is no need to fight - that is my fundamental message. No need to fight with anything, because the more you fight, the more you will become an egoist, because that fighter is the ego. So whatsoever you do, the ego will feed on it. I am saying don't do anything. Just enjoy the game and then it will drop by itself. You will enjoy it so much that it will be reduced to ridiculousness.

So for seven days, enjoy all sorts of ego games. If you can find a few disciples, become a master (laughter). Teach them a few things. Whether you know anything or not, that is not the point. And you will always find a few foolish people who can become disciples. Tell people that bhagwan has appointed you his special ambassador. Right?

And what games have you been playing with this ego?

[The sannyasin replies: Well, I tell myself I'm being centred when I know I'm just saying, 'I'm not an egoist.' And when I'm outgoing, I tell myself I'm flowing like a river.]

Just go on saying them. If you feel that you are outgoing and you say inside, 'I am centred,' good.

Say, 'I'm centred,' and if somebody even deeper inside says that you are playing games, say, 'Yes, I am playing games' (laughter). Do you follow me? Go on saying, 'Yes, that too is right.' Don't say no.

The ego feeds on no. Yes kills it utterly. Yes is the very poison for the ego. So accept. That is part of life. One has to play many games with the ego. One learns much through it.

For seven days, no problems for you. Drop all problems. If somebody touches your feet, just bless him! And deliberately enjoy it.