Darshan 19 August 1976

Anand means bliss, the ultimate state of consciousness when there is nothing to be blissful about...

just pure bliss, uncaused. That is the difference between bliss and happiness. Happiness needs a cause for it to exist. Bliss needs no cause. And when happiness needs a cause, it can create unhappiness, because the cause is always beyond you; you cannot do anything about it. If you are happy because you are with a man you love, unhappiness can settle any moment because it is impossible to control the other. If he moves to another woman, you will be unhappy. Even if he doesn't move to another woman and you force him to be with you but deep inside he is no more with you, then too you will be unhappy.

If your happiness depends on money, then it is not certain. You may have money today, you may not have it tomorrow. If your happiness depends on others' opinions, it is veN fragile because people's opinions are almost whimsical. They can appreciate you today like a goddess, and the next day they can kill you and burn you like a witch. They are not reliable.

So happiness is always shaking, trembling, and surrounded by unhappiness. Happiness can never be a state of fearlessness; the fear is always there. Any moment happiness can slip out of your hands. So when you are happy, then too you are not really happy because the fear is constantly there. When you are happy, just by the side, the shadow of unhappiness is standing. And you cannot avoid it, you cannot escape it, because it will always follow its natural course, and the natural course is another aspect of happiness itself. You cannot drop it. Bliss is not happiness in that sense.

It has no shadow to it.

In many mythologies of the world, they say that when a person becomes enlightened no shadow is created around him. It is true in a sense - not factually true, but symbolically true - in that he has no opposite to his being. He lives in non-duality.

Happiness is dual - always defined by unhappiness. That is the dilemma of the happy or the unhappy person, the ordinary person. If you are happy, still you are unhappy because you know that nothing is certain. When you are unhappy, you are unhappy. When you are happy, then too you are unhappy.

Bliss means a state of your inner nature not caused by anything from the outside - just your own being in its purity, uncaused, undefined, independent. Only then one is happy. Then one is eternally happy. So bliss or anand, is the ultimate state of a human being - the purest, where all the causes have been dropped and one has come to understand one's own nature, one's own tao.

And amba means the mother goddess. In the east the persian concept of god was of a mother.

The most ancient concept of god was that of a mother. And it seems to be more appropriate that god should be a mother rather than a father, because the father is something institutional; it is not natural.

There have been centuries where the father never existed. In primitive societies, if you go back five thousand years, the father was non-existential. Uncle is an older word than father. The uncle existed before the father; Ordinarily we think that this should be otherwise - that the father should exist first, only then can the uncle exist. But no; it actually happened the other way - the uncle came first.

All the people who could have been your father - and nobody knew who your father was - were all uncles. By and by one of them became fixed and was known, and the social structure defined him; he became the father. An uncle means maybe he is your father, maybe he is not.

So in many societies, in all the primitive societies, the father was not existential - and there is eveN possibility again of fathers disappearing from the world. Communists say that it will disappear when their communism has come to its perfect flowering, because they think the father is associated with private property. In a way it does have something to do with private property.

When everything is communal, the father has no meaning. The father came into being only with private property. He had his land and he had his money, his wife, his sons, daughters. If everything disappears - the money, the land - and everything becomes communal, then the father becomes meaningless. And if the society takes charge of the children, the whole function of the father is gone. But the mother will exist. The mother has always existed. The mother is eternal. The mother is natural. In animals the father doesn't exist, but the mother does.

So the concept of god as mother is beautiful. It is more natural, less social; more real, less ideological. And in a scientific way also, god is more like a womb in which we exist and are nourished.

The father is something external, he is something outside. The mother is internal. You are inside the mother, you are not inside the father. And when you are inside your mother, your mother remains inside you.

Now psychoanalysis has come to the same point from another dimension. It says that almost ninety- nine percent of problems are concerned with the mother. Patients go on talking about their mother.

Somehow the mother defines their being, even their patho-logy. Even in their obsessions, their fixations, their problems, their anxieties, the mother is a definitive force.

Amba is a name of god. Amba means mother. And the whole name will mean mother goddess of bliss. And two things you have to create in your being by and by: become more and more blissful -

just for no reason at all, just be blissful - and become more and more motherly. That's what I see in you will solve all your problems.

[The new sannyasin says she is concerned about screaming at her son. Osho asks her to give an example, and she replies: He comes up to his sister and he pinches her and she shrieks. It makes me nervous and so I scream at him to stop it.]

No, don't be worried about screaming - not at all. It is natural. Just one thing you have to remember - balance it by loving.

There are moments when one wants to scream - and the chil-dren understand that, because they themselves scream. That is really their language. If you are feeling boiling within and you don't scream, the child feels disturbed very much at what is happening, because it is beyond him to understand. He can feel.... Your very vibe is screaming and you are not screaming; you are even smiling, controlling. The child is disturbed very much by that because he feels the mother is cheating - and they never forgive cheating.

They are always ready to accept truth. Children are very very empirical, very earth4, down to earth.

They can accept your screaming because they also scream when they feel like that. They will feel a bridge between you and them if you scream. The only thing to be done is, don't feel guilty about it, otherwise your guilt will be disturbing. Your guilt will create problems for them. They will start feeling that they are the cause of your guilt; they are making you feel guilty. That will create guilt in them.

Guilt creates guilt.

So scream when you feel like it. The only thing to remember is to balance it by love. Then love also madly. When you are screaming at them, you have to love them also, just the same mad way. Hug them, dance with them. They will understand that their mother is wild, and they know that she loves them so she has the right to scream also. If you only scream and don't love them with intensity and passion, then there is a problem. So the problem does not arise out of screaming. It arises if you don't balance it by love.

So just go on balancing, that's all. And be true. If you feel like screaming, you feel like screaming.

What can you do? All that you can do is going to be a sort of repression. You can repress it, you can hold it in, but it will come out in indirect ways. And children cannot understand those indirect ways - they are not yet civilised. They don't know the language of repression. When they have done something wrong, they can understand that they are being beaten, but they cannot understand when they are doing something wrong and they have been caught and you smile. This simply puzles them.

It is so unnatural; they cannot believe it. The mother must be faking it, because they cannot do it, so how can you? And of course they are closer to nature than you and they understand nature more than you.

When a child comes and he has done something wrong, he comes ready to be beaten, slapped. If you don't slap him, his expectations are not fulfilled, he will be frustrated. If you hit him hard, nothing is wrong, only it should be warm. That hit should be warm, not cold - and there is a great difference between the two. A cold hit or a cold slapping comes only if you repress.

For example a child has done something and you have repressed your anger. This was the warm moment. If you had hit him, screamed at him, everything would have been warm and alive, but

you repressed it. Later when the child is not doing anything - six hours have passed and he has forgotten completely - you cannot forget; you have repressed it. Now the whole thing has gone cold.

Now you find some excuse: 'You have not done your homework! Where is your homework!' Now this is cold and you are taking revenge - and you will take revenge otherwise it will hang around you.

You have to do something otherwise you will not be able to get rid of it.

You find some rational excuse. Screaming was very irrational, but natural. You will find some unnatural but rational excuse - that he has not done his homework or his clothes are dirty or he has not taken a shower today. Now you are angry but your anger is cold. You may get rid of it; that too will be ugly. It is just like eating cold food - it takes long to digest; it becomes heavy on the stomach.

The child cannot understand; it is almost impossible. He has not done anything. He was not expecting this and he has completely forgotten what happened six hours ago. He never carries any memory that long. Then a distrust arises because he thinks the mother is somehow totally different from him. When he has done something wrong, she smiles. And when he has not done anything wrong, she is ready to slap him or scream. And a cold scream is heartless.

So be warm. They are your children, you are their mother. You have to be in a natural, flowing relationship. Don't listen to what psychologists go on talking about - fifty percent of it is almost rubbish. They have destroyed many beautiful things in the world. Now mothers and fathers are reading their manuals on how to behave with their children. What foolishness! One simply knows...

by being a mother you know how to behave. No need to learn from anybody. Just be natural.

These manuals are all to be burned. Listen to nature. You are a mother so you know. No cat goes and consults any manual on how to catch rats. She simply jumps and catches. She is a cat - that's enough! No certificate is needed, no counsellors are needed. You are a mother - finished! Your mother nature will take care. Just be natural, and always balance. If you are natural it will balance itself. And I am saying it only so you don't forget it. Otherwise there is a possibility that you can scream and be natural and you may not love them.

And love is not something only in the mind - that you think you love them. Do something - just as you scream. A scream is a physical thing. Sometimes sing and dance also because you have such a beautiful child. Then there is no problem. Sometimes hug him, take him close... Let him feel your body and feel his body. He is part of your body. He needs your warmth. Sometimes take his hand and run around the house... go swimming. Sometimes take him in the shower and stand naked, both stand naked, under the shower, and then he'll understand perfectly well that his mother is natural; whatsoever she does is right. I don't see that there is any problem. Good.

[A sannyasin returning to france, handed bhagwan a letter in which he described a dream he had had recently.... ]

The dream has nothing in it to be disturbed about That type of dream comes to people after meditation because meditation brings a state of mind where death seems probable. It is indicative that your meditation has gone deeper, has penetrated you.

The first glimpse of meditation is always of death, so the dream is simply enacting your death. And this is very beautiful because you felt in your dream that on one hand you were being pursued by

people who wanted to kill you, and on the other hand you felt you were not the person who was going to be killed.

This is what is going to happen in deepest meditation. You will die and yet you will not die. On one hand you will die, and on another you will be reborn. It will be a crucifixion and a resurrection.

Feel happy about it - the dream is beautiful. And I say so because it may come again. In different shapes, in different forms, the dream will come. But the essence will always be the same - that you are trying to escape from death, and death is pursuing you. The feeling that you are the pursued and yet not the pursued will come deeper and deeper.

[A sannyasin couple, leaving for the states, said they were both continually fighting with each other.

He said it was over just little things and sometimes they were able to pull themselves out of it, but it was still happening frequently.

Osho said that what men considered small things were, to women, issues of much importance, because a woman's whole orientation to the world is completely different to that of a man. To a woman, the home and the neighbourhood means more than wars in distant countries.... ]

... what you call little things are not little for her, they are very important. What are important things for you are just irrelevant for her. In fact a woman knows that they are foolish things. Why be worried about what is happening in tibet? What is the point of it all? The neighbourhood is enough. She does not have that big a compass. But this is natural. It is complementary. The man can look outside into the world, the woman can look inside to the house. If nobody is there to look to the house, then you will know that those little things are not little things.

If you don't have food one day, then you will forget about tibet and you will forget about religion. If every day the same rotten vegetables are given to you, you will forget all about the third world war, and then you will see that these things are important. But somebody is taking care of them so you can roam far and wide.

But things that are important for the woman should not be thought of as little, otherwise that very thing creates conflict. Hence I say that the responsibility is more for you to let her have her own way for things you call little. And one thing is certain - she will never argue with you about great things. You can go on deciding whether god has four or three heads; a woman is not worried. You can go on deciding whether twelve angels can stand on the point of one needle or twelve hundred.

She gives you that total freedom to decide for yourself. But she wants total freedom to decide about small things, so completely surrender to her about those.

And you love each other, so by and by drop all nonsense, because that becomes a jarring note.

It poisons a relationship. Why? You can be so happy, so immensely happy. Why destroy such beautiful experiences for things which don't count in the end? You cannot even remember after one month what the point was about which you were fighting.

Simply relax and then you will feel good, because when there is no conflict, you have more energy to work, more energy to meditate, more energy to love. And you are more quiet and calm and collected.

If something goes on between you and your lover, that disturbs everything else. It becomes a constant background noise. So you may be doing something else, but you are never totally in it, because somewhere deep down that fight continues.

[A sannyasin leaving, said that here she had found something she was looking for and she was afraid of losing it when she returned to france.]

Don't be afraid at all. That little understanding that has happened to you is going to be a constant force in you. It is a small flame right now, but it will become bigger and bigger every day. It is like a seed. It has sprouted. The plant is very small but it will grow and will become a big tree. I can already see it - like a big tree with many fruits and flowers and many people will be able to sit under its shade and take rest.

No need to be afraid. I understand - the fear comes naturally. It comes naturally because now you have something to lose, hence the fear. It is as if a poor man has suddenly found a diamond. Just a moment before he was completely unafraid because he had nothing to lose. But now he is trembling because he can be robbed. So take more care to Protect and water the understanding that has happened to you. It is very small but with great potential.

And that too is true - that going to the west is going to a totally different atmosphere. But my experience is that a totally different atmosphere gives you challenge. It always helps awareness. It is as if one writes on a blackboard with white chalk. Here you are writing in white chalk on a white wall. In the west it will be a blackboard completely opposite to it. But there is no need to be worried about it. It will enhance your being. It will define you more clearly... it will give you tone and shape and sharpness. And I am coming with you. Come back as soon as possible. I will be waiting....

[An older sannyasin, recently arrived from america, says: I'm aware of great anger sometimes for not much reason. It passes over very quickly, but I was not aware of it before. Perhaps I always had it.... ]

No, it happens after a certain age that polarities change. It is a very subtle process.

Every man has a woman in the unconscious, and every woman has a man in the unconscious.

Consciously you are a woman so you use your woman faculties, but the more you use them, the more exhausted they are. And the unused unconscious remains unexhausted, remains very young and fresh. When the woman part has been used too much, by and by it becomes weaker. And then a moment comes when it is so weak that the unconscious part becomes stronger than it.

In the beginning it was the stronger part - that's why you were a woman. For example you were seventy percent woman, thirty percent man. The thirty percent was repressed by the seventy percent woman in the unconscious. Continuous use of the woman makes this weaker and weaker and weaker. A moment comes when it fans below thirty percent. Then suddenly the wheel turns and the stronger part takes over. It becomes very strong, and you are surprised because you never knew about it. And the same happens to men. Men become feminine as they grow older.

Somewhere near about the age of forty-nine, at the age of menopause, the balance in woman starts changing. Once monthly periods stop, the balance starts changing. Sooner or later one finds a very new being coming in... strange. One is puzled, confused, because one does not know how to live with this stranger. This stranger has always been there, but it has always been in the basement. It was never part of your household affairs; it has never come up. Now suddenly it comes out of the basement. Not only that - it sits in the drawing room and tries to possess everything. And it is more powerful.

So the only thing is to accept it, watch it; don't fight with it. Don't try to repress it. You cannot repress it now. Just become more and more aware of it, and this awareness will bring a totally new attitude.

You will know that you are neither man nor woman. It was also a role to be a woman. Now it is superceded by another role; the rejected part has overcome it. The conquered part has become the conqueror now. But you are neither - that's why this game is possible.

If you were really a woman, the man cannot take possession of you. You were neither woman nor man. One day it was the woman part which was more powerful; it played the role. Now the other part is trying to play the role. All old women become very masculine. That's why mothers-in-law are very dangerous, because they are no more feminine.

It is a natural thing that happens. Nothing can be done about it. You only have to be aware. You have to watch and stand aloof and see the whole game. Then a third entity which is neither, becomes clear - that you are just a witnessing self, a witnessing soul.

Man is in the body, woman is in the body. The mind follows shadows, reflections. Deeper in your core, in the very core of your being, you are neither - neither man nor woman. Now that point has to be understood. Once that is understood you can laugh at the whole thing. And once that is understood, the whole power of anger, of hardness, will disappear. You will never become a woman, but you will not be a man either. You will become totally different.

And this is what one really is. This is what religions call transcendence, surpassing. And man is the only animal who is capable of surpassing himself. That's his beauty - that he can surpass man, woman, this role, that role, good, bad, moral, immoral. He can surpass all, and come to a point where he is only pure consciousness, just a watcher on the hill. So don't be worried about it - just watch it.

Worrying and getting entangled in it will create much trouble. And as far as I can see, you are looking perfect4 beautiful. Just be happy!

[A french seeker described an experience during dynamic meditation of feeling like a snake and seeing a big eye when he closed his eyes.]

There is nothing to be worried about. The snake is just a symbol of your inner energy that we call kundalini. Both are very beautiful symbols - the eye and the snake.

The snake is your energy that rises in your spine and comes upwards. When it comes up to just between your two eyes, a third eye is generated by it. That is the symbol of the third eye that you saw. Both are beautiful. Both are tremendously significant. You should be glad about it. It rarely happens and so early.

[The seeker then asks: Is it not contradictory to have this kind of experience and to want, at the same time, to be more creative?]

No, not contradictory at all. In fact both are two aspects of the same energy. If your meditative energy is against creativity, then it is not really meditative. With meditation, creativity grows automatically.

and what about sannyas? Feeling some hesitation?...

Your snake will need it! If you are courageous, I am ready. Ready? Close your eyes - because these snakes are very dangerous!

Come here.... Now I will take care of your snake. This will be your name: swami deva nalin.

Deva means divine and nalin means lotus, lotus flower; a divine lotus. That's what the snake is trying to find out - where the lotus is. The lotus is the last chakra, the seventh centre of consciousness.

We call it sahasrar - a one-thousand-petalled lotus.

Ordinarily it is hanging this way...(bhagwan holds his hand palm downwards, fingers hanging down) upside down, petals downwards. When the snake rises, it hits it, and that hit turns it upward, and then the lotus flowers. This is the ultimate experience - the turning of the lotus. When the lotus is upside down, the energy moves downwards. A man remains sexual, and because the door is closed, the energy can only move downwards. When the snake comes with tremendous force, in the very flood of its energy the lotus turns up. And that is the moment of transformation. Then energy starts going up; it cannot go down. Down is the world, and this lotus up is the other world, the other shore. And the difference is not very much - it is just the lotus upside down or downside up.

[A sannyasin says: Meditation is coming but not as strong as I would like it to come.]

It is never the way you like it, never. One has to learn to like it the way it is. If you have expectations that it should come stronger, you will feel frustrated. Whatsoever happens, you will feel frustrated because your expectations can always be more than is possible in the moment.

Expectation is very imaginary. We go on expecting when we don't know what is really possible; it is just dream work. That which is going to happen will happen according to your capacity, not accord-ing to your expectation. Do you understand me? So whatsoever happens, one has to be thankful that it has happened. By that thank-fulness your capacity will grow more - and more will happen. But it cannot happen just by your expecting it. Expectations can go to the very end of the world There is no problem, but the problem is of capacity.

One can think to love all the women of the world, but can you? That's the problem The capacity is limited. Even one woman is more than enough. One can think to eat all that is possible in the world, but can you? A little food is enough. More than that becomes poisonous.

[The sannyasin adds: My only woman is not here; that creates a problem.]

Try to bring her here. She will need me now, otherwise it will be difficult with my sannyasin, [you].

First I change one partner and then the other has to be changed. So I Will use you as a base. Tell her to come.

If you love her, wherever you are, you love. And love is always helpful. It needs no physical presence.

If you love, love grows much in absence.

So just meditate and be loving. And things are going well. Don't be worried about your expectations.

Drop all your expectations. Whatsoever happens, love it and feel grateful for it. Never expect more

- and more will happen. If you expect more, then even this much will not happen. Even this much will be taken away.

Everything is going well. It is going according to my expectations, not according to yours!

[A sannyasin says she has been successful in life, but regrets that in her business she cannot be open and authentic and loving.]

... Go there, and whatsoever you have been doing, continue to do; don't change it at all. The change has to be made in the attitude, not in the work. Up to now you were thinking that it was life. From now on think of it as acting; that's the only change. Go on saying the same things you were saying to people before; whatsoever they expect, go on saying. Do it even more nicely and beautifully because it is just acting.

To be authentic does not mean that you have to be rude to people. To be authentic does not mean that you have to be ugly and nude in the marketplace. To be authentic simply means that you know what is acting and what is real... that you are not deceived by your acting, that's all. So don't be deceived by your acting. Do it deliberately - don't do it unconsciously. Up to now you have been doing it unconsciously because you were thinking this is life. Now you know that this is not life.

So live your life in your inner world and for the outside.... For example when you are talking to children, you talk in their language. It is not inauthentic. It is simply a consideration - that they are children and they will not understand any other language. If you go to a child, you take a toy to him as a gift. You don't take a very serious book to give him. You take a pictorial book that he can enjoy.

It is a consideration.

When you are working in the world, you have to consider a thousand and one things. Nothing is wrong in that. Just be an actor and think of the world as a big drama. It is a very big stage where everybody is playing roles.

When you go to germany and you start working and you smile when somebody comes - you receive him and you smile - do it deliberately, do it perfectly, because when one is doing it deliberately, one can do it more perfectly than ever. Really give him a good smile - as he has never had before.

When you are giving it and it is just a smile, why be miserly? And you know that it is not coming from the heart, but who is saying that it should come from the heart? All smiles are not needed from the heart. Knowing that it is just on the lips, make it as perfect as possible.

That person is not here to see your heart. The face is enough for him. So what is the point of putting your heart on the table before him? Do it deliberately, so that when you are putting your heart before somebody, you know that it is true, the authentic. It is no more part of the business world. You are not smiling as a commod-ity. And you will know - you have to know what is acting and what is real.

When the real is needed, be real. When acting is needed, act. And there is no need to get confused, otherwise you will miss your whole life.

I am not here to mess up anybody's life. I am only here to help you to become more skilful. If you are a thief, I say do it with full awareness and consciousness. If your awareness changes it, I am not responsible for it. If by awareness you cannot remain a thief, it is for you to choose. Just choose

awareness or choose your old way of sleep. But I am not here to say don't be a thief. Who am I?

Why should I?

I am simply saying one thing - be aware. And when you become aware, many things which are really harmful will drop. And many things which are just politenesses, mannerisms, which are not harmful at all.... In fact they are very helpful. They function as a lubricating agent, otherwise you will be struggling with everybody and life will become just a constant war.

You have walked on somebody's toe and you say, 'Sorry.' You don't mean it - not even a single thought has crossed your mind of being sorry. You simply say, 'Sorry.' It is lubricating. He also knows that because he himself is doing the same. But where so many people are walking on each other's toes, a few mannerisms will be needed. You are not alone. And it is good to learn the mannerisms - but do it deliberately.

Act authentically - that's what I would like to say to you. When acting, act authentically, that's all.