Darshan 14 March 1978
[Osho gives sannyas to someone.]
Come here! Close your eyes. Just listen to the sounds, all the sounds - the flute, the dog barking - and if something starts happening in your body, any shaking, trembling, swaying, go with it. If your breathing changes, you allow it. Listen....
Chandra means the moon. The moon represents a few things. It represents the feminine, the soft, the poetic, and one has to move towards the feminine, towards the soft, towards the poetic.
To live outside oneself, logic is enough, arithmetic is enough. To live outside oneself one needs to be hard, violent, aggressive, one needs to be competitive, cruel, cunning; but to go inside just the opposite is needed. Logic is a barrier there, and hardness of being won't allow you to go in. One has to become soft, one has to melt; one has to disappear as a rock and become a flower. Only the flowers become enlightened, only the flowers come to know what life is all about. The rocks on,!y struggle but they never arrive, and the flower has already arrived.
[She has booked for the Encounter group.]
It will be helpful. And then just meditate and do the Sufi dancing. Sing and dance, and be here, mm? - things will happen just by being here. And whenever you can manage, do a few more groups, otherwise there is not such a necessity.
Rikta means zero, emptiness, nothingness. One has to disappear utterly then the space is created for god to be. We are the barrier, we have to die. If we live, god is dead; if we die, god becomes alive.
You must have heard Friedrich Nietzsche's famous statement 'God is dead.' And it was perfectly true for Nietzsche. He was an egoistic philosopher; god was certainly dead for him. As far as he was concerned he was stating a truth, it was his truth: 'god is dead'. If you are too much then god is dead, because there is no space left for god to be. If you die god starts becoming alive, god starts breathing again. Both cannot exist together, and that's what the human mind wants to happen.
That is not possible, it is not in the very nature of things.
It is as if you want the darkness and the light to exist together in your room. You would like the beauties of darkness and the light both together, simultaneously... the silence of darkness, the infinity, the velvety touch, and the light, the fearlessness that happens in light, the sharpness and clarity. You would like both to exist together but that is not possible, because darkness is only the absence of light, so light cannot be both present and absent together. Either light is present then darkness is not, or light is absent then darkness is.
So is the case with man and god; god and man never meet, they can't meet. You cannot see god.
You are the only barrier in seeing; when you are not there god is seen. When there is no seer then god is seen; when there is nobody left to be enlightened in you, enlightenment is. That state of space is called rikta.
Gather courage to disappear, to evaporate. And all that I can do for you is just help towards disappearing.
[The new sannyasin asks what kind of work she should do - she has tried many things but found none satisfactory.]
Then do one thing: just finish things there and come here! Then I will teach you what to do, mm?
We have to bring the whole of Germany here; just come! My feeling is that nothing will satisfy you.
All things that you have been doing or all that you will do, will be the same. You don't need different work but a different being. You don't need a different object to work upon, you need a different perspective to see things.
You can go on changing work but every kind of work has its limitations and its bondages. You can't find anything that has no bondages... even art. If you do non-commercial art then the problem arises of how to sell it. If you can't sell it, you starve; if you starve you can't paint. If you want to sell it you have to think of the consumer; then you have to paint something that he needs, not that which you would like to paint - so again the same thing.
This whole world is involved in one game only. You can go on changing your roles but the game remains the same, the pattern remains the same. You would like to teach children, you would like to enjoy teaching them, but their parents are there, the education system is there and they can't allow you freedom because they are interested in their children's future. They are not worried about you, you are just a servant; you have to do the job that their parents want to be done. You may not like it, you may think it even harmful to the children. You may think that this is going to destroy these children and you will certainly feel, 'I am being imprisoned - I cannot do that which I want.' But if you want to do that, nobody wants you to be a teacher there.
That's why I am planning to create a small alternative world of our own where limitations can be dropped and you can be allowed to do your thing, and still your thing can be respected, valued, used. So finish things and come here - I will give you a different perspective, mm? Good.
Sat means right, marga means path - right path. There are paths and paths; there are right paths and there are wrong paths. The right path goes through the heart and the wrong path only goes round and round in the head.
The wrong path continues and continues. It is a vicious circle: one thing leads to another and another and another; it is ad infinitum, there is no end to it. You never arrive. You are always frustrated, always hoping and always frustrated. Mm? the goal is always there just on the horizon.
It looks very close by: you feel just a few steps more or a few miles and you will have arrived. But as you proceed towards the goal, the goal goes on receding and the distance between you and the goal remains constantly the same. That's how people are living: somebody is searching for money and somebody is searching for power and respect and all those things, but one never arrives. One goes on and on and one dies before one arrives.
The right path is to jump out of this vicious circle, to jump out of the thinking process, to become a non-thinking energy, to fall into the heart, to escape from the imprisonment of logic into the freedom of love. Then suddenly things start working, things start happening. Life starts falling together and a unity and an integration arises and you start feeling centred. For the first time you are not hoping but living. And when the hope disappears, frustration disappears, because frustration is only a shadow, a lengthened shadow of hope. When there is no hope, the frustration has gone, then you live in the moment, you enjoy the small things of life. And the moment you enjoy them, they are no more small things; then the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Lived, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Lived totally, the world becomes god and this moment turns into eternity.
[The new sannyasin asks: How can I so concentrate that whatever is necessary I decide to do?]
Just wait. Pass through a few groups, mm? and then you will have a better understanding of exactly what your need is.
Concentration is never the need, but people have been taught that it is. What actually is needed is awareness, not concentration, and they are different phenomena. Concentration is a tense effort; you have to force yourself. It is will against nature, and it is tiring, it is an unnecessary exertion and one never blooms out of it; it creates worry.
Awareness is a totally different phenomenon. It is spontaneous; it is not through will but through understanding. By seeing life in a more clear-cut way one starts becoming more alert, more aware.
When one is more aware, one can do all that is needed and without any tension. If sometimes it is needed to pour your whole energy into one thing you can, but there is no forced effort in it. Because there is no forced effort you never feel tired. It doesn't create any worry, it doesn't create any mental pathologies.
It is concentration that has created all kinds of neurosis in the world. We don't need concentration, we need meditation, and they are different worlds. Concentration focuses on something outside and meditation is simply a relaxed consciousness inside; it is not objective, it is subjective.
Just wait: participate in meditations, do a few groups. I will give you certain groups which will make you more alert and then when you have finished a few groups remind me again. Then your question will have changed. It is a wrong question. I cannot answer it because any answer will be wrong. You are asking something which if answered will create trouble for you, it won't help.
Just wait a little more. Good.
Prem means love, ahimsa means non-injuring. It is one of the greatest findings of the Eastern mystics, the importance of not injuring anybody. The man who emphasised it the most was Mahavira; it became his basic fundamental message. But his followers went to the extreme and destroyed the whole teaching.
The teaching was not to injure; it was not only meant that you were not to injure others, you were included in it: you were not to injure yourself either. But what the disciples did was to think that they were not to injure anybody, so they stopped injuring everybody and started injuring themselves; that was easier. The violence turns upon oneself, the sadist becomes the masochist, but nothing basically changes. You were angry with others, now you are angry with yourself; you were trying to dominate others, now you are trying to dominate yourself. You wanted to kill others, now you are committing suicide, a slow kind of suicide.
For twenty-five centuries in India the followers of Mahavira have been doing that: injuring themselves. So the whole teaching went down the drain. And that's a natural possibility. If one is violent and tries not to be violent, then where will the violence go? It has to have some outlet; it turns upon oneself.
Ahimsa simply means reverence for life; you are included in it. I always emphasise that you are included in it because that fallacy has been committed once; it should not become committed again.
You have not only to love others, you have to love yourself; in fact you have to love yourself first, only then can you love others. That reverence for life has to become reverence for yourself, then it will become reverence for others.
[A sannyas has just returned from the west, where she was able to be with her mother when she died: I think I helped her and it was an experience for me.]
Good. Death is always a great experience if we allow it. If we don't close ourselves to it, it is one of the greatest experiences in life. But people are so afraid of death that they simply close themselves, they don't live it. And when a person like a mother dies it is a really incredible experience; because your life started with your mother, now she is dying.
The death of your mother can go to the very foundation of your being. It can help you to be disillusioned. It can open up new doors of being. It can make you aware that time is death, that only eternity is life and one has to search and seek for the eternal. Time is just an opportunity to seek the eternal. If we become too engaged in temporal things we are missing the opportunity, and sooner or later death will come. And the opportunity lost cannot be recovered.
If you can be available to some beloved's death you will start falling into deep silence, into deep meditation. And you will not be disturbed by trivia. If one is not disturbed by death then one is not disturbed by anything else; that is the criterion. If you can pass through the experience of death, unscathed, unscarred, then something of a valuable insight has arisen in you. It was good that you went.
[At a previous darshan a sannyasin, who was crippled by polio four years ago, said he disliked the constant attention his disability received. Osho suggested he wear a sign 'I am crippled. Please don't ask me about my leg. Thank you!'
Tonight he said it helped him to accept his situation, but he still feels frustrated; he wants to dance totally.]
Be a total cripple! - that's what totality should mean to you. Just accept it and enjoy it.
[The sannyasin asks: Will it become better?]
Yes, it will. If you can accept it and enjoy it, it will start changing. The rejection of anything is always a barrier to change; you create a division between you and your leg. Somehow you are ashamed of it, somehow you don't like it the way it is, you don't respect it, and it is only respect that will change the situation.
Feel grateful: at least you have the leg; there are people who don't have legs! Nothing is wrong in it, there is nothing to be worried about; it is just comparison. Just think of a world where all are crippled and one man is born who is not crippled. He will be in the same position as you are, because then dancing with all the crippled people, he will think, 'I am not dancing as totally as they are. I am not totally in my crippledness because I am not crippled.' It is just comparison.
One can transform any situation by looking at it positively. So simply accept it; this is the way god wants you to be. Now why not be a perfect cripple? Do you think that if you were not crippled problems wouldn't be there? Then why are there so many people here not crippled but still having problems?
It is good that you only have a crippled leg; people have crippled minds, crippled hearts. You have a very small problem. Don't fuss about it too much, mm? - just forget about it; accept and forget.
Do whatsoever you can do, and within your limits be total. You can't have somebody else as your criterion. Somebody is a fast runner and you cannot run; even if you are not crippled, you are not an Olympic runner. But nobody bothers about it; why should one bother? Whatsoever the given situation, make the most out of it, and you will be surprised that if you can make the most out of it, everything that can happen to a man, will happen.
Simply forget about it. But respectfully forget about it, mm? - not that you keep it at the back just to avoid it, you keep yourself occupied with something else. That is not respect. Respectfully, mm?
- be loving to the leg: massage it, play with it. Just give some enthusiasm to the leg and say to it, 'Don't be worried. I am not worried - why are you worried? Everything is perfectly okay!' Things will start changing, energy will start moving more.
[A sannyasin asks about the meaning of his name.]
I have also forgotten the meaning. Really, I'm not joking! Just remind me of what I told you. Try!
Just see my problem: you have only one name and I have fifty thousand names to remember. And when I give a name I create the meaning. Just remind me a little bit. Mm? You don't remember at all? You remember little bits. Just remind me a little bit then I will come to it. Close your eyes and remember....
In Sanskrit one word can mean many things, that's the problem. A single word can have twelve meanings and many nuances to it, and sometimes all very different from each other. That is the beauty of Sanskrit; it is a very poetic language. I don't think that there is any other language which can be compared to Sanskrit as far as poetry is concerned. And the poetry is possible because it is a very loose language. You can change the meaning very easily, you can create new flavours in the meaning, very easily.
So when I give you a name you have to remember it! Otherwise next time you ask me, I may give you another meaning of it and that will be more confusing.