Darshan 23 September 1977

[A sannyasin asks how to make his hobby of painting a meditation.]

Art is meditation. Any activity becomes meditation if you are lost in it. So don't just remain a technician. If you are just a technician then painting will never become meditation. You have to be crazily into it, madly into it, completely lost, not knowing where you are going, not knowing what you are doing, not knowing who you are. This state of not-knowing will bring meditation.

Let it happen. The painting should not be painted but only allowed to happen. And I don't mean that you just remain lazy - no; then it will never happen. It has to ride on you. You have to be very very active and yet not doing it. That is the whole knack, that is the whole crux of it: you have to be active and yet not a doer. You allow your activity to be possessed by something that is beyond you.

You have seen a sunset. It is there in you and it wants to be expressed. Whenever there is a great experience, either of beauty or of truth or of love, it is followed by a deep desire to express it. That desire to express it is part of it, intrinsic to it, built-in. You have seen a sunset and you are full of it.

The dream of it is surrounding you. It is there inside you - all those colours and all those nuances of the clouds and the wind and the birds and the sand. All are there and they want to be expressed.

So you become available.

Go to the canvas. For a few minutes just meditate. Just sit silently there before the canvas. It has to be like automatic writing: you take the pen in your hand and you sit silently and suddenly you find a jerk in the hand. It is not that you have done it - you know that you have not done it. You were simply waiting for it; the jerk comes and the hand starts moving. Something starts happening.

One is surprised in automatic handwriting. One cannot believe that this is your hand doing things and you are not doing at all. It is moving on its own, as if it has its own being and spirit. You are

possessed by the whole, or call it your unconscious or call it anything; those are just names. But your tiny conscious mind is no more alone. Something bigger than it has taken possession, has become more powerful. The conscious mind is only an instrument to it, whatsoever it is - god, the mystics call it god, or nature, or the psychologists call it the unconscious. 'It' has possessed you - something nameless.

That way you should start your painting. A few minutes for meditation - just being available.

Whatsoever is going to happen you will allow to happen. You will bring all your expertise into letting it happen. Take the brush and start. Go slowly in the beginning so that you don't bring yourself in.

Just go slowly. Let the sunset start flowing through you of its own accord and then be lost in it.

And don't think of anything else. Art has to be for art's sake, then it is meditation. No motive should be allowed to enter into it. And I am not saying that you are not going to exhibit it. That's perfectly okay, but that is a by-product; that is not the motive. One needs food so one sells the painting, but it hurts that one sells it. It is almost like selling your child, but one needs to so it is okay. You feel sad, but it was not the motive; you had not painted it to sell. It has been sold - that's another thing - but the motive was not there. Otherwise you will remain a technician.

And that is the difference between a technician and an artist: the artist is a meditator and the technician is not. The technician has to concentrate on what he is doing, and the meditator, the artist, has to be lost in it. There is no concentration; there is nobody to concentrate. There is great joy if you can be lost into your painting. It will be sold, it will be appreciated, it will be exhibited. That is another thing; that is just a by-product.

And the second thing that you asked.... You should get lost. Forget about the first idea; you should get lost. You need not remain there. You should completely disappear into your painting, into you dance, into breathing, into singing. In whatsoever you are doing you should be lost completely, in uncontrol.

We are very much afraid of uncontrol because it looks like madness. And this world is so mad that if you really become sane, you will look mad to people.

The case of Claude Eatherly is revealing. He had been chosen to give the signal for dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima. At the time he didn't know what he was doing. On learning the consequences he was horrified. As an act of expiation he joined civil disobedience groups, calling attention to the atrocities of thermonuclear weapons. This the authorities were not prepared to brook. Soon a medical board of remarkable patriotic psychiatrists declared him to be mad. The moral is simple: in our world one must be mad to be human.

Now, this man was becoming sane - and this society cannot allow that! The moral is clear - that if you want to become sane you have to be ready to be insane. If you want to become human you will have to suffer madness.

So there is a fear of uncontrol. If you uncontrol yourself then you don't know where you are going and what is going to happen. Will you ever be able to come back to your old status quo? - nobody knows. One may go so far that one may not be able to come back. So we don't uncontrol ourselves; we go on keeping control.

This control will never allow you to become a great artist. The artist has to be mad in that way. Hc has to go whole-heartedly into the unknown, wherever it leads. He has to risk his neck.

It will become meditation. So these two things... but it is one thing in fact: whatsoever you do, get lost ! And much is going to happen....

Come for a longer time. And next time you come, start painting here and something new will happen that has never happened before. Be around me and paint so I can paint through you. Next time bring your things, mm?

[A seeker says he wants to take sannyas only when he feels total about it.]

You are asking the impossible. You cannot be total right now - whole body and mind - in anything.

If you decide that, you cannot do anything. You cannot even move, you cannot utter a single word.

If you decide that you will utter the word only when you are whole and total in it - body, mind, all - you will not be able to do a single movement in life. Because how can you be total right now?

Totality comes through sannyas. Sannyas cannot come through totality.

[The seeker asks: So do you mean that it's possible to take sannyas in spite of doubts.]

That is the only possibility! Everybody has doubts. How can you trust right now without any experience? Trust comes by and by. When you experience, you go a little more in. You start feeling me more and your heart opens a little more; the trust grows. Doubts are natural, nothing is wrong about them. One is simply cautious; that's what doubt is. And it is very good because doubt prevents you from moving into many wrong directions; otherwise you will be going anywhere.

Doubt is not bad, and one has to go into sannyas with doubts. The only thing to decide is whether your desire to take sannyas is more or your desire not to take sannyas is more. Only that has to be decided. If you think that sixty percent you would like to become a sannyasin, then become. If you think that only forty percent wants to become a sannyasin, then wait.

Totality should not be demanded - only the majority of your being, that's enough. That is humanly possible. If you become total you will become enlightened! There will be no need then for sannyas, because a person who can do a single act totally will become enlightened. A single act is enough.

So if you are waiting for totality, you will have to wait forever; it will never happen.

Ask that which is possible... and humanly possible. Don't be too inhuman about yourself and don't make great ideals of totality, perfection, absoluteness. That is a trick of the mind to avoid.

If a man thinks that he will only love a woman when he loves totally, he will never love. Just think of it - that you will love a woman only when you love totally. Will you ever be able to love a woman? It will be impossible! Yes, total love is possible, but that is possible only when you start loving a woman and you become more and more intimate and things start growing and flowing. You come closer and closer and closer and fears drop. You know that you have found the right person for you - that you are only two bodies, one being. But that comes very slowly, slowly.

You will not hear even the sound of the footsteps, it comes so silently and so slowly. But one day suddenly it is there: you know that you love totally. But that is a very much later stage. If you ask for it in the beginning as a first step, then you cannot love; you cannot do anything!

If a poet thinks that he will write his first poem only when he can write totally, then no poem will ever happen. But if he starts writing... And in the beginning great poems are not going to happen. Slowly, slowly, he will move into deeper realms of poetry, and one day he may create something which is really perfect, which lacks nothing, which has no flaw. But that is a whole life's effort, dedication, a whole life's work. One has to pay for it!

So think about only one thing - that should be the decisive thing: if the major part of your mind wants to take sannyas, then go in spite of the doubts. If the major part doubts, then wait.

Come close and close your eyes and just listen to the heart. Just go there near the heart. Stand there and listen to the heart beat. Visualise a flower, a rose flower, in the heart. The flower is opening - open with it! The flower is swaying in the wind and you sway with it. Become the flower.

Let your heart become the flower....

Anand means bliss and gulab means rose - a blissful rose flower. Meditate on the rose flower as much as you can. Whenever you see a rose flower, sit by the side; have a little dialogue with the flower. First see the flower then close your eyes; see the flower in the heart. Visualise the heart opening like a rose flower. Soon it will become a great meditation for you and you will start opening with it. When you feel the opening of the heart there will be great joy.

[A sannyasin says all her life she has been looking for a place where she belongs and she is unsure if this is it. Osho checks her energy.]

I can understand. There are no obstacles and this is where you belong, but if you have been looking for your whole life, then looking for it becomes a habit. Even when you have found it you go on looking; that's what is happening....

The energy is perfectly right. Just an old habit; you will have to learn to unlearn it. It happens to many people. It happens in many ways. A poor man suddenly becomes rich, by heritage or he wins a lottery or something. He becomes rich but his habit is that of being poor. He has everything but he cannot enjoy, he cannot spend a single pai. That's why there are so many misers in the world.

A miser is a man who has lived in a poor way and now has become rich, but the habit of being poor continues. That's the whole psychology of the miser. A man has lived alone for many years then he finds a lover but he remains alone. The bridge does not happen. He has become frozen in his aloneness, he cannot melt.

You have been looking too long so your eyes have become fixed on some faraway point. Because whatsoever we are looking for cannot be here, otherwise why should we look for it? When we look for something we always look far away - the distant star - so our eyes become focused. You become far-sighted but you lose the near-sight. You can always look at a star which is far away.

I am very close and whatsoever is available here is just around you - not only without, but within you - but it is too close. That's why you can go on missing it.

Relax your eyes. There is no need to look for anywhere now. You have come home. This you will have to remind yourself of a little bit ....

[A sannyasin asks for guidance on how to be choiceless where important decisions are needed.]

There is some subtle problem, and it comes to everybody who wants to remain choiceless. But there is a misunderstanding, that's why the problem. Choicelessness does not mean that you will not have to choose. In life, in practical things, you will have to choose, you will have to decide. If you want to go somewhere you will have to decide whether to go by car or by plane or by train. And if you start calculating all the pros and cons, then by the time you decide you could have reached just by walking! It is sheer wastage. And you will have to decide - you cannot just leave it and you cannot remain choiceless. The practical thing will have to be decided.

About practical things when you are making decisions the only thing to be remembered is that they are trivia. Whether you go by train or by car or by plane does not matter really. So whatever you decide is okay; it doesn't matter. There is no need to ponder over it so much; anything will do.

But even when you choose there is no need to become too much attached to your choice - that's what choicelessness is. There is no need to become too much attached to the choice. If somebody else is going by car and you are going by train, you need not declare that you are right and he is wrong. That means you have become attached to the choice. You are thinking it is very very important or something; you are making too serious an affair of it.

And if you choose to go by car and later on you find that it would have been better to have gone by train, then too there is no need to feel repentance and guilt about why you didn't do that. By being choiceless it means that one has to choose, but one has to remain unattached... in practical things.

About things which are not practical you can remain choiceless. About things which are beyond you you can remain choiceless; your choice is not needed.

For example, death. You have nothing to choose. It is going to happen some day, so it is okay. Love - you have nothing to do about it. If it happens, it happens; if it disappears, it disappears. It is not a practical thing. It is something mysterious and has nothing to do with you.

So remain available to the mysterious and go on deciding about the practical and the mundane, but don't get attached. For example, now you want to be here or you want to go. There is no need to be much worried about it. If you feel like being here - which feels more important - then be here.

Nothing is lost, what can you lose? Maybe financially you will be a loser but spiritually if there is some gain you can stay. If you feel that there is no spiritual gain and you will be financially a loser, then why stay ? Go!

Things should be looked at like lightning, not in details, brooding about it and thinking about it and worrying about it. Just like lightning. If you feel that something important is happening here, which is more valuable than the financial loss - finished! Forget about it! Or if you think this can happen next time, there is no hurry and you are not in any impatience for your spiritual growth, there is no problem; you can simply go.

But whatsoever you do, remain unattached. If you stay here then don't think that you have done something great; otherwise there will be attachment. If you go there, don't start worrying that you

have done something wrong; otherwise you become attached. And once you decide about practical things, do them and forget about them; no need to waste time.

People waste too much time before they do and they waste too much time after they have done.

And almost ninety percent of energy is wasted in brooding, and that is the major part of life. Only ten percent of life is used in doing, and only doing can satisfy. That ninety percent is simply gone in the desert, down the drain.

So do whatsoever you feel like doing but don't get attached to it. That is choicelessness in the ordinary, practical world. And there is a possibility also one day that by remaining choiceless about really essential things, you may decide to become choiceless about practical things also. That is the old concept of sannyas. People have lived that way also. They don't decide at all.

A certain kind of sannyasin exists in India called 'paramahansa'. He does not decide about even practical things. He decides not. He simply floats! There was a paramahansa in a town in which I lived for many days. A really great man but very difficult even to recognise, and he was really choiceless. If you held his hand and you took him to your home, he would go! He would not say, 'I was going somewhere else. Where are you dragging me?' No, he would not say a single word; he would go with you. Many times he was stolen, because disciples and conflicts... So one disciple would just abduct him, and for months he would not be found. He would not say no to anybody!

People would give him money so he would take it. He would not say no. Then somebody would come and snatch the money and he would not say no. Somebody would give and somebody would take away and he would be sitting there. Somebody would take hold of him and put him in the rickshaw and he would go to another town! And he lived that way for twenty years... and perfectly happy!

You can visualise his happiness. There was nothing to decide! Some day somebody brings food, it's okay. Some day he has to fast, so he has to fast; there is no choice on his part. That too is a possibility, but I don't suggest that right now.

Right now take decisions for your practical things and remain choiceless, detached. One day if you start growing, growing, one day it can happen. Then you can become absolutely choiceless; there is no problem in it. Many people have lived that way and have enjoyed great bliss. But I'm not saying that you have to go towards that. If it happens, it happens; the possibility is there.

But these people cannot be creative; that is the flaw. That's why in india there have existed many saints and sages, uncreative - blissful of course, but of no use. They don't bring any beauty to the world. Now this man lives in perfect peace but he brings nothing to the world; he shares nothing with the world. He will live and he will die as if he has never been born; he will not leave a trace.

A few people can move that way, but my suggestion is that a person should be creative. And the joy of a creative person is far greater than the joy of a negative person who has simply dropped out.

This is the real drop-out. In India these people have been worshipped - not wrongly: the worship is perfectly valid - but still, suggestion for a real sannyasin is that he should remain creative.

So about practical things go on deciding, and for essential things remain available, allow them to happen. For the worldly be a doer and for the other-worldly be in a let-go. And that is the highest synthesis.

Both things taken separately are easy. If you decide for the ordinary world, you would like to decide for the other world too; you would like to decide for everything, mm? That is the western attitude.

Then it creates tension, anxiety, anguish, neurosis. The other alternative is: don't decide for this world and don't decide for that; remain choiceless for both. That is eastern. That too is simple but the person becomes uncreative. The person will never be neurotic but he will be uncreative. He will never be tense but he will not be a benediction to the world.

My effort here is to create a new kind of sannyasin who is a synthesis between east and west, who is as creative as van gogh or picasso but not neurotic at all, and who is as silent as ramakrishna or raman but not uncreative. This is my vision.

So certainly there will be problems because it is a dichotomy and you will feel many times: 'What to do? If I have to remain choiceless then what do do about this small thing?' No, about small things you can decide, but don't think that any decision has any value.

It is just a practical decision. It is just as if you have to decide whether you sit here or you sit in that comer or in that comer. It makes no difference; you will be sitting anywhere anyway. And then there will be no problem.

[The sannyasin then says:... Particularly in my situation now, is it important to steer, to aim in some direction?]

No. You will create anxiety for yourself. Let things happen. Let things take their own course; you remain available. And don't steer, otherwise you will create trouble for yourself and for others. Just make this clear to all those who are related to you - that you will not steer and whatsoever happens you will accept.

You have two lovers. If one leaves you will accept it but you will not drop either of them. You will go on the way things are going....

Just watch it, remain a witness. Remain choiceless, because that is not a practical thing; that is more important than practical things. Just watch.

And my feeling about you is that your energy is bisexual. So if you force anything - whether to choose the man or to choose the woman - you will have to deny some part of you, and that denied part will take revenge. Basically a bisexual person is more rich sexually than the hetereosexual or the homosexual, because he has two dimensions in him. There is every possibility that the future is going to be more bisexual than homo or hetero because bisexuality means that two dimensions are possible. A man can love a man and a man can love a woman, both; it is a kind of richness. So don't make a problem out of it. It is really richness - to be able to love both.

It is difficult.... A man who is heterosexual cannot even think about homosexuality. It looks like a perversion; it looks simply ugly and horrible. The person who is homosexual cannot think what people go on seeing in a woman's body.

The greeks were too interested in the male body. Socrates was a homosexual, so was plato, and so was the great mystic diogenes. They could not believe it - what a man could see in a woman's

body; no homosexual can believe that. No lesbian can believe that there can be any beauty in a man's body. They are lopsided. The heterosexual and the homosexual are both fanatics, fixated. A bisexual is more liquid, more fluid; he can see that both are beautiful. So don't make it a problem - rather think about it as a richness... and it is beautiful!

And don't try to steer. What can you do ? Just let things happen and enjoy whatsoever happens.

When you don't steer and you don't have an idea of how things should be, then whatsoever happens is good; you never feel frustrated.

Just make it clear to your lovers that this is your situation. Accept it and enjoy it and make it clear that you are not going to do anything about it; now it is their problem. If they want to decide something, that is for them to do, otherwise you will remain available to both.