Darshan 4 September 1977
Osho explains the meaning of veet nisadha: beyond no, beyond negation.... Drop no-saying; become more and more of a yea-sayer.]
Yes, say yes to life. And if one is aware, then one will be surprised that many times we unnecessarily say no... and we harm nobody except ourselves by saying that. No is fear-oriented; yes is love.
When you say yes, you are in a loving mood; whenever you are in a loving mood, you say yes - they both go together. When you say no, you reject life, and when you reject life, life rejects you. Then one becomes more and more sour, more and more bitter, and then there is a vicious circle. When you are bitter you say no more; when you say no more, life goes on rejecting you. In fact it is not life that rejects you; it is your rejection that is reflected by life. It is your no that resounds back to you. Life is a mirror - it simply mirrors. If you say yes to it, it says yes. If you sing a song, it sings a song. If you are ready to dance with it, it dances with you. It all depends on you: life simply goes on echoing you - so never blame life. Life is absolutely innocent, as innocent as a mirror. Change your face; the mirror is never at fault. If you don't look beautiful in the mirror don't try to destroy the mirror - change your face.
That's what I mean: when you start saying yes you start changing your face - from fear to love, from rejection to acceptance. And that is the real transformation - from atheism to theism.
I call the man an atheist who has become entangled too much with the no-saying. It has nothing to do with saying no to god. He may say yes to god, but if he goes on saying no to life, that makes no difference. He may believe in god and yet continuously be in a negative space. There are many people who believe in god and say no to life. In fact they say no to life because they think they believe in god. They think god is against life, so when you say no to life, you are saying yes to god.
That is the most absurd thing that has ever happened in the human mind, the greatest calamity.
God is in life. God is life. God is the very centre of life, the very pulsation of it. When you say no to life you deny god.
You can go into the church and pray but your denial is there. When you say yes to life you have said yes to god. You may not even go to the church or to the temple. You may not belong to any formal religion; you may not be a hindu or a mohammedan or a christian. You may not even use the word 'god', but if you say yes to life you have started growing.
With yes we grow; with no we stop. With no we are disconnected; with yes we are reconnected.
[The new sannyasin, who has spent seven years in India, says he has been thinking about things a lot.]
If thinking can lead you to a man who can teach you how to drop thinking, then it has done its work!
[The sannyasin says: It is difficult to drop thinking... It is difficult to know when to say yes to life or not.... What is to say yes to life, for example in my case?]
Somebody holds your hand: see whether holding his hand you are saying yes or no. You will immediately feel... You want to take your hand away? - you are saying no. Somebody hugs you:
just watch whether you are in the hug or are withdrawing, and you will know whether you are saying no or yes. Somebody is talking to you: watch whether you are saying no to him or yes. You can be polite and you go on saying no. You are feeling tired, you want to get rid of this man; he is boring.
You go on saying no. On the surface you are polite and you are listening - and you are not listening at all, because how can you listen with a no?
In fact I have never come across any boring person in life, and I have come across so many people - some of them very very famous for being boring! But I have not felt them to be boring because when you say yes, even a boring person becomes interesting. It is a phenomenon; boredom is not an ordinary art, mm? If you listen to him with love and with acceptance, even he is something beautiful to look into. When you say no, that creates boredom.
So, next time when you are feeling bored, say yes, and see the change immediately coming. It is an instant change - the whole climate changes.
Just this way, by and by become alert about when you say yes and when you say no.... And there are a thousand and one ways of saying yes and no. Sometimes you say verbally, sometimes you say existentially; sometimes you don't say at all, but you keep it inside. Sometimes by your movement, body movement, gesture, by your eyes... sometimes by keeping silent and sometimes by saying something - there are a thousand and one ways; one has to be watchful.
And I am not saying - I never demand anything impossible - that you will be able to drop all your noes, but ninety-nine percent you will be able to drop, and that's not a small amount. Ninety-nine percent of noes are just old habit: we go on saying no because we have become habituated to it.
One percent will remain. That one percent will not go right now, but that one percent will be beautiful and that will help; that will not be dangerous. It will be only about very essential things... and it is
needed; that one percent is a must. That too goes one day: when you disappear utterly, then that too goes. That one percent will be there to define you, to define your ego - otherwise if you really say yes, one hundred percent, then you disappear. Then you don't have any definition; who are you then ?
So I am not saying that you can disappear right now, but this will be the beginning. And ninety-nine percent is futile, destructive, and destructive to you - not to anybody else. The same opportunity can become such a flowing experience if you say yes. And sometimes the same opportunity, just by saying no, becomes very destructive....
You are in a crowd and it is noisy. Now, you can go on saying 'Why did I come here? - this noisy crowd and these people are driving me crazy.' You are saying no and your no is driving you crazy!
Otherwise the crowd is beautiful and the noise is beautiful and it has its own music. If you can relax a little bit and watch it, there is no need to go to any movie. All kinds of actors are there, and all kinds of roles are being played... and free of charge! Once you change your vision, focus, then the same crowd is beautiful, and you start learning from it. When you are not saying no, there is no heaviness.
A child is playing, you are studying a book and he is disturbing - shouting or doing something.
Now, you can say no - and you will be disturbed in your reading because you are saying no, not because of the child. You say yes to the child and you see - the child becomes just background and your reading becomes the figure. In fact the child's noise and play can enhance your reading,, can enhance your awareness. He will not allow you to fall into sleep; that's what he is doing - you will remain more alert and attentive.
That's what I mean: use all opportunities to say yes and see how it changes you. One percent of no will remain - that will go in the last jump....
[Osho explains the meaning of veet yantra - beyond mechanicalness.]
That is the definition of consciousness: beyond mechanicalness. And that has to be your work:
don't behave mechanically. Bring more and more consciousness into your acts - even small acts:
walking, eating, talking, listening taking a shower. Make them more and more conscious. Do each thing deliberately with a self-remembering that you are doing it. That self-remembering is not needed ordinarily, because once you have learned to do a certain thing then there is no need to remember.
Then the body has learned the way and it does it mechanically. For example, if you are learning driving; first you have to be very attentive, very alert. As you start getting the feel of it, the knack of it, you become less and less attentive. After a month, when you have got the licence, you can forget about being attentive. Now the mechanical part in the body takes over.
We have a robot part in our mind which always takes over. Once you learn something... while you are learning you have to be conscious... once you have learned, the conscious gives it to the robot part, to the unconscious; then it takes charge. So the conscious again becomes free to learn something else. That's the natural way: each thing learned becomes part of the unconscious. But this unconscious goes on growing and by and by this mechanical unconscious surrounds you from everywhere.
Surrounded by this mechanical unconscious, one becomes almost a prisoner. To dissolve this mechanicalness one has to go backwards again so that each learned thing is taken back again from the unconscious, brought to the conscious. The more things start becoming conscious, the more you will feel alive. When everything is conscious, one is utterly alive. Otherwise people exist like machines.
Yes, there is something in them that is still beyond the machine, but that is very tiny, very very tiny.
The machine is very big and the non-mechanical consciousness is just a small flame lost somewhere in the darkness; you cannot even find where it is. That flame has to be made bigger, and to make it bigger this is the fuel - to start making your mechanical acts conscious again.
Once you have reclaimed one thing from the unconscious, your- consciousness will burn bright - more fuel is available; then bring another then another.... This is the buddha's way: the path of awareness. And when you have brought all the unconscious things back into the conscious, the unconscious disappears. That is the moment of satori - when the unconscious disappears. That's why we call it enlightenment: one becomes light; all darkness disappears.
So read something of Gurdjieff - that will be helpful - because that was his whole method: self- remembering. Read something of the Sufis, Jikr, that is their method. Read something of Buddha, particularly his method of mindfulness. And you are ready for a great pilgrimage, but you will have to go through the path of being more and more alert and aware.
Modern man has become very very unalert... so much so that many scientists, psychologists, biologists, have started feeling that consciousness is a myth. Man has no consciousness - man is just a machine. They even have plans to make a better mechanism than man, a mechanism which can replace man, because man is so fallible. And of course they have done much on that line. Now a computer can do far better work than the human mind. They have developed a new mechanism in computers so that a computer can produce another generation. One computer when it is getting old, worked out, burnt out, can produce another computer just as a man can produce a child. But they are feeling only one difficulty: the computer can produce another computer but the other computer is not higher than the first; it is always lower. And with each generation it will go on deteriorating.
It will become less and less complex, less and less sophisticated. It will become more and more simple and by and by it will disappear.
That is the only problem they are feeling, and that is the only thing that makes them uneasy - that man must have something more than just a mechanism, because each generation goes on becoming more and more complex. That is rare; the computer cannot do that. If the computer were a very simple mechanism it could produce only a very simple mechanism.
But a buddha is born out of a non-buddha. Out of an ignorant person, buddha is born and becomes enlightened.... Now this is simply something else! No mechanism can evolve - only consciousness evolves. Evolution is in-built in consciousness. And we don't know how much we can evolve; we live at the lowest rung. We have not entered the palace yet; we are just outside the palace.... And the palace is ours but we have to pay for it - and the price to be paid is awareness.
Man contains all that is possible in this existence. Man contains the whole cosmos... man contains god! But right now, man is just a machine. Just a small part is non-mechanical - and that is our
hope. We can use that small part, that tiny awareness, to create more awareness. And the only way to create more awareness is to go on dissolving the mechanism in us so that each act becomes by and by fully aware.
[The new sannyasin asks: Can't I use the unconscious mechanism?]
Yes, you can, but use it consciously... use it consciously. When you use it consciously the mechanism is there, is used, but it doesn't generate unconsciousness. It is the same mechanism that you are using and I am using. The difference is not in the mechanism; the difference is in the way it is used. If you use it consciously, while you are walking you will be using your body and you will be using the mechanism that makes you able to walk. It is unconscious, but when you walk very consciously, fully alert, luminous, each step in awareness, the mechanism is there but you are no more unconscious; consciousness is turning over the mechanism. So the mechanism cannot create unconsciousness; it creates consciousness - that's why I call it the fuel.
If you are walking unaware of the fact that you are walking - and you can walk because you are accustomed to walk; there is no need to be alert about it - then walking is generating unconsciousness, and that unconsciousness goes on accumulating in us. If many of our acts are unconscious, then we are carrying a load of unconsciousness. That is heavy on our chest; that is the only block there is. When you start turning your consciousness on to the unconscious mechanism, you are transforming the energy. It is an alchemical process - the process of how lead is turned into gold. Just by being conscious of it, lead starts turning into gold. It is a magic, and it works like magic. You have to use - mechanism has to be used - but consciously. Try it, - for one month try as much consciousness as possible, and you will be surprised, mm? Good!
[A sannyasin had written to Osho to say he had doubts about wearing a mala and 'uniform'. He is returning to the West and will return next year for a longer time. He feels he has not been here long enough to change this time.]
Mm mm... that's what my feeling is too - not only that you have not been here long enough, you have not been at all!...
This time you missed me. So, whenever you can come, give it one try again! I have to be truthful with you - you completely missed me. Otherwise even these few days would have been meaningful.
You are too much in your head... and I behead people but I go very politely! I was thinking to behead you, but there was not enough time. I don't jump very suddenly because sometimes people can escape, mm? And that was the fear with you: you were continuously ready to escape and you were just lurking on the boundary, not coming close to me.
So one year will be a long time there. Continue to meditate. If you can do a few groups there, do.
Wherever my orange people meet, something of me is present there. And it may be easier for you to connect with my people than with me because you will be less afraid of them, right?...
But next time you will not be able to miss. Many people miss for the first time. You can only come to know that you have missed when you have missed. The second time there will be Less possibility; you will make more of a conscious effort to come closer.
It has been a good beginning. You have not moved an inch but you are standing on the path!
[A sannyasin says she's worried about her return to Italy. The love between her husband and herself is now only the affection between brother and sister. What to do? She has fallen in love with a sannyasin.]
That happens! Mm? husbands and wives finally turn into brothers and sisters! But if it happens in India, people feel it as a blessing. If it happens in Italy people think it is a curse!...
You have children? No? And would you like to remain with your husband? If it is finished, if you have become brother and sister, then say good-bye! Because brothers and sisters cannot live long together... not in Italy! Say good-bye; what can you do ? If you have become brother and sister, nothing can be done. Now to live with your brother is almost immoral! Right? So it is perfectly good - you find another lover. And if a sannyasin is there, then that's the best thing, mm?
Don't be worried - just float here with your lover, mm? And your husband will also be happy because he will also be in trouble living with a sister; he will have to find somebody. He is not a sannyasin yet?
[She replies: He doesn't want sannyas. He's not happy that I am here. He doesn't write me.]
No, no, when he sees that you have said good-bye and you have become capable enough of moving with somebody else he will come!...
Mm mm, don't be worried.Just forget about the whole misery that you have been living there....
Just do meditation, mm? And you will have much group work to do with your husband. It has to be finished! Mm? it will be an encounter .
Mm, but do it happily and just tell him things are finished - he will be free and you will be free. Just be free, mm? Freedom is always good - nothing should be sacrificed for freedom. Good!
[A sannyasin asks: How is it possible to repent? - How can you miss the truth? You can't miss it because it's always there.]
It is always there but you can always go on missing it....
If you become very very efficient in missing it, you can go on missing eternally; that's how people are missing One can become very efficient in missing too!...
You can go on knowing that you have not got it, but you can still go on thinking maybe it is not there; that's why you have not got it... and that becomes the protection of your ignorance. It may not be there; that's why you have not got it. But it may be there and you have not got it, and that's what I mean by missing it. There may be the sun outside and your doors are closed, and you remain in darkness. You can go on thinking, 'Yes, there is no light in my room and I don't have the light, but maybe there is no light; that's why I don't have it.' And you don't look at the point that the door has to be opened and the light will come in. And one can go missing eternally....
Truth is there, we are there - we are both confronting each other. Truth is confronting everybody from every side, but still one can remain closed.
And what do I mean by repenting? I mean that when you become aware that you have been missing so long, then repentance comes; one simply feels why did one miss for so long? There was no reason to remain in misery for such a long time!
[She asks: What should I do?]
Die!... Let [yourself] die! You cling too much to your[self]! This ego has to go! Next time you come, come here and put your ego outside the gate. You can give it to [the guard]; he can keep it. Next time you come, come here and drop all ego mind. Just being here for a few days will be of tremendous value.
Don't go on fighting with me. There is a fight, and when I say it I mean it: there is a fight. You go on fighting and you don't know with whom you are fighting and for what. In any fight with me you will lose - I cannot be the loser. There is no point; I cannot lose anything! In your defeat you will be victorious; in your victory you will be defeated.
So if you want to be victorious, accept defeat and surrender. And next time you come, something is going to happen. I have been preparing ground for it!