Darshan 22 September 1977

[A sannyasin says that he has been thinking on, and getting depressed about, the past. Osho says that to keep looking back to the past is an effective way of making misery for oneself. Good or bad, the past is finished. It has no more any validity, no more any relevance. Look forwards, never look backwards. Looking back is like a man who drives his car backwards by looking in the rear vision mirror. That is no way to drive. Sooner or later there is going to be an accident.

The sannyasin then says he has no energy.]

That may be just the same thing. If you live with the past too much you cannot have energy. Energy comes through the future; energy comes through openness to new things. When you have new things to do, you will find energy. When you have nothing to do - just brooding about the past - you don't need energy at all, so energy won't be coming. You get as much energy as you need - not more than that, never more than that. If you jump into some creativity you will get more energy.

This is something to be understood: creative people have more energy. People ordinarily think that because they have more energy they are creative. That is false! Just the vice versa is the case: they have energy because they are creative. But people think, 'What can I do? He has so much energy; that's why he is creative.' That is wrong, absolutely wrong, not true, not even half true... not a single iota of truth in it.

Creative people have energy because when they create, more energy comes. It is just like drawing water from a well: the more you draw, the more fresh water comes in.Just sit silently, just brood, and energy will disappear. You don't need any; you don't deserve it. For what do you need energy?

God gives energy only when you are doing something with it. Paint, sing, play, dance, love - do something! Create something!

Find a way of creative living. Something has to be done. Without doing you will never feel happy; you will never feel a fulfillment. It is just as when a tree has fruits and flowers it feels fulfilled. When you can have a few creations around you that you have created, then you are fulfilled; that is your flowering. A barren man or a barren woman will not feel fulfilled.

So my understanding about you is that you are unnecessarily bothering too much about the past and you are not putting any energy into the future. And you are not doing anything creative so you don't feel happy and you don't feel energy.

So anything that you want to do - I am not saying to do anything in particular - do. Just think for a few days what you would like to do, what you would like to achieve, what you would like to express, and then start working for it. You will suddenly see that energy is flowing.

[A sannyasin says: I keep going round in circles... I've been in so many different spaces lately that I feel... I need help!

Osho checks her energy.]

Everything is perfectly good. Rather than calling those moments 'moving in circles', find a better word. Because when we say 'I am moving in circles', it is a condemnation. We have not accepted it; a deep rejection is there. But the whole existence moves in circles; all movement is circular. The stars, the moon, the sun, the earth, the seasons, the wheel of life and death - everything is circular; there is nothing linear in existence. Linear - the very idea of linear - is a western idea with nothing corresponding to it in reality.

[She asks: Would 'spiral' be a better word?]

Spiral is perfectly good, mm? That's an evolving circle; that's perfectly good. But never use condemnatory words - they unnecessarily create problems. 'Spiral' is perfectly good.

But nothing is wrong in moving in circles too. Just move with the dancing energy, that's all. There is nowhere to go - that's my basic teaching. Even when you say spiral, you have some idea of going somewhere, because a spiral means you have joined the circular and the linear. So the spiral means that now you have started moving upwards in a line; again the linear has come in.

There is no need to go anywhere. All is beautiful as it is! Existence is not going anywhere at all. It is simply here. It is a dance - it is not a marathon race! It is simply joy. So accept that and relax into it and give it the quality of dance.

... Let it go wherever it goes! Don't try to be in control of it. Let it go! That's how it has to be....

If dancing you reach hell, it is perfectly right. If you reach heaven sad, bored, what is the point of it?

Deep down in your mind there is some value, some idea, that one has to reach somewhere. So the line has to be there - that from this point to that point you have to go; you have not to go astray. The very idea of going astray means that you have some goal in the mind.

You cannot go astray, there is no way to go astray, because there is no goal to compare with where you are going. Go astray perfectly happy and dancing.

Nobody is going to miss, because in the first place there is nothing to miss! Just enjoy - jump from one point to another; it is perfectly good. And let god be in control, you drop out of control.

[A sannyasin says: You told me six weeks ago to dive within and I have, and I've got into a very quiet, still place... where I feel detached, disengaged, alone and distant... ]

Perfectly good! That's what I wanted; so it has happened. Don't try to come out of this space. It will disappear on its own and then you will see for the first time what communication is. If you pull yourself out of it, it will be unripe; just let it happen.

This is beautiful. Be distant, be detached, be disengaged and be alone. This is from where one should always start; this si the first step from your deepest core. Everything else that you do is peripheral; this is very central. All else is circumference. Love is circumference; meditation is at the very centre. This si the centre of the cyclone.

So enjoy it, savour it. Rather than hugging, savour this. This is the way you are getting into yourself.

This is hugging yourself; let this happen first. This is loving yourself. Let it happen first, and let it happen totally; then one day you will suddenly find you are overflowing. Then a hug happens, but that has a totally different quality to it. You have not done it - god has done it through you.

Then you will again come close to people, but this will not be physical closeness. The physical is included in it but it will not be only physical. It will be something more than that; it will be spiritual.

And a hug, when it is only physical, is meaningless. When it has something of the spirit in it, then it has significance.

This is exactly what I wanted, and it is happening. Be happy, feel blissful; feel fortunate that it is happening. Enjoy it, don't disturb it; it is the right space to be in. And from this point everything right starts. One day you will be loving again but in a different way. It will be a separate kind of reality.

You will talk to people, but you will talk from a different vision. It will not be just for talking's sake; you will really try to communicate. It will not be just verbiage, it will not be just a conversation - it will be communion! You would like to share something, and you will talk only when you have something to share. Otherwise you will keep quiet; there is no need to talk!

And you will not pretend any more. If laughter is coming you will laugh. If it is not coming then that not coming is perfectly okay. Nobody is needed or required to laugh twenty-four hours a day, so whatsoever will come, will come from your inner being. And when it comes from the inner being it comes from god. Whatsoever we manage to do on the periphery is just managed by the mind and the ego, and naturally it can't have much meaning to it.

People go on hugging and people go on talking and people go on loving, and it is all superficial, all casual, all just accidental. They go on moving through these gestures because they don't know what else to do. If they don't do these things they feel left alone. If they don't do these things they feel afraid. That loneliness starts gnawing at their heart. If they don't do these things they feel no meaning in life. And if they do these things, still nothing arises out of them because those gestures are empty.

So they are frustrated either way. If they don't do they are frustrated; if they do they are frustrated.

And many more people choose to do because at least it keeps them occupied. It keeps you so occupied that you don't have time to think about the ultimate meaning of life. It is a kind of avoidance, an escape.

People go on rushing from one thing to another. They don't allow any gap, interval, where they can see what they are doing and for what, and what's the significance of it all. That question hurts.

People go on throwing that question away. They don't want to see it; they don't want to confront it.

Tired, they go to sleep and dream, and by the morning they start rushing again. In the night through dream they avoid; in the day through activity they avoid.

Now, this is what should be done. You are coming home; you are not avoiding it. So drop these words also because these words can create a problem for you. Don't call it 'disengagement' because that very word is negative, derogatory. Call it 'engagement with oneself'. Don't call it 'detachment'.

No, call it 'a love for oneself'. This is what I mean by being auto-erotic. One falls with love, deep love, into oneself; one loves oneself.

So for a few days be a narcissus... and with no judgement, no condemnation - with great blissfulness. And out of that, one day, suddenly you will find you are so full of some energy because you have not been wasting it; it will become a reservoir.

Hugging, talking, loving, moving, doing, you are wasting energy. These are the thousand and one holes through which you go on dissipating energy. When you are not dissipating energy it becomes a great reservoir. And one day suddenly you feel it is so much that you cannot contain it - it is overflowing. And when energy overflows on its own accord it is far out! It is incredible! It is ecstasy!

In english the word 'ecstasy' has become very very important, but the other part of it has not been used very much; that is 'instasy'. Ecstasy means moving out; instasy means moving in. This is the state of instasy.

In the East whenever we talk about ecstasy we first talk about instasy. Instasy means going in.

Instasy means implosion; ecstasy means explosion. In ecstasy there is dance and celebration; in instasy there is absolute silence, aloneness, solitude. But ecstasy comes only out of instasy; there is no other way. The tree can go high in the sky if first it goes deep down in the earth. First it has to grow roots - roots are instasy - and the foliage and the branches and the flowers, they are ecstasy.

Without the roots there will be no ecstasy.

So just get rooted!

And I am very happy - you did it! The other will come on its own. Good!