Darshan 7 July 1978

[Osho explains the meaning of anand avoda.]

Anand means bliss; it is the ultimate state of nature... Misery is unnatural. That s why nobody wants to be miserable. It is alien. It is an encroachment on your nature; it is something foreign that does not belong to us. We cannot absorb it - it remains like a poison in our being.

Bliss is our nature. It is not an attribute, not an accidental something that has happened. It is our very being. That's why in nature one feels more blissful - in the mountains, on the beach, with the trees....

Walt Whitman has said that he sometimes starts feeling very jealous of animals. They are so natural, and because they are natural there is great joy. But this nature that we see outside - the mountains, the stars, the rivers - is nothing compared to the inner nature that we are carrying hidden in our being, undiscovered, unexplored, ignored, neglected, inhibited, rejected. We have not looked into our nature. If we go on searching for bliss outside - we will never find it, because it is the kingdom within. It is not something that we have to seek; it is in the seeker itself It is our very consciousness, our very existence. That is the meaning of anand.

'Anand' is a Sanskrit term, far more meaningful than the English equivalent, bliss. With the term 'bliss' it appears as if it comes and goes: sometimes one is blissful and sometimes one is not.

That is not the case with anand. One is always blissful - one may know it, one may not. The only difference is of knowing, but bliss continues like an underground current. If we know, it becomes manifest; if we don't know, it remains there hidden but it is never lost.

The second word avoda is a Hebrew term. It is one of the most beautiful terms; it is a Hassid word. It means service out of ecstasy. Not the service that the Christian missionary goes on doing,

not service as duty but service as ecstasy... sharing one's bliss, sharing what one has attained, overflowing with it. That is avoda, and it naturally follows the state of bliss.

When one feels blissful one cannot contain it. It is so infinite it starts overflowing, it starts moving; it fills all the space possible. Whosoever comes close to a blissful man is immediately overwhelmed.

Something from the blissful man immediately starts flowing. When people are in misery they are in a kind of valley. When people are blissful they live on the hilltop, on the sunlit hilltop. And naturally whenever you come close to a blissful man, something from the hilltop starts flowing towards the valley. That is avoda. It is not a duty performed but love shared.

Duty is not a beautiful word. It means one is doing something because one has to. Avoda is not that one is doing something one has to but because one is so happy in doing it. Just like the flower releasing its fragrance and the cloud raining, just like that it is a natural overflowing when one has it.

[The new sannyasin says: I didn't think I would become a sannyasin!]

Nobody knows!

Things happen... even impossible things happen. And when they happen without your knowing, they have beauty. When they happen without your planning, they happen from the beyond. When you plan then it is your mind; it remains a continuous thing with your mind. When something simply happens - you have not even thought about it - then it is far bigger than you and it will go far deeper.

It is not your decision. You have not chosen to be a sannyasin - you have been chosen. Then the sannyas has a totally different quality. When you choose, it is your choice. When the master chooses, it has great implications and infinite potential. It is good that you have not thought about it.

It is good sometimes to allow things without thinking, so something in you remains fresh and young.

Thought always makes things old - that is the ugliness of thought. It never allows anything young .

and fresh to happen - it always goes through the rehearsal; then the actual act simply seems like a repetition.

Those who come to me with a decision in their mind that they are going to become sannyasins have gone through the rehearsal. They have thought about it, planned about it, expected things through it. They have desired something; there is some motivation. They don't come fresh.

It is good - I can see that freshness is there; and much more will happen through it. It is not just a ritual. You have fallen in love. And slowly slowly you will become aware of it. It will take time, because to reach from the unconscious to the conscious it takes time.

When somebody decides to take sannyas it is a conscious decision; the unconscious may not even cooperate with it. The unconscious may not even know about it. It will remain a very small thing, because the conscious is a small thing, one-tenth of the total mind; its power is very small, flickering.

But when something happens from the unconscious, from the guts, deep down from the belly, from the navel centre, then it takes time because the journey is long. Slowly slowly the conscious mind will become aware of all the implications, of the commitment, of the involvement. Sannyas is becoming involved with me and all that I represent.

But you have started a great journey... and much more is going to happen. Many surprises are waiting on the way. Be here as totally as you can be. Drink of me as much as you can, so when you go, you don't go... I go in you! And this is possible. Good!

Deva means god, dassyo means a slave - a slave of god. And that's all that one has to become.

The whole of religion is nothing but that: dropping the ego, disappearing as your own master, and allowing god to take possession of you. From this moment onwards let god be the master and you just be a shadow.

Then life becomes such a grace; because all tension arises out of the ego... all anxiety, anguish, despair, frustration. All illness of the mind is because we have taken this wrong attitude of 'we are'.

We are not - god is... and this is the meaning of dassyo: 'I am not, you are.' Dissolve yourself as a separate entity. Become part of the cosmic whole.

Don't live as a private person. That's what Greeks used to call idios. From 'idios' comes the word 'idiot'. The person who lives in the ego is the idiot. And the person who drops the ego and lives in god is the wise man.

Prem Yutaka - rich in love.

Prem means love, and that is the only real richness; all other kinds of richness are deceptive. They are ways to cover our emptiness, our poverty. One can surround oneself with great riches and yet one can remain a beggar. Unless the heart blooms there is no real richness. Only when one starts loving, knows how to love, does one become rich.

The art of being rich is the art of loving. Millions of people live poor lives because they have completely forgotten how to love. It is very strange, because everybody is born with infinite energy to love. We have an inexhaustible source of love but we don't know how to give it. Instead of giving it we go on asking for it. But those who ask will never get and those who are ready to give all will get a thousandfold.

Anything you would like to say to me ?

[The new sannyasin says: I feel very happy.]

I know... and you will grow more and more in happiness. More is given to those who have. If you want more happiness, have more happiness. And happiness starts flowing from everywhere towards you.

Create that which you want. Life goes on re-echoing it. The whole of life is nothing but a mirror. If you smile, all the mirrors around you smile. If you are sad, all the reflections are sad. This is how man creates his own hell and his own heaven; they are our artwork. And once one knows then there is no need to create hell.

Go deeper and deeper into the heaven that is opening its doors to you. Good!

Anand means bliss, rafia means god - god of bliss.

Man is a temple and deep inside the temple the god of bliss resides. We need not search for him anywhere else. Just go in and he is there. And he has always been there - you have not missed him for a single moment; from eternity to eternity he is there but we never go in. We rush in all directions, we travel in all ten directions, but he lives in the eleventh direction. The art of penetrating the eleventh direction is the art of meditation. And this is what sannyas is all about: a pilgrimage to oneself.

Anand means bliss, manja means consciousness - bliss consciousness. Ordinarily the mind is always conscious of pain, never conscious of bliss. If you have a headache you are conscious of it.

When you don't have a headache you are not conscious of the well-being of the head. When the body hurts you are conscious of it, but when the body is perfectly healthy you are not conscious of the health.

This is the root cause of why we feel so miserable: our whole consciousness is focussed on pain.

We only count the thorns - we never look at the flowers. Somehow we select the thorns and neglect the flowers. If we are wounded and continuously hurt, there is no surprise in it; it has to be so. For a certain biological reason it has happened: nature makes you aware of pain so that you can avoid it. It is a built-in system. Otherwise, your hand may be burning and you may not be conscious; it will be difficult to survive. So nature has made it very essential and inevitable that you have to be conscious of the pain. But nature has no built-in mechanism to make you conscious of pleasure, joy, bliss. That has to be learned, that has to be worked out. That is an art.

From this moment start becoming aware of things which are not natural. For example, your body is feeling perfectly healthy: sit silently, become conscious of it. Enjoy the well-being. Nothing is wrong - enjoy it! Make a deliberate effort to be conscious of it. You have eaten well and the body is satisfied, contented; become conscious of it.

When you are hungry, nature makes you conscious, but nature has no system to make you conscious of when you are satiated; that has to be grown. Nature need not grow it because survival is all that nature wants; more than that is luxury. Bliss is luxury, the greatest luxury.

And this is my observation about why people are so miserable - they are not really as miserable as they look. They have many moments of great joy, but those moments pass by; they never become aware of them. Their memories remain full of pain and wounds. Their minds remain full of nightmares. Not that there are not beautiful dreams and poetic visions - they are also there, but nobody is there to take note of them. In twenty-four hours' time thousands of things happen for which you would feel grateful to god, but you don't take note!

That has to be started from this moment. And you will be surprised that bliss grows more and more every day, and, proportionately, pain and misery become less and less. And a moment comes when life is almost a celebration. Pain is only once in a while, and that pain is part of the game. One is not distracted by it, not disturbed by it. One accepts it.

If you enjoy the satiation that comes after you have eaten, naturally you know that when you are hungry there will be a little pain... and that is good. When you have slept a good night's sleep and in the morning you are feeling so fresh and so alive, rejuvenated, naturally if one night you cannot sleep, there will be a little agony, but that is part of the game.

My own experience is that life consists of ninety-nine percent bliss and one percent pain. But peoples' lives consist of ninety-nine percent . pain and one percent of bliss; everything is upside- down.

So this name is going to be your method. Become more and more conscious of pleasure, joy, the positive, the flowers, the white linings in the black dark clouds.

[Amrita] means: immortality, and the secret of immortality. It also means elixir that makes one immortal. This has been the search - the search for the philosopher's stone, or the search of the alchemist.

Down the ages man has been searching to find how to conquer death. And in fact there is no need to search, because death is an illusion. Death never happens - it only appears to. Man is immortal.

Man need not be immortal. He has not to work for it - it is already the case, but we don't know the man who is inside us. All that is needed is an acquaintance. You have to be introduced to yourself, that's all. The moment you are introduced you will see that you have never died, and you cannot die - death cannot happen. Only the body dies and the consciousness continues. It changes houses, it changes old garments for new. The journey is eternal.

There are only two things which arc the greatest illusions in the world: one is the ego and the other is death. And both are joined together, in fact, are two aspects of the same coin. It is because of the ego that the other illusion of death is created. Because we think we are separate from the whole, the fear arises: 'We will die.' The moment we know we are not separate from the whole, who is going to die? There is nobody to die, the whole has continued.

The moment the wave thinks itself separate from the ocean, the fear will arrive that sooner or later it will die, because it will see other waves dying and disappearing. But the moment the wave recognises the fact that it is not separate - it is part of the ocean, and those waves which have disappeared have not really disappeared; they have gone back into the source, they will come again.... Another season, another wind, and they will be born. And the game continues. It is an eternal play of consciousness.

That is the meaning of amrita - that death is illusory, the ego is illusory and all is eternal. And the function of the master is to introduce you to yourself.

[A sannyasin says that in the Primal group the idea to have a child kept coming to her though she'd not thought much about it before, thinking it unlikely that she would ever be a mother. Osho checks her energy.]

You can have a child but it is better if you don't. There is no problem bodily - you can have a child, the energy is there - but it will be getting into unnecessary trouble. It will hinder your own spiritual growth; you will be distracted. It will be a problem, and unnecessarily. Unless being a mother is going to help you spiritually, I will not suggest you become one. I suggest it only when I see that being a mother is going to help a person.

If it is going to distract you, it will be wasting your whole life, because a child means a great involvement. And it is not a one-day's or a few-days' thing - years of involvement. By the time the child is on his own, you will be fifty, mm? - the whole life will be a waste.

Drop that idea. It is possible, you can become a mother, but it is good if you don't, so you can move inwards whole-heartedly.