Darshan 3 July 1978

[A sannyasin who is leaving says she loves her old mother and grown children and is reluctant to stay here a long time.]

Remember one thing always, that unless you follow your desire towards blissfulness, whatsoever you do will be wrong. If you stay there you will take revenge on those people, because it is for them that you are staying there. The revenge will be very unconscious, but you will never be able to forgive them, and that will be more harmful than your coming here.

Never sacrifice your bliss for anything, because if you sacrifice your bliss for anything, you are already in misery and you cannot forgive. The people who sacrifice become heavy on others, because they have sacrificed. They would like others to sacrifice their joy in return. That's why sacrificing parents are the most dangerous parents in the world. The most crippling impact happens through the sacrificing parents. They are good people - they are the best people you can find - but because they sacrifice, they expect their children also to sacrifice in return.

And the children have to live their lives - they have to seek and search their ways. They have to find their god, wherever it is. They cannot borrow your god, they cannot borrow your bliss. They cannot sing your song; they have their own song to sing. But up to now, down the ages, all over the world, this has been the pattern: parents sacrifice for the children - they remain unhappy; then they force the children to sacrifice, then the children are unhappy... and it goes on and on. Unhappy children will again beget unhappy children. They will say 'We have sacrificed for our parents - you sacrifice for us.' We learn from others: if you sacrifice for your child, the child is learning one thing from you - that he has to sacrifice for his children. This is a vicious circle that the whole humanity is caught in.

That's why there is so much misery, so much hell.

It can be broken, this vicious circle, only by a simple understanding - that even if sometimes it makes you feel sad when you have to do something for your own bliss, you have to do it. And in the long

run nobody is going to be a loser because of it. If you are happy, you will be more loving towards your children; if you are happy, your children will be more loving towards you. And if you can leave your children for the search that has called you, you are making them independent, and they can leave everything and anything when their call comes. You are making them not only independent:

you are giving them their real soul. They will always be happy that they had a mother who was not a martyr.

On the surface it looks very selfish, but my observation is that the really selfish people are the only altruistic people in the world. They don't sacrifice; they don't force anybody else to sacrifice. They live in joy and they create ripples of joy for others too.

And I know - life is complicated: if you do one thing, you have to leave something else. And one has always to choose - one cannot have all the things. But always remember: whatsoever feels to be more blissful to you, choose it, whatsoever the cost.

[A sannyasin says: I've become very floaty, very floating, while I've been here... almost a different person.]

That's how it should be! That's the right way to be. Frozen people are dead people. Floating people are alive people.

Float as widely as you can. Don't believe in boundaries, never believe in boundaries, and never allow anything to confine you - whatsoever it is, howsoever precious it is. Never allow anything to become your imprisonment. Go on floating, moving. The more one is like a river, the closer one comes to the ocean.

The really miserable people are those who are no more rivers but have become tanks, reservoirs.

They are not moving, not going anywhere - they are just stuck, stagnant; they only die. Their life is a monotony, boredom writ large. But millions of people have decided to live that way... for a certain reason: it gives security, it is safe - one is out of danger.

When you are floating, you are always moving into danger, because you are always moving from the known to the unknown, from the familiar into the unfamiliar. The charted is always left behind and you are going into the uncharted. One never knows.... And the mind is clever only about the past, because it knows it. It is very knowledgeable with the familiar, efficient, capable, but with the unfamiliar it is impotent, it knows nothing. One feels ignorant. That is the fear. One has to learn moment to moment, but that's how one learns. The more you move into the unfamiliar, the more knowing happens. Knowledge will be less but knowing will be more. And knowledge is meaningless - knowing is the real thing. It gives you being.

This is my whole purpose here: to help you to become riverlike. You have melted, things have started moving. Don't get frozen again, because you will be living with frozen people. And when one is moving and others are non-moving, there is a kind of maladjustment and you always feel as if you are wrong because you are the minority. The majority looks right just because of the numbers.

They are wrong - and the only criterion to judge by is that they are miserable.

Never think about truth in terms of numbers but only in terms of blissfulness; that is the only right criterion. If a man is blissful, peaceful, then truth is bound to be there. If a man is miserable, sad, serious, heavy, burdened, then he must be carrying loads of lies, because lies have weight; truth is weightless. Lies are like rocks around your neck; truth is like wings.

So remain alert. We are in a wrong kind of world. To be just like everybody else is easy because you are never in conflict, you always conform. But when you are different - when you have started moving in a direction of your own, when you have chosen a life style which is not that of conformity, of convention, but of rebellion - then you will be continuously in conflict. But that conflict becomes the foundation of all spiritual growth, because through that conflict is the challenge and through that conflict one becomes more aware. Awareness comes only in danger. When there is no danger, there is no need to be aware; one can fall asleep.

When your house is on fire, how can you fall asleep? How can you be unaware? When somebody is going to kill you, you cannot afford to be unaware. You have to be quick, the decision has to be immediate - you cannot even afford to think and brood because that will take time. When somebody is standing in front of you with a dagger to kill you, you put your mind aside. You act immediately, and your act is total. And it is not out of a conclusion from the mind - it is existential; it is full of awareness.

Danger is always helpful, so I am sending you into more and more danger. And I will be with you - don't be worried and don't be afraid. Keep this flame that has started. It is just small, but if you can keep it and help it, it will become a wild fire soon. Not only will it burn you: it will become contagious, it will burn others too. And this burning is a blessing, because one is born anew out of it.

[Another sannyasin says: I feel so good here... I feel so happy I'm floating away.]

You are, and I am watching. You will become more and more happy every day; there is no limit to it.

People don't know how much happiness is possible in life. They have settled for a miserable life, for no reason. It is just that they have never tasted it so they think that this is all there is. But now you are tasting something and it will go on growing.

Just remember one thing: never do anything that disturbs your happiness, because nothing is worth that. Happiness is the only thing, the only god to be worshipped. People are so stupid that they are ready to lose their happiness for any trivial thing. Somebody says something and their happiness is disturbed. Somebody has insulted them, they think somebody has insulted them - he may not have deliberately done anything - and their happiness is gone... as if they were just waiting for this man to insult them or say something. They were ready to throw away their happiness at any excuse. Just remember that: there is no excuse. If one is not happy, one is responsible.

And happiness is an unbounded phenomenon: the more you have it, the more it goes on growing.

And fresh water is always flowing in, fresh energy is flowing in. One can live in utter bliss, one can die in utter bliss - and that is the way a man should be. Remaining less than that is missing the whole point of life.

Things are going perfectly well. This is exactly the meaning of... Upasana. Literally it means worship; existentially it means to be so blissful that each act becomes a worship of god. Walking, eating, sleeping - all can become worship. Only one quality has to be introduced, and that quality is of blissfulness. So go on infusing the quality of blissfulness into each act. And then the whole life becomes a worship - a twenty-four hour worship, day in, day out. One is constantly praising god.

Only in bliss can one praise god. How can one praise god in misery? One wants to kill god when one is in misery. One is very angry; there is much grudge and complaint. But when one is really blissful and happy, ecstatic, what else is there to do except to be grateful and to praise? So become blissful and praise god - that's your worship!

This word 'upasana' is very significant. Literally it means: to sit close to god. The more blissful you are, the more close you are to god. When one is utterly blissful, one is in god and god is in one.

Then the duality is gone: the worshipper becomes the worshipped, the knower is the known, and the observer is the observed. Then all dualities and distinctions disappear... and that is the ultimate.

Keep an eye open for that ultimate...

[Osho gives a 'come close energy darshan' to a sannyasin who is leaving, and working for Osho in the West.]

Everything is beautiful. Go on forgetting yourself more and more in the work - dissolve yourself completely into the work. The ego is the only problem there is, and all the work in the ashram is nothing but a device so that you can forget the ego. It is all meditation.

[Osho gives a name for a therapy centre in the West.]

Unmada. It means: ecstatic madness, the ultimate, delirious madness that happens when man meets god. It is the fragrance of samadhi. One dances in ecstasy, with abandon. There is no holding back - there is nobody to hold it either; it is a state of utter let-go. Not that you dance, but god dances through you.

And certainly it is mad. Reason cannot explain it, because for that kind of joy there is no reason in existence at all. Unless it happens, it cannot even be believed that it is possible. And it is mad because the mind simply explodes. After that there is no mind. It is a state of no-mind. But it is not passive - it is dynamic, it is exploding energy, expanding energy.

Will it be easy to pronounce? - 'Unmada'. Good. Now let this be the name and let this be the goal.

Growth in itself is not the goal: growth makes ecstasy possible. It is a means - all meditations, all methods are means. And the goal should not be lost sight of. Otherwise sometimes it happens - it is happening - that growth in itself becomes the goal. One has to grow so that one can contain god. One hai to become huge, enormous, so that one can contain god. One has to empty oneself completely so that space is possible for god to enter into. But when god comes in, god always comes dancing... with a flute on his lips.

And help many people on the way - you are ready. Become infectious!