Darshan 11 July 1978

Deva means divine, unmana means no-mind. The state of no-mind is the state of the divine. God is not a thought but the experience of thoughtlessness. It is not a content in the mind; it is the explosion when the mind is contentless. It is not an object that you can see; it is the very capacity to see. It is not the seen but the seer. It is not like the clouds that gather in the sky, but the sky when there are no clouds. It is that empty sky.

Unmana means the inner sky without clouds, unconsciousness without content, awareness - not of something, but simple awareness, not of something in particular. Because whenever the awareness is of something in particular, it starts moving away from itself; it becomes focussed on the object. It forgets itself It becomes too impressed by the object. When the consciousness is not going out to any object, when there is nothing to see, nothing to think, just emptiness all around, then one falls upon oneself. There is nowhere to go - one relapses, relaxes into one's source, and that source is god.

Unmana, no mind, is the way to god.

Animals have no mind but that is a state of unconsciousness. Buddhas also have no minds but that is a state of consciousness. There is a similarity between the world of the animals and the world of the buddhas, and dissimilarity. There is a similarity as far as mind is concerned: animals are pre-mind, buddhas are post-mind. But there is a dissimilarity too: animals are unconscious - they don't know who they are; buddhas know who they are. So in buddhas there is that simplicity of the animal kingdom, and yet that simplicity is not ignorance - it is luminous, it is full of light. Hence it is called enlightenment. Man is just between the two - part animal, part buddha - hence the tension, the anguish of man, the continuous pull from opposite directions.

Remember: there is no way to go back, nothing can ever go back - everything goes ahead. In the

effort to go back one becomes simply stuck, stuck where one is. Man cannot become an animal again.

Walt Whitman writes many times, in many poems that he feels jealous of animals. One does feel that - I can understand, mm? the beauty, the silence, the spontaneity, the state of innocence, no turmoil, no conflict, no ambition, no politics, nothing of the sort, living moment to moment. One becomes jealous of animals, but there is no way to go back. Walt Whitman cannot go back and become an animal. If he really wants to become as innocent as an animal he will have to become a buddha. The way is ahead, and the path is unmana - no mind.

[The new sannyasin asks about the problem of his eye-sight. He can only focus through one-eye at one time, and he doesn't trust the doctors.]

I can understand. Start doing a few small things; it will take a little time but things will settle. One is:

whenever you go to the bathroom, as many times as you go, just rub your hands hard, make them hot, then put them on your eyes - just for a few seconds. Then throw cold water on your closed eyes... as many times as you can. This will settle many things.

The second thing: start taking hot and cold baths. Start by cold - a cold shower or a cold bath - then a hot shower or hot bath, then cold, then hot. Just go on changing for two minutes, mm? If you do it for ten minutes, then change it five times. Just let the whole body become hot and let it become cold again. And particularly the head, mm? So if you are just sitting in a bath, pour water on your head, otherwise it won't be effective. The whole body has to be involved in it, so a shower will be even better. Mm, you can sit under the shower - two minutes hot, two minutes - but always start with cold and always end with cold.

In beginning and at the end use cold water - just in between you can change as many times as you can; but never end with hot and never begin with hot. These two things you start, mm? - within three months, things will slowly slowly settle; there will be no need to have any operation. And it has nothing to do with the eyes; it has something to do with the nervous system behind the eyes.

So this cold and hot treatment will expand the nerves and shrink them, expand and shrink them.

That will make them again more flexible. They have become a little tight, that's all. It will happen....

Deva means divine, niranjan means unattachment - divine unattachment. The difference between ordinary non-attachment and divine non-attachment is great. The ordinary non-attachment is cold; it has the quality of indifference. The divine non-attachment is loving, warm; it is not indifferent and cold. It is very easy to become indifferent to the world, cold and closed - that's what monks have been doing all along - but this is a way of dying, a way of slow suicide.

Non-attachment is beautiful but it has to be loving, it has to be warm. It has to have the quality of being in the world-and not of it. One has to be in the world - only the world should not be in oneself.

Then one is not lost in the marketplace; one remains alone even in the crowd. Then even in doing day-to-day ordinary things one remains prayerful. Even the noise of the marketplace and the turmoil of the world cannot disturb one's meditation. The whole world just becomes a drama. One acts but one is not serious about it.

This is what I call divine non-attachment.

Anand means bliss, Wajido means god. Bliss is god. Search for bliss and you will find god. Search for god and you will not find anything... because without the search for bliss god remains an empty name. Then the word 'god' has no content in it; it is an empty container. All that is contained in it is bliss. But sometimes it happens: we start looking for the word itself; we forget the meaning of it.

God means bliss, and bliss is something which can be explored. Because misery is something that we already have, we can start dropping it; and the less miserable we are, the more bliss descends in us.

So the search for bliss is a very practical and pragmatic search. It has nothing to do with theology or philosophy. But the search for god becomes theological, intellectual, philosophical. It loses contact with existence. Then it is an utterly futile exercise; then it is gibberish, all nonsense.

Forget god and search for bliss, and you are on the right track. When bliss is found, god is found.

And once you are searching for bliss, then there is no theist, no atheist, there is no Hindu, no Mohammedan, no Christian, because the search for bliss is the search of everybody. It is intrinsic in our being. Even the atheist is searching for it, as much as the theist. They start arguing if you use the word 'god'. If you use the word 'bliss' there is no argument. So to me bliss and god are synonymous.

I want to make you more and more blissful, and as a shadow, god comes! You become more and more godful. You need not make any effort for it. The whole effort has to be made in one direction:

how to be more blissful. And it is possible.

Just because we are miserable is enough proof that bliss is possible. If a person is ill that is enough proof that he can be healthy. Only a corpse cannot be ill; then, naturally, it cannot be healthy either.

If one can feel pain, one can feel pleasure; they both come together. If a man can see that all around is darkness, then one thing is certain: he has eyes. And the same eyes which see darkness can see light. Blind people cannot see darkness. Ordinarily people think that blind people must be living in darkness; they cannot see darkness. Darkness is an experience of the eyes as much as light is.

So right now everybody is miserable. But that is nothing to be worried about. In fact, it is an indication that everybody has the capacity to be blissful.

[A sannyasin says he is afraid of sex and his partner also feels low sex energy. Osho checks his energy.]

My feeling is that your need for sex is almost nil. If you had been in the East you would have rejoiced, because you are a born celibate, and in the East people cherish it. They know the secret of it - that your energy is ready to move on a higher plane.

But in the West one starts feeling guilty. One starts feeling miserable, because the West understands only one layer of the energy and only one dimension. And if that dimension is not functioning, the western mind feels at a loss. It feels that life is meaningless - What are you doing?

Sex has become synonymous with life in the West. It is not; it is only a very small part. It has something tremendously important to contribute but it is not all the story. It is just the beginning. It will be even more correct to say it is just the preface, not even the beginning.

Your interpretation is creating trouble for you. Your need is nil - your mind says you have to go into it. Your mind forces it and your need is nil, so you become afraid. You know that the energy is not cooperating with you, so it is almost a violence on your being. How can you enjoy it if it is violence ?

You cannot be total in it. And you will feel nervous and you will feel shaky, because you are moving into a certain space which is not needed by you. You have to move to some higher spaces. And your energy is ready to take a jump.

This is your conflict - you will have to understand it, otherwise you will remain unnecessarily miserable. In fact you should be happy that your work with sexual energy is finished and that now your energy is free to do some higher work. And there are layers and layers; there are higher realms available. And you will only enjoy those realms; you will not enjoy sex - you have to drop the very idea. Once in a while, when the natural urge arises, it is okay.

But my feeling is you have been forcing it; you have made it a will thing, an ego trip. You have to prove yourself. You are trying to perform something, hence you become afraid and self-conscious and nervous. And with all this you cannot go into it, so you try again, and you try more than is needed. And the more you fail, the more miserable you become. Simply forget about it!

And it is good that the woman you are with is also not a sex maniac. It is very good. If she were a sex maniac, then there would have been more trouble. She also wants to put it aside. Once in a while when both are feeling to go into sex, it is good, but that will be very rare. And then there will be no fear, no nervousness, because there will be no question of performance - you have accepted your state.

And your state is better than that of millions of people. But if you go to a psychoanalyst in the West he will make you feel guilty, he will make you feel very condemned. He will say that something is wrong with you and that much has to be done, because his vision is very very limited, his vision is very framed.

But my feeling about you is that you are ready to go into some new space - higher, better, superior, more graceful. And when this conflict with sex disappears and you accept the stage you are in, much love will arise in you. And it will not be sexual love - it will have a different quality: it will be more like friendship, more like prayer, more like creating music, singing a song, looking at the sunset. It will have all those qualities. It will be more aesthetic, less sexual. The sexual love remains a little coloured with violence; it remains a little crude. It can't be very soft; it can't have grace and dignity.

It is anger; it is our animal heritage.

So don't feel unnecessarily miserable. In the East, people try hard to attain this state, and if somebody is born with it he is put very high. And their understanding is right, their vision is right.

The western psychology is just a very very primitive effort to know man's being. It just knows the abe. The East has known the xyz too. It has known the whole spectrum, from alpha to omega.

Accept it - for six months simply accept it. And both become more understanding about it. Don't force it. Be very loving, but there is no need for love to be always sexual. They are not the same thing. Sometimes sex is just sex, love is just love. Sometimes sex is loving and sometimes love is sexual but they are not necessarily the same thing - they are not synonymous. Sometimes they overlap, that's true, but they are different things.

Put more energy into being more loving. And forget this hankering - this is stupid! If once in a while, not out of your will but because it just happens spontaneously, then it is good. And then there will be no problem. Because it is a question of will you become nervous. Always remember: nervousness comes only because of will.

For example, you can talk perfectly well to people. Just stand on a stage and talk to the same people. Now, if you take these people here, mm ? You know everybody, you can talk with them, you have been talking to them your whole life. Just stand on the stage and say 'Ladies and gentlemen'...

and there is nervousness. Because now you are on a will trip. Now you want to perform - now you want everybody to see that you are a great orator or something. Now you are not simple, you are not interested in communicating; you are interested in impressing. Now it is no more a question of saying something, of sharing something. It is an ego trip. You want to prove something, that you know more; now you will be in trouble. Your legs will start shaking.

People who have been speaking their whole life.... I used to know one vice-chancellor - I was a professor in the same university. He had been a teacher his whole life, but whenever he stood up, he would tremble. Once it happened that I was presiding at a meeting which he was to address. I gave him a piece of paper with a note on it. He took the piece of paper in his hand and his hand was shaking so much that the whole audience became aware... because of the piece of paper.

Otherwise he used to keep his hands....

Later on he told me 'You played a trick on me. You should not have given that piece of paper to me.

You made me look like a fool.' I said 'I never knew why you keep your hands in your pockets when you speak.' He said 'I shake all over. I perspire.' 'Why? These are your students, your colleagues; nobody is your-enemy here....' But the moment you want to impress, then everybody's ego is in conflict with your ego. And the same happens anywhere.

If making love becomes an ego trip and you want to prove to the woman that you are the greatest lover - never before has there been such a lover in the world and never again is there going to be - you are going to be in trouble! You will shake, you will tremble, you will perspire... and love can happen in a very spontaneous, natural way. That's why, when you are with her (your partner) you are not so afraid, but when you are with a new woman you are more afraid - because with her you have become settled. She knows that you tremble a little, that you are afraid a little - it's okay.

She understands and she loves you. But with the new woman, she does not love you, she does not understand you, she has no intimacy with you, and you want to prove that you are somebody special, that she has never known such a man, that you are a man!

That idea of being a macho will create trouble for you. Drop this machismo, and forget all about it. And there is no problem; you are creating it. Put more and more of your effort into meditation.

You will be surprised: the energy that goes into sex will start going into meditation, and sooner or later you will be having the same kind of orgasmic experiences through meditation as people have through sex.

The sexual orgasm is bound to take too much energy out of you. It is a sheer wastage. It gives very little and takes very much. In the meditative orgasm, with no energy investment from your side the same quality - deeper, higher, profounder - happens. Later on you will find yourself more energetic than before. The orgasm will leave you with more energy, with more vibrant energy than before. And this is possible.

For six months just forget about sex as if it has no meaning. Once in a while if it happens, allow it, but don't think about it and don't just manage to go into it. Don't try at all.

(to his partner) And you help him....

[A sannyasin who runs a large sannyas centre in the West says: I love my community and my family, but yet I cannot float totally with the difficulties there are. So millions of questions arise and no answer satisfies me.]

You are just taking the whole thing too seriously, that's all, and because of that seriousness you feel it as a burden and you create a burden for others too. Let things move in a more relaxed way.

Don't make it something that you have to do. Don't make it a point of prestige. You are not to prove anything by it. Enjoy it.... Let it be a play. If something happens, good; if nothing happens, that too is good.

And we are only here on the earth for a few days. Sooner or later everybody is gone, and [the centre] will be looked after by somebody else, so why bother so much? And I am not saying that if you bother less, less work will happen. More work will happen, because in a relaxed mind you have more energy, more creativity, more inventiveness. And when you are relaxed you help others to relax. When you are playful, you help others to be playful, and in playfulness much happens. In fact all creativity is a kind of play. Serious people cannot create anything; their whole energy is lost in their being serious.

So be a little less German... a little less serious. And things will be okay - nothing to be worried about.

This robe for you....

[A sannyasin asks: About deadness... I feel that many things go, not really wrong, but when I am surprised, I choose the dead.]

Everything is perfectly right. Just start a meditation every night before you go to sleep - a death meditation. In the beginning, lie down for ten minutes, turn the light off and start feeling that you are dying.

Get into the feeling of dying... dying... dying.... Let the whole body be dead and feel that you are disappearing from the body, receding, receding, receding. You have left the circumference the body completely - you are at the centre. Just a small light, at the centre, and all is dead. And in that state fall asleep.

This feeling that comes to you is not anything wrong; it is just a natural indication from your unconscious that you have to meditate on death now. The unconscious is sending you a message of tremendous importance - that if you can learn how to die consciously, you will know what life is.

And man comes to know life only in utter death, never otherwise. The total death is the beginning of resurrection.