Darshan 20 April 1977

Deva means divine, jayana means victory. And there is only one victory in life, and that is with god, with the divine. Alone we are defeated, with him we are winners.

Man alone cannot win, there is no possibility. Man alone is doomed, man alone is simply helpless.

To be with god is to be victorious, because the total wins finally, not the part - and god means the total or the whole. With the whole there can be no defeat - there is no possibility of any defeat.

Whatsoever happens to the whole is victory; wherever it goes is the destiny. The part can go astray.

That is the whole meaning of the word 'faith': to join together with the whole. And that is the root meaning of the word 'religion': to tie oneself together with the whole.

Immediately one starts winning, because then there is no possibility for any defeat, the very possibility disappears, and whatsoever happens is bliss. With god all is bliss; man alone is just misery, man alone is in hell. Hell is a state of loneliness.

The old descriptions of hell are all absurd, meaningless - torturing, etcetera. No need to go that far, just make man lonely - enough, no other torture is needed. Man alone in a dark cell - nobody to commune with, nobody to share with, nobody to love and be loved by - not even somebody to fight with. It is enough of a hell, more than any torture anybody can invent, because when you are lonely you start dying; and the problem is that you cannot die. You suffocate, you are on the verge of death and you cannot die, because death also happens through the other - in love, never otherwise.

Because death is a dissolution, dissolving into the other.

So either death happens in love or in prayer. All that is beautiful happens in a togetherness.

[The new sannyasin says he has booked for groups.]

Now they will have a much deeper impact, mm? The moment you become a sannyasin everything immediately changes. You become more open, more available, less inhibited, and you can cooperate with the processes that these groups are meant to be; and a group process cannot do anything unless you cooperate.

By becoming a sannyasin you show the gesture of your being ready to cooperate; and then through small processes great happenings are possible. All great things happen through very small things.

A great tree arises out of a small seed - the seed just has to fall into the soil and cooperate with the soil, not to fight with it.

Sannyas simply means that now you start a life of cooperation. To be a sannyasin means not to be in conflict.

When Charles Darwin wrote his thesis about evolution and the survival of the fittest, there was another man, Prince Kropotkin, in Russia, who was writing a quite diametrically opposite thesis:

the thesis that evolution happens through cooperation. People have not heard much about Prince Kropotkin; his thesis is far superior - and finally he will win! It will take time, but darwin cannot be the winner.

The very idea that one evolves through conflict is violent; it is a very lopsided idea. If you look through the eyes of Darwin, the whole life is just a survival of the fittest. And who is the fittest? The most destructive, the most violent, the most aggressive is the fittest. So the fittest has no value; it is not even human - the fittest is the one who is the most animal-like.

Christ cannot survive, he is not the fittest. Buddha cannot survive, he is not the fittest. Buddha will be the most helpless man - Jesus was. Then Alexander survives, Adolf Hitler survives, Joseph Stalin survives, Mao Tse Tung survives; these are the fittest. Then only violence survives, not love.

Only murder survives, not meditation.

The whole vision, the darwinian vision, is a very very inhuman meditation about life, an undivine vision of life. If you go into the forest and look through darwinian eyes, you will see conflict everywhere: each animal killing other animals, species destroying other species, trees destroying animals, animals destroying trees. Everybody is in conflict, it is a nightmare.

And if you go to the same forest and look through the eyes of Kropotkin, there is tremendous cooperation. These species have been living in deep cooperation too, otherwise nobody would have survived. If there were only violence, and violence were the only law, nobody would have survived; it would not have been possible for even the victors to survive.

If killing is the only rule, then who can survive? First you destroy somebody else, then you destroy...

you go on destroying. Finally Adolf Hitler is left alone: he commits suicide, because he becomes accustomed to destroying. Now nobody else is left to destroy - he destroys himself; that's actually what he did. But the world survives, beautifully!

Violence may be part but is not the whole; deep down is cooperation. And the higher you grow, the less and less violence, the more and more cooperation there is. That is the ladder of growth.

A moment comes when a person is no more in any conflict with anything - that's what I mean by sannyas. One is in love, in love with life as it is. One is in love not only with life but with death too, because one is simply in love. And then millions of things become possible through cooperation.

So now the groups will be of a totally different value.

[A sannyasin, returning to the West, asks Osho how she can help to continue the growth that has started here.

Osho suggests she do at least one meditation each day... ]

... And there is no need to move through the fixed form, mm? You can become more spontaneous and it will go deeper in you. I have a feeling that you are not a person who likes structures very much.

So unstructure it. Because no technique is so important as you, and man does not exist for the techniques, the technique exists for the man.

All the old religions emphasise too much the importance of the method and the technique. I don't care a bit: my whole emphasis is on the person.

So it will be easier for you - you can de-structure it, mm? you can just have the feel of it and you can grow your own meditation out of it.

But make it a regular thing. If you can choose an exact time for it every day it will be even more helpful.

[Osho says it is important to meditate at the same time each day, for the body/mind becomes accustomed to and attuned with a certain routine.... ]

The same is true about meditation and far more deeply, because meditation works on three layers:

your body, your vitality and energy, and your mind. Meditation works on these three layers and helps you to reach to the fourth layer, the no-mind. So a great synchronicity is needed. When your body is also ready to meditate, your vitality is also ready to meditate, your mind is also ready to meditate - when these three all synchronise into one unity then meditation simply goes without any effort. It is very smooth, you simply slide into it. Then the task is not uphill, it is downhill.

Mm? it is almost like driving a car downhill: you need not put the engine on, there is no need for petrol - the car slides down; the gravitation is enough.

So make it a point to meditate at a regular time, every day the same time, to create the same situation, and in the same room. In the East in the past, we used to have a separate room for meditation. Each family who could afford it would have a small temple, their own. A public temple is a public temple; one needs one's own temple, it is a private phenomenon. And people would go there only to pray or meditate, not for anything else.

Richer families, kings and others, used to even have personal temples. The king would have his own temple - nobody else would go into the temple, only he would pray there. That was his absolutely private space, and he would never do anything else there.

So the place - the incense burning there, the colour, the sound, the air - everything becomes associated with the idea of meditation. If you have been meditating in the same room, the same place, every day at the same time, then the moment you enter the room and you take your shoes off and you are getting ready, you are already in meditation. The moment you enter the room and you look at the walls - the same walls, the same colour, the same incense burning, the same fragrance, the same silence, the same time - your body, your vitality, your mind, start falling into a unity. They all know that this is the time, time to meditate. And they help, they don't fight with you. One can simply sit there and go into it easily - more easily, more silently, more effortlessly.

So if you can manage, have a small place - just a corner will do - and don't do anything else there. Otherwise the space becomes confused, mm? This is difficult to explain, but the space also becomes confused.

If you use the same room to make love, the same room to fight with your husband, the same room to beat your child, the same room to eat, the same room to do this and that, the place becomes confused. The place doesn't have a certain vibration, but all sorts of vibrations:

Now psychologists say that you should not do anything else in your bedroom - just sleep there. So the moment you enter the bedroom the body suddenly gets the message: this is the place to sleep.

People become aware of this. You sit in a certain chair and you feel at ease, and whenever you sit in that chair you are again at ease; it has become associated, the body knows. With the chair now you have a certain vibe. So it is better not to allow anybody to sit in your chair. It is better to keep things for their particular use.

So make a small corner, meditate there, and every day try to do it regularly at the same time. If sometimes you miss, nothing to feel guilty about - it's okay. But even if out of one hundred days you can make it regularly for sixty days, that will be enough, that will do.

Start Kundalini, and by and by start making your own innovations with it. And much will be happening - I'm coming with you!

[A sannyasin, returning to the West says: My heart is starting to sing.]

To sing? That's very good! That's what I would like, mm? That's very good. So help it! because the heart needs much help from you. It is a very neglected part of our being and there is no help coming from anywhere else for it. Your work will not help it, your family will not help it, your society will not help it, your state will not help it - only you can help it. And even when you are helping, you will sometimes be thinking whether to help it or not - because it has no utility in the world, it is very non-utilitarian. It is beautiful but it has no utility.

It is like a beautiful flower: you cannot eat it, you cannot earn much money out of it. You can enjoy it, you can have great celebration through it, but that is not utilitarian. Money-wise it means nothing - and we live money-wise, that's why we cannot live wisely.

So great help will be needed from your side. When the heart starts singing, pour all your energies into it. Help it to sing, so it sings and starts dancing - because its singing is going to be your joy; there is no other joy. And its dance is going to make your life a delight; there is no other delight.

So find some time to sing and be with your heart, and start talking to your heart almost as if you are talking to a friend. Have a dialogue sometimes with the heart: just sitting silently, say hello. And don't feel crazy - nothing is crazy about it. You can have a talk, and soon you will see the responses start coming. Then you will be surprised that the heart can say things which you had never thought.

The heart can make visions available to you which you have never dreamt of, never even heard of.

The heart is like a seed - carrying much, but nobody has opened the seed and nobody has helped it to grow.

[A sannyasin, leaving for the West, said that he was apprehensive about going back to work in construction because he had problems concentrating and remembering things. About his work, he said: Well, sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it.]

Mm mm. Then you really love it! (a chuckle) Because memory or remembrance depends on the interest you take in your work: if you are interested in it you will be able to remember very easily, if you are not interested in it then the problem arises. Concentration follows interest, it is a shadow of interest.

If you feel that concentration is missing, nothing can be done directly on concentration; something will have to be done on interest. And once you look at a problem wrongly you cannot solve it.

For example, a child sitting in the school suddenly starts listening to parrots screeching outside the window and he completely concentrates on listening to that. The teacher shouts 'Concentrate here!' - and he cannot concentrate on the blackboard, his mind goes on again and again to the parrots.

They are so joyful and he is really interested in them, so his concentration is there.

The teacher says 'Concentrate !' He is concentrating - in fact the teacher is distracting him from his concentration. But the teacher is wanting his concentration for something for which he has no interest; that's why he finds it difficult to concentrate.

So always remember: if you feel that you go on forgetting things, that simply means that somewhere interest is missing, or you have some other interest. Maybe you want to earn money out of it, your interest is in the money but not the work - then you will start forgetting things. So just watch your interest.

And whatsoever one is doing, if one is doing it with deep interest, there is no need to worry about remembrance - it simply comes. You forget only the names of those people you are not interested in, you forget the phone numbers of those people you are not interested in. If you are interested in a person you don't forget his name; for years you will not forget. It is the same mind, but when you are interested in a person you are wholly focussed on him.

When somebody is introducing a person, if you are interested in the person you will hear his name with both your ears, you will repeat it inside two or three times. You will love to repeat the name, and it will be there; it will cling to your memory.

Somebody is introducing somebody and you are not interested at all: you don't hear in the first place.

The name has been uttered: of course you have ears, so you have heard it - but you don't hear it,

and within seconds it is gone. In fact it has never been there; in the first place it never entered your memory.

It is from the door of interest that anything enters into the memory. Create more interest and let the interest be directly in the work, not in something else that will result out of the work.

There are people who are interested in writing poetry, but their interest is not in the poetry but in the fame that they will have when they become a great poet. They will not even remember their own poetry. If they are interested in the poetry itself they will remember it. Years will pass and it will be there - luminous!

Just go back and look into your past sometimes: what do you remember? You will see that there are things that you remember for years. Now, you may not even be able to find out why you remember those things, but you must have taken deep interest in them and so they are deeply engraved on your memory.

A face - sometimes even a face of a stranger - and you don't forget it, it is engraved there.

Sometimes a small incident - you were a child collecting seashells on the beach and it is so fresh in the memory, as if it has just happened or as if it is already happening right now. You can close your eyes and you can even smell the sea beach, the salty air... you can feel the texture of the seashells that you had collected, you can feel the breeze... you can again live it! It is not only a remembrance:

you can relive it. You must have been tremendously interested in those seashells. They have gone so deep that years have passed and millions of things have been collected in your mind but still that sea, that beach, those seashells, that moment has remained so alive and throbbing - even if you want to forget it, you cannot.

My understanding is that I have never seen a man who has any fault with memory. The only problem is that he has no interest in something and he tries to memorise it; then nothing happens.

So this time go and try to take interest moment to moment: get absorbed in the work, let it be a meditation, and then see what happens. You will remember, you will remember small details. And don't be bothered about memory - forget about memory, memory will take care of itself. Simply take more interest in whatsoever you are doing.

Change your emphasis from memory to interest, and one day you will be suddenly surprised: you are not forgetting things as you used to.

When I was travelling in india for fifteen years continuously, I used to remember thousands of people's names. For five years I might not visit their town and then suddenly one day I would be there and I would remember all those people! Hundreds of people - and they were surprised how I could remember their names. But that was not a problem at all. They thought it had something to do with memory. It had nothing to do with memory - I have a very lousy memory - but I had a deep interest in people!

So whenever I am talking to one person I forget the whole world. Then that person is my whole world - at least for that moment, only he exists. So if you meet me after many lives somewhere, I will remember you. That one moment of total attention, that one moment of love, that one moment

of focussing on you, that one moment when you become my world, is enough! You are engraved forever, enshrined forever - it is impossible to forget!

So just start taking more interest. Remain in the moment, take more interest in whatsoever you are doing. And after two or three months you will see that the memory is simply following - it comes.

There are no techniques to improve memory, and all the techniques that have been invented and are talked about are useless. The only technique that works is not a technique at all, because it has nothing to do with memory; it has something to do with interest.

So, one thing first try to take interest. If it is impossible then change your job. These are the two alternatives: first, for four or five months, six months, take interest, find new ways to become interested in it. Don't just go on doing it as a work - love it, make it a hobby, play with it!

And construction, architecture, can be of great interest - it depends on the person. One can be deeply in love with the work - it is very creative, you can do a thousand and one things, you can be very inventive. Never before was man so able to do so much, as far as construction is concerned.

So many new materials are available, so many possibilities.

There is no need to repeat the past, mm? We can create so many new things that have never been dreamt of by man. Cities can float in the sky. There is no need really now to be on the earth; if we are, it is just because we lack imagination. Otherwise there is no need - cities can float in the sky, cities can float in the sea. Earth-bound, we are just foolish.

Now every possibility is there - millions of doors have opened, we just have to use them. So many synthetic fibres are available; many things can be done with them which were not possible before.

So just take more interest, love the work, get into it, become more inventive, innovative, think of new ideas, get involved, become committed. And you will see that the memory just follows.

[A sannyasin, leaving for the West, says: I've been going through a lot of doubts about sannyas... It feels good here being surrounded by sannyasins and being here with you. But I feel going away - when I'm on my own, away from you - it won't feel so real.]

Mm mm. It will become more real - just go. Because to be close to me has nothing to do with physical closeness. If you love me you will find me there too, as close as here and sometimes even closer - because there you and I will be alone, and here I have so many sannyasins, mm? So naturally, here you can have only a part of me, not the whole. There, I will be wholly yours!

It is a question of love: love knows no distance, no space. If you love me you will find me there. If you don't love me, then even here you will not find me. If you love me, even when I am gone from this body you will find me - I will remain available to you. If you don't love me.... There are many people who are just neighbours to me here, and no contact will become possible.

So it depends - it all boils down to love. Just go, mm? Don't be afraid - go and see. Continue to meditate and remember me.

[A sannyasin, with an arm in plaster, said she felt very destructive, especially when surrounded by people, but she doesn't know the cause of it. She wondered if she should do Primal therapy. In response to a question from Osho, she says she is in a relationship.]

That's good - because relationship will help you, and [he] is perfectly good.

These problems are not really caused by anything. There are two types of problems: one is when it is caused by something in the past - then Primal therapy can be very helpful. But I don't see that that is the problem. It is as if a person became afraid of water when he was a child. Maybe he was playing around the river and fell into the river and became very much afraid. Now he cannot go near the river - just seeing the water, he starts trembling.

Now, this kind of problem can be helped very much by Primal therapy, because it is not fear of the water, it is just a past experience. The child was very small and helpless and fell into the river and it was almost as if he was going to die, so the fear has entered very deeply. Now just the closeness of water is enough to make him tremble - he again becomes a child, not knowing what is happening.

And he knows there is no need to be afraid, but that will not help. So he has to go through the past experience - to relive it, to unwind it.

Then there is a second type of problem: somebody is afraid of going into the river because he does not know swimming. Now, this man cannot be helped by primal therapy. He is afraid because he does not know how to swim, that's all. And his fear is right - otherwise he would die if he were not afraid.

So if you want to take him into the water he says 'No, I cannot go, I am very much afraid.' But his fear is of a different kind: he does not know how to swim.

Now, if you put this man into Primal therapy nothing will happen, because it is not a question of the past. His problem belongs to the future: he needs to learn how to swim, he wants to learn that.

Once he knows how to swim the problem will disappear.

Your problem is of the second type: you need to know how to love, how to give; nothing is being held over from the past. And because you cannot love, because you cannot allow one person to be close to you, how can you allow many persons? - then you start feeling afraid.

You are afraid of relationship, you are afraid of love, and the reason is that you don't know how to love. The only way to know how to swim is to start swimming. [He] is very good - let him be the guide, you just be a follower. Just tell him to lead you into love, to help you to go into love more and more.

And you just do one thing: don't create any trouble. If you can do that, once love starts flowing, then there will be no trouble - just in the beginning.... At least you will have to trust the guide, so that when he puts you into the water you don't start screaming and hitting him. That much you have to do - and it is a simple thing!

Love is such a natural thing that everybody can grow into love. So first try to love. Start giving! If somebody asks for one thing, give two, mm? If [he] wants your coat, give him your shirt too. If he

wants you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Just try it - and you will enjoy it! Once you have started enjoying, the problem disappears.

Report to me after one month. For one month try - rather than going into Primal therapy, go into love therapy. Then we will see, mm?