Darshan 25 April 1977

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

This will be the name: shraddhan meditation centre. Shraddhan means trust. And that is the most significant quality for a seeker, to be able to trust - because the whole movement is into the unknown.

Unless you trust you cannot go into it. It needs tremendous courage to trust. Doubt is very easy, any fool can do that - but to trust needs great courage. Through doubt we protect ourselves: we make our life secure so that nobody can cheat, nobody can deceive us. Through doubt we create a citadel around our being, an armour.

So from the citadel we are continuously watching people with distrust. Even if we trust people sometimes, that too is very conditional. It is as if I take my hand out of my armour, you take your hand out of your armour, and we shake hands. But our armours remain - and at any moment, if the possibility arises where you feel afraid or I feel afraid, we can withdraw. Even in our love we trust only this much, we never drop the armour.

And 'shraddhan' trust, means to live vulnerably, to live in a way as if the whole existence is our family - with deep friendship, with a feeling of at-one-ment with existence. Who is going to deceive you?

There is nobody else to deceive you; the other exists not. That is the meaning of trust, that the other is not. So how can the other be thought of as the enemy? The whole existence is very very affectionate towards you - but you come to know that affection only when you start flowing towards existence. If you are closed, existence remains closed - just because of you! Because you create a citadel around you, you create a barrier and the existence cannot reach you. And existence never interferes; it allows you total freedom. Even if you want to remain a prisoner in your own mind, it allows that too. If you want to become an island, it allows that too. God allows everything - even to go against him, even to betray him.

Trust means that we have come to recognise the fact that we come out of this existence, we remain rooted in it, and one day we disappear in it - so how can there be any enmity? So why doubt? One drops the armour. In that very dropping of the armour there is a radical revolution: suddenly you are back home. The enemy was never there; it was only in your eyes, it was a projection. It was out of fear that you created the enemy; once the fear is dropped, there is no enemy. Nobody can deceive a man of trust - it is impossible!

I'm not saying that if you trust, then nobody can cut off your pocket....

[In India, pickpockets literally cut off the pocket of a person they are robbing, rather than just taking the contents.]

[Osho recounts the Zen anecdote about a burglar who entered the house of a Zen master to rob him.

The master not only made no move to stop him, but aided him in his search, suggesting things he might take.

The burglar, wondering what kind of man this was who would help himself to be robbed, took the possessions, but was hailed by the zen master as he made off. The master said the thief should thank him - which he did, leaving more mystified than ever!

In due course the thief was captured, but pardoned when the Zen master, called as a witness, said he had given the things to the man and had been duly thanked.... ]

So the thief was released. He followed the master and the master said 'Where are you going? If you are coming to take something, please give me a few days!'

The thief says 'I am coming forever! You have robbed me - you have stolen my heart.'

So it is not that a man of trust cannot be deceived, but he will not take it as deception. His compassion will remain the same, his love will flow the same way.

Trust is the greatest quality. When a man is in trust, trust-full, he is religious.

[A sannyasin said she had been sick with hepatitis, and watched the changes she went through: of wanting her mother to look after her; and of feeling inside a thick fog which was clearing. She also asked about her path and whether to continue with painting and embroidery; and also that she was not interested in any relationship.

Osho checks her energy.]

So the first thing: something really is changing, and very deep down. Help it, don't get scared. When the change starts coming you may start feeling very scared, because it will give you a totally new being - you will never be the old again. So it is going to be a death and a birth. It may take months, but that is not the question. Allow it - not only allow it, welcome it, nourish it, take care of it as a very very welcome guest. Become the host, let the change be the guest; take every care of it!

One has almost to take care of it as one takes care of a small boy: you have to mother this change.

As one takes care of a small plant, one has to protect and water it. And it is so delicate: anything can go wrong. So just protect this and pour all your energy and affection and love onto it. Just think that you have a baby, you are pregnant. This change has to be taken as a pregnancy - the first thing.

And the second thing: it will be good if you start painting a little bit, or knitting. Any creative work will be good because any creative work is helpful for inner growth.

Creativity is a food, and people who are not creative rarely grow - it is very rare - because they are starved. We come close to god only when we create. If god is the creator, then to be creative is the way to participate in his being. We cannot create this universe but we can create a small painting - we can create small things. And it does not make any difference whether you create a big thing or a small thing. Creativity knows no quantitative valuation.

A man steals two rupees; he is a thief. And another man steals two lakhs rupees; he is also a thief.

Degrees differ, but the inner quality is the same.

So creativity is not concerned with quantity, it is concerned with quality. And it has nothing to do with what others say about your creations - that is irrelevant. If you enjoyed doing your work, that's enough; you are already paid for it.

And the third thing: right now, if you are not feeling like relating with somebody, moving into a relationship, there is no need to force - not at all. It almost always happens that when some change is happening inside, you will not feel like being in a relationship, because it is the same energy that a relationship takes. And if you are in a relationship your growth will stop, because it is the same energy that the growth needs. So now the growth and the relationship will become competitors.

It almost always happens that very creative people don't become related. Their relationship is also very strange and momentary, and their relationship is very eccentric. They are not good householders, they cannot become good husbands and good wives - not possible. They are not even good mothers and good fathers. Their relationship is on and off, and few and far between are the moments when they can relate - otherwise their whole energy is taken up by their inner work.

Poets or painters, scientists or mystics, may relate sometimes, they may be friendly, become a lover, but it is nothing like a continuity in their life. It is just accidental - it does not make their essential core.

And the reason is because their whole energy, the same love energy, is taken by their creativity, by their inner growth.

So right now if you start hankering for some love relationship, if you start thinking 'Something is wrong - why don't I relate with people?' you will disturb the whole thing. Just wait - if relationship happens on its own it is good, but you need not make any effort whatsoever for it.

If it comes some day effortlessly, it is good. Then it will not take much energy; it is effort that takes energy. And wait - if it is not happening, very good, nothing to be worried about. When inner work is complete you will have enough energy released - then you can relate.

Things are going very well. And your hepatitis has been really good, it has helped your body to be clean. That's why things have started happening - you are unburdened. Good!

[A visitor said that he had always been a rebel, and in coming to Osho he feels in a strange position.]

There is no pressure there. Your resistance is giving you the feeling of pressure. It is as if you are pressing against the wall and then you feel the wall is pressing against you....

It is just resistance... it is just resistance. Just leave the wall. And the wall will not follow you and will not chase you and the wall is not concerned at all, not concerned at all! It is your self-creation - the pressure. The wall is there but the wall is not pressing you....

You are afraid of the wall - you are afraid that maybe the wall will crush you, so you are protecting...

And you are forcing the wall away, because you are afraid the wall may come closer. It is not coming at all - it is simply there! You need not be worried about it, don't take any note of it. You are too interested in it; you are almost hypnotised by it....

That is a hypnosis! You are hypnotised. And if you go on pressing against the wall, naturally you will feel the pressure. You will feel the pressure as if it is coming from the wall - it is your own pressure reflected....

First you have to understand this, that the pressure is created by you. That is very basic. Once you understand this, the pressure will disappear and you will be free. And you are free!

Nobody is trying to do anything to you. People are interested in doing things to themselves; they are not worried at all about anybody else here. Everybody is so engrossed in his own work - nobody is interested at all in anybody else. In fact people are almost indifferent.

But you have a certain idea that you are not to follow the mass, you are not to follow the crowd - and this is not a crowd at all! They are all in orange but it is not a crowd! They are all very unique individuals. They relate to me directly. The organisation is just for the name's sake - it is nothing.

There is no mass trying to force you into a certain direction. Once you understand that, the pressure will be gone. And the pressure can be dangerous: if you are thinking about it too much you can be crushed just because of your idea.

It happened once: I had a friend, a very simple, innocent man, and he was a professor of English.

He was really innocent, and on a celebration day he took some drug. He had never taken it before but some friends forced him.

He went outside the house and started shouting and screaming. The police caught him and for the whole night he had to be in the prison. Next morning I went and took him away from there, but he became so scared that he started thinking that the police were going to catch him again.

I tried in a thousand and one ways to convince him that nobody was interested at all, that he was not a criminal or anything. It was just a small incident - if the police had known that he was a professor

in the university they would not have even bothered him. Not knowing, they simply took him. The moment I told them that he was an innocent man and it was just foolish of him, they released him.

But he wouldn't listen. A policeman walking on the road and he would hide in the house: 'The policeman is coming!' A police jeep going outside and he would start shaking and trembling and saying 'They are coming!' It became so much - and he used to live with me - that I started becoming tired of him.

He would not go to the university, he took leave - because to go to the university he had to pass a few roads, and if he saw a policeman anywhere he simply lost all his sense. He became almost paralysed - just seeing a policeman! Now, how to convince him?

In the night he would come and wake me saying, 'They are coming! I have heard the knock!' By and by, his imagination started working so much that he started imagining a thousand and one things - that they had a big file against him, and this and that - and he started imagining things that he had never done.

I had to ask a police inspector to come and give him a good beating. So the police inspector came.

I told him the whole story; he understood it. I told him 'Bring a bogus file - he wants a big file, and we will have to burn the file. Give him a good beating. I will persuade you and give you ten thousand rupees - because he thinks that less than that won't do! He has ten thousand rupees, so I will give you the ten thousand rupees - and later on you can return them, but now take those ten thousand rupees. He has collected ten thousand, he thinks less than that won't do.'

So the policeman came; he gave him a good beating. And when this poor fellow was being beaten he looked at me, and I could see how happy he was! He was saying 'Look! You were wrong - this is the file! Look! The police have come, and you were just talking nonsense to me.'

And when I gave those ten thousand rupees to the policeman and the file was burnt in front of him, he was happy - then he dropped the idea. But those six months were maddening! When, after two or three months, I returned those ten thousand rupees he could not believe it. When I told him the whole story he could not believe it.

You are under the same pressure; it is just your idea. Simply drop it! Nobody is pressing you - one thing.

The second thing: this distinction between truth and image can be carried to the extreme and can become a very absurd situation. In fact the image is as much true as the truth itself. It is of course true as an image, it is not true as truth The dream is also as true as the reality.

If you stand before a mirror it reflects you - it is a true image. Certainly it is an image, but what is wrong in it? It reflects you. And you can move towards yourself from the image, but then you are not to move in the direction of the image; you have to go exactly in the opposite direction.

If you go in the direction of the image then you will have to enter the mirror - you will not find anything there, and the mirror will be destroyed. But that is foolish! That is not the image's responsibility, that is your foolishness if you start moving into the mirror to find the truth of the image.

The image simply indicates that to find the truth you have to go against it. The image can be used as a way towards truth, it can be used as an indicator towards truth. It depends on us: the image has nothing to do with it, it is not responsible at all.

If I look in the mirror and I can see you, then I know you are in the room. I can find you - the mirror has helped me to find you, the mirror is not the enemy. We have a mirror in the car to be able to see behind; it helps you. You are backing the car, it helps you.

My whole stand-point is that everything can be used for truth and everything can be used against truth. It depends on you. If you are intelligent you can use the image also, as an indicator.

[The sannyasin said he is cautious because the image of 'truth' is an escape.]

If you are too cautious, you will become too tense. You will not get truth - you will even lose the image. Don't become tense, because truth happens in a relaxed state of mind.

[The sannyasin says: I can be relaxed... looking at the stars or the trees... because they're not telling me what is.]

Nobody is telling - or they are also telling you! The roseflower is constantly saying what it is!

... In a different way, because he does not speak the human language, he speaks the language of the flowers. Man speaks man's language, man is not a flower.

There is a Zen book, 'The flower does not talk'. And I am going to write a book, 'The flower talks too'! Just the language is different.

... If you become alert that man speaks man's language, then you see that stones speak stones' language. You don't expect a stone to speak man's language, you should not expect a man to speak stones' language.

[The sannyasin says: But man can speak from the heart, and usually he doesn't.]

He has a head too!

... The head is just a mirror - and the head can be used as a servant to the heart. In fact the heart cannot speak, it is dumb. It is always the head which speaks - the head is the mirror.

Even when you say 'It is the heart speaking,' it is the head speaking. It is always the head, because the heart cannot speak; there is no speech possible through the heart. But the only thing is, if the head is speaking just from itself... then it is bogus.

... That means a mirror is reflecting something which is not there... But it is not happening so! And you can become too tense about it.

Drop tensions! Become more and more relaxed with human beings too - because it is very easy to be relaxed with a pine. The real problem is to be relaxed with a human being!

And unless you are relaxed with a human being, your relaxation is not of much use - not much use.

So it is good that you feel relaxed with trees and stars, but start being relaxed with human beings too. You have a certain antagonism about human beings and that antagonism simply shows fear - you are afraid. And fear is not a good quality; through fear one never reaches to the truth.

You are protecting, you are continuously on guard. This much cautiousness is not good; one needs to be without any guard sometimes. Mm? by and by, relax the guard.

And nobody is going to destroy anything, because that which is cannot be destroyed - the first thing.

Truth cannot be destroyed; at the most one can look in the wrong direction, that's all. And that too is not to be worried about. One should take things very easily.

My feeling about you is that you are too serious about it. That will give you a headache The head is enough - plus a headache it is too much!

For a few days relax and start listening to human beings too! They also are trees, they are also stars - of course higher, more evolved, more complex, so naturally there are more problems.

Sitting with a stone is very easy: the stone will not interfere, will not argue. If you say something it will not deny it. If you are going outside, the stone will not say 'Where are you going?' If you start talking to another stone, the stone will not say 'Where are you going?' The stone will not feel jealous; it will not say 'You belong to me. Where are you going? With whom are you talking and laughing?

This is not good!'

... You are tense. This human reality has to be accepted. And nothing is wrong in it - this human chattering is also good.

When parrots chatter we say 'Beautiful!', and when women chatter we say 'Ugly!' (laughter) This is not right, this is unfair. What I am saying is to simply have a more relaxed attitude about things.