Darshan 1 May 1976

Dharma Deepam. It means light of religion, light of the law, light of the ultimate. Dharma means many things, but basically it means exactly what Tao means - the fundamental law of existence. It is used for religion because religion is also a fundamental law, life.

The english word 'religion' has very wrong connotations with it - sectarian, moral, theological; less concerned with the spontaneity of existence.

[The new sannyasin says: I feel very honoured to be here listening to you.]

Mm, that's very good. Much is going to happen.

Change to orange and completely forget the past - as if it never belonged to you. That is the meaning of changing the name. One gets identified with a name, and, dropping it, suddenly one feels free; the identity is no more there.

It is almost as if you are in a strange country where nobody knows that you are a very rich man, very educated, a doctor, a professor, or an engineer, a scientist; nobody knows that you are an artist or a painter. Nobody knows anything about you and suddenly you find yourself in a strange world. You are reduced to non-being. People don't look at you. Nobody pays special attention to you because nobody knows who you are. Suddenly the whole identity that you have been carrying forever, collapses. For the first time you really start being the one you are - unlabelled, unnamed, unknown. Not only unknown to others but even to yourself.

The whole effort of changing your clothes and your name is just to give you a discontinuity with the past. Once the discontinuity is there, ninety percent of your problems disappear. Those problems

belong to your identity, not really to you. You, simply put aside the memories and the loaded past.

You say, 'I am no more that. That man is dead.'

So this is a day of your rebirth, your death and your resurrection. Take it as deeply as you can so the break happens easily. Just forget and start from this moment looking at your past as if it belonged to somebody else, or as if you had read a novel or seen a movie, had been in a dream, and suddenly it has disappeared; you are no more in it.

When Buddha became enlightened, a very great and learned brahmin approached him. Buddha was looking so god-like, so tremendously beautiful and graceful, that the brahmin asked, 'Are you a god?' Buddha said, 'No.' The brahmin asked, 'Are you a great saint?' Buddha said, 'No.' Then the brahmin asked, 'Then who are you.?'

Buddha laughed and said, 'I am aware.' Just this much - 'I am aware.' He has said a tremendous thing.

He says, 'How can I be identified with any label - god, saint, sinner, this and that? I am aware - the dream is finished.'

All identities are dreams - sometimes beautiful, sometimes nightmarish, but all dreams. So whatsoever you have been up to now, get out of it as a snake gets out of the old skin. Don't move in the old shoes anymore - get out of them - and suddenly you will see that ninety percent of the problems have disappeared. The ten percent which don't disappear are real problems. They are blessings, because through them one grows.

The ninety percent of problems which are not real, are bogus, are simply distractions and cunning devices of the mind to avoid the real problems. Whenever there is a real problem, the mind creates many other problems which are false, pseudo, and you become engaged with the false problems.

Then you start working on them - and they can never be solved because in the first place they are not your problems. They are not problems.

This moment becomes your death and also your birth. Let it penetrate deeply.

And I can see that the energy is beautiful. Very few people are so blessed... whose energy is flowing really in harmony. Just become more and more tuned with me here, and with the milieu we are trying to create here, the ecology of human consciousness that we are working with here; become in tune with it. Just become part of it and much will happen.

[A visitor, said that the only meditation she had done prior to those happening here, was colour meditation, and that she had done some Encounter groups when she was younger, more as a gesture of breaking out of the institution than of anything else.]

Mm mm... because it is not a question of breaking out of an institution. The question is of breaking out of the mind. The mind is the real institution, and it is inside, not outside.

It is not a real problem to live in an institution, or to live in a certain society, in a certain tradition. The real problem is inside man. One has to live in one's mind, and that is institutional and very orthodox That is the real imprisonment.

So it will be good if you can do a few groups here. There are a few groups which can bring you out of your mind. That's why I think you were not enjoying these meditations, because these meditations can be enjoyed only...

[She answers: I enjoy the meditations. It's more or less the feeling around the ashram and Poona.]

Mm mm, maybe. If you enjoy meditations, then continue. And these are irrelevant things - Poona or the ashram or the people. Never pay much attention to irrelevant things because sometimes they become so important, and one becomes so obsessed with them that one misses the essential.

Once a man came to me, a very learned man, a vice-chancellor of a university, and he said, 'Everything is good. I love your books, I love your talks, but your long skirt...' What nonsense!

But it was a real problem. He said, 'I feel silly, but the moment I see your long skirt, rm disturbed.

Why this long skirt?'

So I told him, 'I can make it short, but then when somebody is disturbed by my short skirt, what am I going to do? Then someone may be even disturbed by my skirt! If I am to satisfy everybody, it will be impossible for me to live!' He said he understood but still, somehow, it obsessed him.

I have seen many people getting too interested in unnecessary things. Poona is irrelevant. You are here to be with me. The ashram is also irrelevant, but sometimes these things become very very meaningful. There are people who say, 'We don't like this organisation, the ashram and routine. We love you but we cannot stay because this is too much of a regimentation.' Then they are paying too much attention to something which is not of any value.

Just be concerned with the essential in life, and always go to the root of the matter. Don't be bothered by the non-essentials. They are always there and they cannot be satisfactory according to everybody's heart's desire; it is impossible. When there are so many people, it is almost impossible to drop all sorts of formalities because then it becomes a chaos.

[Osho said that he had tried to help people without the structure of an ashram, an organisation, but it because impossible to communicate in depth with individuals.]

If you try to manage things, then a certain organisation enters. If you drop all organisation, everything becomes chaotic, so that nothing can be done. Just try to understand things, and look at the essential.

I will suggest that if you do a few groups here, they will be very very helpful. Try at least one and we will see, mm? See what you can allow, and when you allow, see what happens. If you go totally into anything, you simply get out of the mind. The mind can never be total in anything. It is always divided, fragmentary; that's the nature of the mind. So whatsoever you can do totally, immediately you get out of the mind. And those few moments of getting out of the mind are of real freedom.

Then you are out of the institution... the most subtle Institution of your own thoughts. We have many groups for different types of people, for different problems to be tackled, and different approaches to enter a certain person, to go into the very core of his or her being.

Just be here and don't look for the non-essential. Just remember me. Right!

[The companion of the former visitor said that he also had done colour meditation in the past.]

Colour meditation is good, and it can help up to a certain point but not up to the very end, because it is in fact imagination.

Nothing is wrong in imagination. It is the only creative faculty in you. Colour meditation is imagination, and you can imagine beautiful colours; you can have very very beautiful experiences through it; it is very poetic, romantic - but one has to go beyond it because reality can never be known through imagination.

You can come to love reality through imagination but you can never know it. You will have deeper experiences of reality, but those experiences will remain subjective. You will go on projecting something. If you look at a rose flower, and if you have a trained imagination you will see tremendous qualities in the rose, of which nobody else will be aware. You will almost see a dance of energy there, the aura of the rose and the subtle colours ... you can almost touch the fragrance of it. It becomes almost tangible and the roseness of the rose has a depth when you have imagination. It opens new doors, and one rose can become the door for the whole existence. But still it is imagination. In fact you are not knowing anything about the rose, you are knowing something about your imagination through the rose. The rose is just an excuse.

So, good - I am all in favour of imagination - but one has to learn one day to drop it so that you can see that which is, not that which you impose on something. Reality is something totally different from what we dream, imagine... than we can ever think about. It is totally different and it has nothing to do with the mind.

Something like Vipassana will be very helpful. We have a group for buddhist meditation because that is the only ancient method which does not use imagination. It is very austere, pure. The whole emphasis is just on being alert, that's all, so that nothing passes without your knowledge. You don't do anything to the facticity of life: you don't touch it, retouch it, you don't project anything. Life is no more a screen, and you are no more a projector. You are simply witnessing, whatsoever it is, with no judgement on your part of good or bad, beautiful or ugly.

But before you do Vipassana, do some very imaginative thing because you have been doing this colour meditation, so something on the same lines will bring your imagination to the very brink, beyond which it cannot go. And that is my emphasis always. If you are doing something, go to the very extreme of it. Never leave it in the middle, otherwise you will have a hangover. Go to the very extreme of it explore the whole possibility and potentiality of it. Only drop it when you see that now it is a used possibility, now there is nothing more in it and you have exploited it completely. You have taken all that was possible to take from it. Only then move somewhere else.

First go through the group we call Hypnotherapy - that is completely imagination, but it brings the imagination to a total focusing. Use your imagination as totally as possible so that you can enjoy the whole scenery of imagination. Once you have enjoyed the whole scenery, you can come out of it very easily.

[A visitor said that he had been working with Arica for four years and would continue in that work on his return to the States.]

Arica has a few very beautiful methods, but always remember that the method is not the ultimate thing, and one has to go beyond methodology.

Because the West is so technically minded, the techniques appeal very much. Arica has very beautiful techniques, eclectic, from many schools, from many esoteric groups, so work hard on them. But remember one thing, that no method can lead you to the point where you can become spontaneous. All methods can give you a certain glimpse, but never the truth.

Glimpses are good because that's how one learns and reaches closer to the truth, that's how one comes to feel what truth is. Then truth becomes a great desire, a burning desire in oneself. Methods can create thirst but they can never quench. So use all methods that you can learn but always remembering that truth is beyond methods. It cannot be within methods because it cannot be caused by anything. It is uncaused. You have not to do anything to achieve it. You have just to be...

it is already showering on you. Not for a single moment have you missed it. It is impossible to miss it because it is our very nature.

So don't get too attached to methods otherwise they will become the barriers. Use them but with the awareness that this is just a device, is arbitrary. It is just like a staircase: you use it to go upstairs but the stair is not the goal. Use it - and leave it. When a person has become completely free of methods, he rests in his own being.

That thing has yet to penetrate the western consciousness. Transcendental meditation, Arica, Scientology, and a thousand and one methods are prevalent and people go on moving from one methodology to another, everybody thinking that through methods truth can be achieved. Through methods, at the most you can be prepared to receive it, but it comes on its own. It comes when it comes - it cannot be forced. And a forced truth will not be much of a truth.

I see many people who have not known any methods, and people who have known methods and have started clinging to them. Both are lost. The first group can be forgiven, but not the second. The first has not even started; nothing can be said about them. But the second has started, has moved a few steps, and now is clinging to the staircase.

So remember, one has to come to no-method and one has to come to no-effort. One has to come to no-will, because whatsoever you will, is going to create a certain ego. Whatsoever you do is going to create a certain tension. One has to come to total surrender, then God wills... then the whole works through you. You simply float, not even worried where the whole is taking you and leading you. Each moment is tremendously beautiful in itself.

[A sannyasin said she wanted to start a centre in Oxford, England, and also to introduce Osho to Ronnie Laing.]

That would be very good. He might be interested. Just let him feel me through you.

... He is one of the most beautiful people alive there, so he has to be interested. Just go and start working on him. And I will give you a name so that you can start a small centre in Oxford.

This will be the name: Shunyam.

It means the emptiness, the void, the nothingness. This is a buddhist word - shunyam - for the ultimate reality. Buddha says there is no god, there is no creator, that there is, in fact, nobody. The whole is a nobodyness.

In English there is no word to translate it because all english words that can give an indication about it are all negative. The word 'empty' feels as if it is empty of something. It is not in itself a positive feeling.

When you say that the room is empty, you mean that the furniture has been removed. Shunyam is a positive emptiness. It is not empty of something. It is full of emptiness. The room is full of roominess. Maybe the furniture is not there, but that's how it is full of roominess. When furniture is there, it occupies the room; the room is occupied and destroyed. When you remove everything from the room, roominess enters back into it; the room becomes full of emptiness.

So shunyam is a positive word. Because of this word, many in the West have misunderstood Buddha. They think he is a negative thinker, a pessimist, because in the West the word 'empty' has always been used in a condemnatory sense. They say that the empty mind is the devil's workshop.

In India we say that the empty mind is God's workshop. But this emptiness is totally different, mm?

It is full of emptiness.

There is an anecdote in Buddha's life about a great philosopher, not a disciple of Buddha, but a seeker, who said to Buddha, 'I have not come to listen to any words from you, and I have not come to listen to your silence either. So don't tell me anything through words and don't tell me anything through silence.'

Buddha kept quiet. A few moments passed - the man was thrilled, ecstatic. He touched Buddha's feet and he said, 'Your compassion is great, and you have given me what I asked you for.' In deep respect, gratitude, he left Buddha.

Buddha's own disciples could not follow what had transpired between the two. In the first place the man had said not to say anything through silence - and Buddha had kept silent. The man had posed a very difficult dilemma - not to say anything through words and not to say anything through silence and yet to say something! What transpired between the two? Even the disciples could not understand.

When the man left, the chief disciple, Ananda, asked, 'We cannot understand what has happened.

The man asked you not to be silent and you remained silent - and still he received the answer!'

Buddha said, 'There are two types of silences. One is when you want to say something and you are not saying it.' In English you have the expression 'a pregnant silence'. Something is there and maybe the quality of it is such that it cannot be said. It is inexpressible but it is there. Buddha said,'That man told me not to be in a pregnant silence, an eloquent silence, so I didn't say anything through words and I didn't say anything through silence.

'But there is another silence, which is simple. It is not absence of saying, not empty of saying, but simply full of silence. I remained in it and the man followed and understood.'

Ananda said, 'But we could not follow and we are your disciples. How did it happen?'

Buddha said, 'There are a few horses of good breeding for whom only the shadow of the whip is enough.'

So shunyam means, not empty of anything, but full of emptiness.

The East has always loved shunyam. A man is not made of body, but is the inner emptiness. When we say we live in a house, we live in emptiness. If the house is really full we will not be able to live in it. We pass through the door because it is empty. We cannot pass through the wall because it is full.

The whole emphasis in the East is for shunyam - emptiness, but full of its own nature. You wanted to say something else? One thing is still there.

[The sannyasin then asked: I used to go outside my body and I didn't know anything about it until I heard you talking about it. It used to happen when I was frightened, and I wouldn't have any control over it. I'd go about four feet away from my body.]

Yes, allow it - it is beautiful, very beautiful. Simply enjoy it so it happens more and more. By and by it will become more and more smooth and you will be able to go further and further away from the body. One can almost float in the sky.

You are separate from the body. The body is just an abode in which we are staying for a time being.

So enjoy it and whenever you have time slip into it. If it is happening naturally, it is beautiful. It is a great meditation and will help tremendous growth in you.

... We have a certain attitude about things. For example if you accept the idea that you are separate from the body, when the thing happens you will become aware of it. If you reject the very idea and think that it is foolish, the thing will happen but you will bypass it. You will not recognise it or take note of it, because it will go against your mind.

... Then you will lose it. If you understand it and allow it, you know the path and how it happened. It is a knack, and you slip into that knack again and again and again and it happens more and more.

People who have an idea that they have lived only once, are living only once, and that there are not many lives, also slip, sometimes, into their past lives, but they will interpret it in a certain way. They will say, 'This is just dream or fantasy, just nonsense, rubbish!' In that way they will block the door.

There are people who sometimes move into deep meditation but they remain completely oblivious of the fact. If you ask them, they will say, 'Maybe I fell asleep,' or, 'I don't know what was happening!'

The mind only selects those things which it accepts. That's why an open mind is needed with no dogma cluttering it. Then whatsoever happens, one is available to take note of it, to enjoy it, and if it is life-enhancing, to move into it. Then more and more things will happen.

It is a chain. If you go one step into it, another step becomes available. If you go two steps, a third step becomes available. And only one step becomes available at one time. If you don't take the first step, the other steps are simply closed for you.

Whenever it happens, push it back a little further. You feel it is four feet, try to make it five or six. If you feel it is in the room, just try to get out of the room. By, and by you will feel that a freedom is

coming and you are becoming attuned to the phenomenon. Sometimes try to go out of the town, and then to Poona (laughter). Come from Oxford, mm?... because time and space are not barriers for it.

[A sannyasin who is maintaining silence said that most of the time she felt marvellous, but sometimes around people anger arose. She asked: Is there something that is short-circuiting or something?]

No, no, nothing. Because you have been always very cultured, polite, controlled, disciplined, these wild pockets are there and you have bypassed them. You have controlled your life in a certain way, in a perfect way. But those pockets are there and now you are relaxing more, so those pockets are starting to get back into your system. There is nothing wrong in it, but just remember one thing - never throw your anger on anybody.

If you get angry at persons, you will never get totally angry and guilt arises, because the person is not really the cause. You can see that; you are alert enough now. You can see that the person is not the cause and that you have your own anger inside. You are just seeking some excuse.

Use the anger in some activity. I would like these wild pockets which are being left outside your personality to be reabsorbed. You will become more whole. Nothing has to be left out, absolutely nothing. Everything has to be absorbed, reclaimed, and everything has to find a place in your totality.

But don't be worried - everything is going well.

[The Enlightenment Intensive group are present.

[A group member said that at first he wanted to leave and then it got better and better and better.]

Very good! Now tell everybody this, because many people would have left. The idea comes to many people in the beginning when it is difficult. Westerners particularly have become much too addicted to convenience and comfort. Anything that looks hard, seems impossible, they try to get out of. But if you go into things, they become easier.

Always remember that things which are easier in the beginning always prove useless because they don't give you any challenge. they don't test your mettle or give you any opportunities. If you can work through things that are hard, the very thrill gives a challenge to your whole being. The very decision that you are going to stay, to stick at it, gives you a sudden upsurge of energy and growth.

After each hardship you will find that you have learned something. You will come out of it more integrated. Never choose the easy - it is dangerous. If you do, you can live and die conveniently, but you will not grow.

[Another group member said he also nearly left and then later something very special happened for him.]

It has been very good. Always remember that all that looks horrible is not necessarily horrible. They say that the path to hell is full of well-wishers. The opposite is also true: the path to heaven is full of hell.

This is my observation, that if you are seeking heaven you will fall into hell. If you are ready to face hell you will rise into heaven. That's how the polarity of life functions.

So whenever you see that something is going hard, don't be worried too much. It is a challenge to be faced, to be lived through. And all beautiful experiences happen only when you have passed through hardship,. through horrible experiences. Those horrible experiences prepare you... they cleanse you. Pain is a cleansing process and it prepares you for greater and higher and more refined pleasures.

[A sannyasin who left the group said: I sometimes get myself into situations where something just goes click! and then I walk away.]

Sometimes let it click and don't go, don't walk away. Break the habit, otherwise you will miss many things in life. Only you will be responsible, nobody else.

The same thing would have happened to you even better than to him if you had stayed. The moment comes to everybody when one feels to just walk out, to be finished, because it is too much and you ask yourself why you should unnecessarily torture yourself. That comes to everybody.

Everything is at a cost. If you want higher blessings, you have to earn them. Do another group, and next time when it comes, just watch and tell it to go away and that you are not coming. You will feel so happy if you don't follow the urge because then you will have a certain mastery over your mind.

Suddenly you will feel that yes, you are a little higher than your mind, that something is beyond the mind.

So there is nothing wrong - whatsoever happened, happened, but next time, just tell the urge to go.

Go outside, spit it there, and come back. This group may have given you many beautiful experiences.

[A group member says: I feel a lot of aggression and I'm sometimes very afraid of the power inside me. I feel that I'm dangerous to myself and other people and so I'm holding back all the time.

Osho suggested that he do the Aum group and then said that all people are dangerous and it was good that Prakash had come to recognise it. Osho said that creativity and destructiveness were both aspects of the same energy. The key lay in being able to transform energy into creativity. Osho said he would give Prakash some creative meditations after he had completed the Aum marathon.]

[Another sannyasin said he had had a fever, and that his energy had changed from being aggressive to being passive. When he returned to the west he wanted to just sit in his treehouse, instead of working as a therapist.]

The fever was not just a fever. It is some change that is happening so you are feeling hot because of it. Don't be worried about it - it will go. Then it is gone you will feel very very different.

For three weeks you rest, and then you will feel a great upsurge of energy. When the energy comes, move into work.

There has always to be a rhythm between work and play, action and no action, between sun and moon. If you get addicted to relaxation and silence, that will not be good and not very fulfilling to

you. You will become more and more still, but you will also become a little dead. That is the problem with the moon centre. When the energy moves into the moon, one becomes silent, but if it is not also joined by the sun centre, by and by sensitivity is lost. Then a silence is attained which is more empty than full.

So move into energy, into the sun centre. Do things, but when you feel tired and spent, don't go on forcing. When you are not feeling like doing, move into your treehouse and rest, and forget all about work and everything. Make it a rhythm. It will be better if you make it a small rhythm: work for five days, rest for two. If you have two months' rest, rest will become a habit and it will be difficult to go into work. The mind will say, 'Leave all this nonsense. It is all maya.' But look at me - I go on working on you (chuckling). And it is all maya!

Never become an escapist. Much work has to be done for me. That's why I am sending you there, otherwise I would have told you not to go. I am sending you for a purpose.

A few times you can come and go and then finally you can settle here. You can have a tree and make a small house, and you can live with your snake there. [The sannyasin has a pet snake.]

Or you can even find an Eve - that will be complete.