Darshan 7 September 1978

Shunya means silence, shabdo means sound - the sound of silence. There is a sound of silence, and once it is heard then one has heard all. That is the fundamental of existence. Existence is constituted of that sound of silence. The Bible calls it "the word," "logos," and the Zen people call it "the sound of one hand clapping." Now, there is no possibility of one hand clapping and creating a sound. It simply says, indicates, the paradox: when one falls utterly silent inside then a music is heard. That music is not constituted of any sound - it is soundless - still it is music. It is the greatest mystery that one can come to. In the East it is represented by the word "aum." It does not mean anything. It is simply a symbol for that soundless sound.

One has to become more and more quiet, thoughtless, because the music is there but we are so enveloped by the noise of our own minds that we cannot hear it. This constant inner talk has to stop and then suddenly that soundless sound explodes in you. And that is a great ecstatic experience - incomparable, unique; there is nothing like it. And once it has happened, you become it. Then you can live in the marketplace but you are not there. You can act in a thousand and one ways but you remain inactive. You can get involved in every kind of situation yet you are a witness. And that's the beauty. The most important thing in life is to attain it; then the whole of life is just a drama.

One plays but one is not worried. One lives moment to moment and one has no will of one's own.

Then God's will is fulfilled. That's what Jesus means when he says: "Thy will be done, thy kingdom come." But for his kingdom to come we have to disappear utterly as a noisy place. And that's what meditation is all about. The whole effort here is to bring your mind to such a stop that you can hear your own innermost core - the still, small voice of the heart.

[The new sannyasin asks: Why is it so difficult to love?]

Because we have been brought up not to love. Our whole conditioning is against love, and the conditioning is great - twenty years of conditioning, twenty-five years of conditioning. You will have

to drop that conditioning, then love will arise. Love is our nature, so even though the conditioning is deep we still hanker for it. It is like a hungry man who has been hypnotized and told in hypnosis for twenty years continuously, "You are not hungry." That will be the situation for him: he will feel hunger and still his mind will deny it. His mind will say, "You are not hungry... because of those twenty years of conditioning, of constant suggestion, mind-wash.

And the society up to now has existed on the foundation of hate, violence, aggression; it is afraid of love. And once love explodes in the world this so-called society is going to disappear, so there is going to be a great clash.

For example a loving person cannot be persuaded to go to war; it is impossible. The different states cannot exist if the person is loving, because where will they find their armies? From where will Adolf Hitler find his Nazis and Mussolini his fascists? From where? It will be impossible. Everybody has to be so starved of love that love goes sour and becomes hate. Then one is just boiling within; everybody is just a volcano, ready to explode at any excuse. That's why every ten years we need a great war. That is a catharsis: it helps people to relieve themselves of all the anger, all the hatred, that they have accumulated.

Love is the right direction for your life. If the right direction is not given, then love itself turns into hate. Hate is nothing but love standing on its head, upside down.

Now just think: if the whole world is loving, the states cannot exist, India cannot exist, Germany cannot exist, England cannot exist, America cannot exist, China, Soviet Russia... none of these can exist, because then people will be so loving that they will see the whole stupidity of war. "Why should we fight? Why should we kill each other? We can make this earth a paradise." And the energy that we put into war is tremendous. Almost ninety percent of human energy is being wasted in war. War has been our constant history - chronic. In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars. The earth seems to be mad! - as if we are here only to fight and kill each other and murder each other.

Now, this kind of world cannot allow love to grow. It depends on hate. The politician cannot allow love to happen. The priest cannot allow love to happen. If the priest allows love to happen then how will you manage your crusades and holy wars? If love is allowed, love will not know the distinction between a Christian and a Hindu and a Mohammedan. Love will not know the distinction between a Jew and a Jaina. Love knows no distinctions. Churches will start disappearing. Churches can exist only if hate exists.

Now this is very strange: all the churches talk about love and all the churches create hate in the world. The history of religion is more bloody than the history of anything else. And there is a biological reason also for how it all started, because the question arises: if man is by nature loving, then why did he manage such a kind of society in the very beginning? It was a question of survival.

We have forgotten all those days, but five thousand years back man was constantly afraid of being killed by the animals. He was in constant fear. He had to fight back; to survive he had to constantly kill.

Now all those days are gone - there is no need to kill. In fact, there are not any animals left to kill. Now we are trying to protect them, whatsoever is left. But the old habit persisted. First we were fighting with animals, for centuries, for millennia; then it became an instinct - fighting. Then we started fighting with people, tribes, nations, ideologies, religions. The fight Continues - we only change the labels.

But my understanding is that now the future is not going to follow this past. A great revolution is on the way. And this will be the revolution - that man will start loving and will drop all the nonsense that comes as a hindrance to love; and there are a thousand and one kinds of hindrances.

This is my problem. Because I teach love the government is against me, the politicians are against me, the priests are against me. And I am not teaching people to murder each other. I am simply teaching people to be more loving. Why are they so against it?

Their very foundation is based on hatred. They hide it. They write in big letters: "Love is God" - but behind it are only bayonets, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, super bombs - piles upon piles.

Man has accumulated so many bombs that we can kill each person seven times. Now this is futile.

One person is killed in one go; there is no need to kill him seven times. But just in case one might survive... we will not allow him to. And this goes on! Each country goes on giving the major proportion of its wealth to war - even a country like India which talks about nonviolence, which talks about great ideals, Mahatma Gandhi, et cetera. But seventy percent of the wealth of the country goes into war efforts - and a poor country, starving! But that is not the point: war has to be looked to first. You can die starving, that's okay, but we have to make bombs!

This is an utterly neurotic world in which we are living. So unless you become very alert and drop all the conditionings that your society has given to you, you will not be able to love. And all these groups that are being run here are basically meant for that. So in some groups I even allow fighting.

Anger has to be expressed. It has to be vomited out, because if you don't vomit it out, it will remain in your system, it will poison you. Now that becomes a problem.

People go on asking me, 'Why is violence allowed?" It is not violence - it is catharsis. But society forces you to repress. It is as if you go to the hospital and you say to the doctors, "Why do you take pus out of people?" What can the doctors do? - the pus is there, it has to be taken out. It hurts when the pus is taken out but it has to be taken out, otherwise it will go on growing: it will become cancerous. So anger, violence has to be thrown out. Devices have to be found so all that the society has repressed in you can be taken out again and you are left clean, clear. And then you will suddenly see that the space that is clean starts changing its color, its shape - love arises, wells up. And when love arises it knows no qualifications; it is neither Christian nor Hindu. When love arises it knows no conditions. It is simply love. And that love redeems, liberates.

Just be here - the taste of love will come to you.

[Osho explains that prem sugata means well-gone in love... and that's the door to the divine, for the face of love is God's countenance. He walks on earth as love; that's why you cannot hear his footsteps. He whispers as love; that's why unless one is very very silent one will not be able to hear him. All that one needs is to be open... ]

[The new sannyasin says that she's studying in the Berlin and afraid of people; afraid to be lonely; afraid she will be more of an outsider as a sannyasin.]

I am with you! And you will never be lonely. My sannyasins are there and Berlin has a big number of sannyasins. Soon we are going to turn on the whole of Germany - just wait. My eyes are on Germany! Don't be worried at all.

[She adds: It hurts very much.]

It is so for everybody, mm? because you feel that you will be left alone. But you will not be left alone - in fact more and more people will be asking you, "What is sannyas? What are you doing? What has happened to you?" People who have never approached you will be approaching you, and you will feel more at home than ever. Just go and see!

Now you have something to share, and when a person has something to share, people start coming.

You don't see me around, I never leave my room, yet people go on coming from faraway lands. I don't know exactly where Germany is because my geography is poor! I can never figure out where is what. I never leave the room but still people go on coming - and more and more will be coming.

When you have something to give you are not alone.

The really lonely people are those who have nothing to give. Beggars are lonely, emperors are not lonely. When you have nothing to give nobody comes to you. Even if people come to you, soon they start escaping from you because you start exploiting them: you're like a vacuum and you start sucking them, so nobody wants to come to a person who sucks. People naturally like to come to a person who showers his energy on them.

Just go and be loving and you will see: many many people are coming; new people, strangers who you would never have expected to be so friendly with you will become friendly. This life is very strange: when you want people to be with you, nobody would like to be with you; when you are able to be alone, people start coming to you. If you need people, people will avoid you, because need means you will suck them. When you don't need and you are perfectly happy being alone, enough unto yourself, you will suddenly wonder why people have started coming towards you. Because they will see that they can come and share something from you.

So just be there, loving, happy, meditating, and soon you will see that people are coming and you will not be alone, never. None of my sannyasins have ever felt anywhere in the world that they are alone. Everybody going for the first time wonders, "What is going to happen there?" because here there are so many sannyasins - you are in a family and everybody understands you and there you will be really an outsider. No. My sannyas is basically a science that makes you rooted in the world.

You will never be an outsider, nowhere. Everywhere you will create a homely atmosphere. Love has that secret.

So just go with great love and great readiness to share with people. And right now Germany is agog with my name, so don't be worried at all!

[A couple are leaving. The man says: I feel like I am leaving a lover and I feel very sad but I'm still torn to be in the West.]

No, I would like you to be there, mm? Right now you have to be there for my work, so don't think that you are going, think that I am sending you. And it makes a lot of difference. When you are going you may feel sad; when I am sending you there is no question of feeling sad.

This is your home, but a few people who can do much work there will be needed. And finally you have to come and be here, but then others will take on the work. Right now, continue to work....

For the time being be there and whatsoever you can do, do it totally so that others can take over the work and then you can work here, mm?

[The woman says: I feel that I'm pregnant since we've been here. Is there any meditation or thing to do that will be helpful for the baby or for us?]

Just remain as happy and loving as possible. Avoid negativities - that's what destroys the mind of the child. When the child is in formation he not only follows your body, he follows your mind too, because those are the blueprints. So if you are negative, that negativity starts entering in the build-up of the child from the very beginning. It becomes almost built-in, and then it is a long, arduous journey to drop it. If mothers were a little more careful, no primal scream would be needed. If mothers were a little more careful, psychoanalysis as a profession would disappear.

Psychoanalysis is doing great business because of mothers, because according to psychoanalysis man's only problem is the mother. If all the schools of psychoanalysis could be reduced to one single problem, it would be the mother. The mother is really of great significance because for nine months the child will live in the climate of the mother; he will imbibe her mind, her whole mind.

So don't be negative. Be more and more in the yes mood - even sometimes when it looks hard.

But that much sacrifice has to be made for the child. If you really want to have a child of some value, of some integrity, of some individuality, and a happy child, then that sacrifice has to be made.

That is part of being a mother - that sacrifice. So don't be negative at all; avoid all negativities.

Avoid anger, avoid jealousy, avoid possessiveness, nagging, fighting, avoid these spaces. These you cannot afford - you are creating a new being! The work is of such importance that one cannot be silly and stupid.

Rejoice more and more, pray, dance, sing, listen to great music - not pop music. Listen to classical music, which is soothing and goes very deep into the unconscious, because the child can hear it only from there.

Sit silently as much as you can, enjoy nature. Be with trees, birds, animals, because they are really innocent. They are still part of the garden of Eden - only Adam and Eve have been thrown out.

Even the tree of knowledge is still in the garden of Eden; only Adam has been thrown out. So be with nature more, and relax so that the child grows in a relaxed womb, non-tense; otherwise from the very beginning the child starts becoming neurotic.

(to the man): And help her in these days so that she can be more positive. Don't provoke her into negativity. Give her more and more time so that she can sit silently, be with the trees, listen to the birds, the music. Avoid any situation in which you think it can become a provocation for her to become negative. Be more loving, rejoice in each other's silence more, because you are both giving birth to something which is divine. Each child is divine, and when something great is going to happen, a great guest is going to come to your home, you don't fight. And this may be the greatest guest that will ever come to you, so for these nine months be careful, cautious, watchful.

Be more loving and less sexual. If sex happens out of being loving, it's okay - but not for sex's sake itself. From the very beginning that gives the child a deep-rooted sexuality. Sex is perfectly good in the context of love, as part of love - just as you hold hands and hug each other, as a part of love.

One day you make love too but as part of love. It is not sexuality then; it is just a communion. You have not been thinking about sex; it has happened on its own. Playing with each other, being with each other, it has happened. You were not thinking of it, you were not brooding about it.

If for these nine months you can avoid sex as sex, that will be a great gift to the child. Then his life will not be so obsessed with sex as people's lives are. Either they become too indulgent - which is obsession - or they become too repressive, too holy, too saintly; that too is obsession. In the world only these two types of people exist, and both are ill, both are pathological; the sinner and the saint are both pathological.

A totally different kind, a third kind of human being, is needed. And that third kind of being will have this quality: no obsession with sex this way or that - neither against nor for; he will be exactly in the middle. Out of love sometimes he will move into sex, but then sex has a spiritual quality. It is not for sex itself. Because there will be no obsession with sex indulgence he will never become repressive.

And because sex will have a spiritual quality it will give him glimpses of samadhi and he will start moving upwards, very slowly, very gradually, with no fuss about it. Otherwise spirituality makes so much fuss.

A real spiritual person will not make much fuss; there is no need. He simply enjoys it, so he is not renouncing, he is not doing something great. He does not expect the whole world to give him attention and come and pay homage saying, "You are a great man because you have renounced this and you have renounced that." He does not renounce anything at all. He enjoys everything and because of his total enjoyment his energy starts becoming more and more delightful, and finally more and more lightful.

So just these hints - you have to work them out. Good!

[A sannyasin says: When I'm happy, I start dreaming and I can't stop dreaming. then afterwards I get depressed, I feel I've wasted time.

Osho checks her energy.]

Make dreaming a meditation. Don't be worried - it is not bad at all. Enjoy it. Make it a really beautiful trip, as psychedelic as possible, colorful.

It is not really dreaming, but you have a certain quality of being a visionary. That is a good quality, and if you help it you will attain much through it. Whenever dreaming starts and you are happy that simply shows that you are a visionary. Otherwise after happiness there is no necessity for dreaming.

When you are happy and flowing and together, something deep in you which is always there starts flowering. Visions look like dreams but there is a difference between the two: the dream is an unconscious activity and the vision is a super-conscious activity. Neither is conscious. The dream is below conscious, the vision is above conscious. So both look as if something is going wrong because you are going beyond your limitations of consciousness, but they are totally different.

Your visionary, if given support, can create a great painter, can create a great poet; it has much potentiality. You can be very creative, and that's what it needs. It is not to be stopped or prevented; rejoice in it. And soon you will see - if you cooperate, soon you will see that you would like to do something. For example, you may like to paint or you may like to write poetry or something. You may like to dance, sing, but some creativity will come out of it.

Dreaming is never creative. Modern psychology still has no idea of the vision and the quality of being a visionary, but there is really so much difference between the two that it has to be taken note of.

A dream arises because of repression. You repress sexuality: you will have a sexual dream; you go on a fast and you will have a dream in which you are eating. Dreaming comes out of repression. And visions? They don't come out of repression, they come out of your potential. Your super-conscious is trying to convey a message to you not to remain confined to your personality where you are right now; much more is possible. You can grow, you can become wider, you can expand.

So just allow it and cooperate with it and go with it the whole way. Don't stop yourself. The farther you go, the better. And then you will not feel sad. It is your interpretation that is making you sad.

After the trip you will feel really relaxed, replenished, rejuvenated.

[A couple have been running a sannyas centre in the west, and ask if they should work there or be part of the new commune in Poona. The man says he likes to do his own thing.]

That's very good - that's what my feeling was. Mm, because the way you asked the question shows much about it! So you run the center, make it an ashram. That is my work. Here you will be doing my work, and there you will be doing my work, and if you can do it on your own better, that's far better, mm? Make it a really big place now so that much can happen there....

We need many ashrams around the world, mm? And you will be able to do perfectly well, so nothing to worry about. Good... good.

[A sannyasin keeps thinking about an experience she had when she took sannyas - an experience of seeing a light. It was beautiful but it has never happened again.]

Remember one thing: if something happens never ask for its repetition; otherwise it will never happen again. If you ask for it to be repeated, it cannot happen; if you forget all about it, it will happen many times. This is one of the fundamental laws.

When you took sannyas and something happened, you were not expecting it; it came out of the blue. You were completely innocent. Now you are knowledgeable; that is the difficulty. That is the difference that is not allowing it to happen again. But this problem arises for every person. When for the first time something of the unknown penetrates you, you were not expecting, you were not asking, you had no idea of it. You were taken aback. You were in a kind of awe... innocent, available.

Once it has happened you become knowledgeable; now you know - now you know the beauty of it and the benediction of it. You would like to repeat it, you are greedy for it; now the mind is asking.

In that moment there was no mind, hence it happened. Now the mind is there and it won't allow it to happen.

So forget all about it, and not only about this experience. On the spiritual path many experiences will happen, but once they happen, feel grateful to God and forget all about them. Never carry the idea in the mind... not even a lurking desire somewhere in a nook or comer; otherwise the greedy mind will not allow it to happen again. The mind is the barrier. It happened for the first time because there was no mind; now it cannot happen because the mind is asking for it. And it is beyond the mind so the mind cannot do anything about it. It can only feel frustrated.

When you have forgotten it, one day suddenly it will be there again. God always comes suddenly.

One has to remain in a state of ignorance... one has to remain in a state of no-knowledge. So just wait!

That was just a beginning and you became too attached to it. Much more is to happen - that is nothing, that is just a drop of the ocean. The whole ocean is waiting for you, but you have become so attached to that drop that you want to repeat it. You have been caught by the mind, and the ocean is there. Forget that drop. Many more drops will come, many more rivers will pour into you, many more oceans one day will enter you. But one has to continuously remember not to ask, not to desire. Yes, when it happens, feel grateful, thankful, and then simply forget all about it so you remain clean, you remain innocent.

It was something beautiful but much more is on the way.

[A sannyasin is leaving to run a center. Help many people towards me, Osho says.]

You can do much. You are not yet aware of your own potentiality: you can be of great help to people.

But there are a few things which we become aware of only when we start doing; there is no other way to become aware of them.

Many people have many hidden qualities but because they never use them, they never become aware of them. Psychologists say that people use only five percent of their potential. Even the people who are very very talented - we call them geniuses - they use only fifteen percent of their potential. It is such a sheer wastage. If ninety-five percent of one's potential is wasted then how can one be really happy? And if one day man can live at the optimum, at one hundred percent, this very earth will be paradise.

Only very few people have lived totally, and it is only because of those few people - a Buddha, a Jesus, a Mohammed, here and there - that life still has some joy, some beauty, some celebration... only because of these few people. They are only drops in the ocean, but still if life has any color it is because of those few people. They can be counted on the fingers. Just imagine if everybody is living at the optimum, what kind of life this will be! Angels will long to be born on earth...

Help people, and that's how you will find your Own potential, your possibilities. Compassion helps one to bloom as nothing else does.