Darshan 29 September 1978

[A sannyasin couple have problems with their relationship. The woman says: So much misunderstanding and... ugliness from myself and him.]

Love has to grow through misunderstanding. Understanding is not easy - it is very rare to arrive at understanding; because you are confused, he is confused, you don't know who you are, he does not know who he is. Then two confusions collide and two confused persons start manipulating each other, dominating, possessing. Nobody wants to be dominated and everybody wants to dominate.

Nobody wants to be possessed and everybody wants to possess, hence the problem. And it is through these misunderstandings that slowly slowly you will come to see what you are doing: you are destroying the freedom of the other and the same is being done to you.

Stop destroying the freedom of the other, be non-possessive, and immediately things start changing.

If you are non-possessive you will make the other look at the whole thing again, and if you are really non-possessive you will become so happy that the other will start following you and wondering what has happened to you, why you are so happy, because he is so miserable. Possessiveness makes you miserable and possessiveness destroys and poisons all love.

So from your side try to understand what you are doing to the relationship. Ordinarily we always think about what the other is doing to us and how to stop him from doing it. That is not possible - you cannot stop the other. The more you try to, the more the other will try to manipulate you, because he is afraid for his freedom, you are afraid for your freedom. And nobody has the understanding that there is no need to be afraid - your freedom cannot be taken away. Nobody can take it. Yes, it is possible to kill you, but is impossible to take away your freedom. Freedom is our intrinsic nature.

Nobody is capable of taking it... unless you want to give it. And that's what happens: we go on trying not to be dominated by the other and yet deep down we want to be dominated too, because

we cannot be alone; because we cannot stand on our own feet we want somebody to lean on. When you lean on somebody, you will be dominated. And still we don't want to be dominated.

These contradictions are carried by everybody in his being. These conflicts are there inside. The problem is not outside - the problem only appears on the outside; the problem is deep down in you.

That is the meaning of the word problem. It comes from a root "pro-emblema"; from "emblema" comes "emblem." It means symbol. Problem means just a symptom, an appearance on the surface - it is not the true cause, it is not the real disease. So when problems arise in a relationship, they are only emblema, just symbols. They are not real problems. Real problems are deep down in you - a relationship simply helps them to surface.

My feeling is that you continue in this relationship.

[She answers: I don't want to.]

If you don t want to then why should you ask me? You could have dropped it. When a person asks me, that simply means that the person himself is not ready to drop it. Whenever a person wants to drop a relationship, they drop it! You never asked me when you started; you would never ask me if you really wanted to drop it. You simply want to show that you want to drop it. You want to see how Alok feels; you would like him to cling around you. Otherwise you never asked me when you started - why should you ask me when you want to stop? There is no problem at all! It is simply your decision. Drop it! Why make a problem out of it?

When you want to make a problem out of it that means deep down you would like to show that you want to drop it and yet you are so compassionate, that's why you are not dropping it. On the surface you show you are not interested - that too is a trick of the mind. That's also a way of being possessive. On the surface show indifference - as if this is not your need - you are free, you can drop it any moment. But then why don't you drop it? Who can prevent you from dropping it? At least I am not going to; prevent you. If you want to drop it, drop it. If you J want to continue, then change yourself.

My suggestion is: dropping it is not going to help much. You will fall into another relationship sooner or later, and one Alok or another, it is always the same. It may be good in the beginning again as this was good in the beginning, but again the same problems will surface.

Rather than dropping a situation it is better to change yourself. That takes... needs guts, to change oneself. It is very easy to change a situation from the outside, but if you are the same you will create the same again.

[She says: Yes, I know.]

So that s for you to decide - if you want to drop it, drop it and let it happen with somebody else.

Then use my suggestion. And if you want to try my suggestion with this relationship you can, but the suggestion is the same. With whomsoever you are the same will come, unless you change.

But make a decision. Don't linger. If you want to stay in it, then make it beautiful and make it a growing relationship, helping each other; let it be creative. If you don't want to, simply step out of it with gratefulness, friendliness. Don't make much fuss about it.

[Osho says that children from the school can also start coming for energy darshan.]

Veet means beyond, astho means belief - beyond belief. Truth is beyond belief and also beyond disbelief. You cannot know it by believing in it, you cannot know it by disbelieving in it, because either way you become prejudiced, and to be prejudiced is to be closed. Truth is known only when you are open, utterly open; there is not even a shadow of prejudice. Truth is known in a state of pure ignorance. Whenever you are knowledgeable, you are creating a hindrance. All beliefs create knowledge but not knowing - only knowledge. One can believe or disbelieve, but those are the ways to protect oneself against truth. Those are defense mechanisms.

The person who says, "I believe in God," is saying, "I need not inquire into God because I already believe And what is there to inquire about?" When you have already concluded, decided, inquiry is closed. And so is the case with the other person who says, "I don't believe in God," or, "I disbelieve"; he has also taken a standpoint. These are very arrogant approaches towards truth.

Without knowing anything about it, without experiencing anything of it, you have already decided.

This is very unscientific.

I teach a scientific approach. The mind should remain uncluttered by belief and disbelief. The mind should remain available to all the possibilities. It should not have a like or a dislike. The moment you choose you are no more a seeker; the seeker remains Constantly in the state of choicelessness.

And then one day one knows, but that knowing never becomes belief. Because you know, now there is no need to believe First there is no need to believe because you don t know; finally there is no need to believe because you know. So belief is irrelevant, utterly irrelevant. In the beginning, in the middle, in the end, it is always irrelevant.

Drop all beliefs, all disbeliefs. Let the mind become less cluttered. Remove all unnecessary luggage, become more unburdened. The more unburdened you are, the closer to truth. When you are absolutely unburdened, empty, when you are just there, with no idea surrounding you, truth happens.

That is what Zen people call satori. It happens in a state of no-mind. And the beginning of no-mind is the dropping, slowly slowly, of all kinds of prejudices - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan; these are all prejudices. Communist, Catholic... these are all prejudices. And to cling to these prejudices is a very very irreverent act, very egoistic, because these beliefs are claims, and claims without any validity. You don't have any existential validity for them - you simply believe because you have been told to believe. You believe out of fear or you believe out of a certain conditioning; because it was a coincidence that you were born a Buddhist or a Christian and you were taught Christianity or Buddhism. And your mind has been fed with information from the Bible or the Koran and now you are repeating it.

When a Christian says, "I believe in God," what is he saying? He is simply repeating the program that has been put into the bio-computer of his mind. If he had been brought up by Buddhists he would have never talked about believing in Christ: he would have believed in Buddha. Hence the Zen masters say, "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him." No Christian can say it, no Hindu can say it, no Mohammedan can dare to say it, hence Zen has something beautiful. It is the religion beyond religions - it is the quintessence, the purest possibility of religion. That's what I am saying:

go beyond belief, go beyond Buddhas and Christs and Mohammeds....

This place is a lab, an alchemical lab. We are doing experiments here. Just as a scientist decides only by experimentation, you have to decide by experimentation. When you have come to a valid experience of your own, when you are a witness to truth, only then is something achieved. When you are simply repeating borrowed knowledge you are deceiving yourself. Drop all that is borrowed so that your natural consciousness can be redeemed, so that your own wisdom is freed - freed from knowledge.

Knowledge and wisdom are opposite polarities. Knowledge is never wisdom, cannot be. Knowledge is mechanical; it is not rooted in experience. Wisdom is existential; it is rooted in experience. One can learn much about love through a library without knowing anything of love, without ever having been in love; this is knowledge. And when you fall in love and you suffer its agonies and its ecstasies, then it is existential wisdom. Then it is not only a memory in the head - it spreads all over your being.

Then nobody can take it; you cannot forget it. Wisdom can never be forgotten. Knowledge has to be remembered, kept continuously in the memory. and one is always afraid that one may forget about it. Wisdom becomes your nature; there is no possibility to forget it.

Jesus says, "Truth liberates," and he is right, but one's own truth liberates, not somebody else's truth.

Jesus' truth cannot liberate you, my truth cannot liberate you, only your truth. My sannyas believes, trusts, in inquiry, not in any doctrine, dogma, system of thought, ideology. I trust inquiry. One has to go to the very end of it and one has to suffer a long journey. It is a dark night of the soul but one has to seek and search for the morning and then one finds it on one's own. Then it is a blessing. Then it redeems you... it brings freedom.

Deva means divine, pragyano means wisdom. Knowledge is human, wisdom is divine. Knowledge can be acquired by effort, by will. Wisdom cannot be acquired, it cannot be accumulated: wisdom descends You cannot snatch it away from existence - you can only be open and waiting for it.

It comes in a kind of let-go. Knowledge is male effort: it is aggressive. Wisdom is a feminine phenomenon: it is passive.

The feminine love is never aggressive. That's why a Woman cannot take the initiative; she has to wait. She has to pray, she has to keep her love throbbing in her heart. She creates a situation by her waiting, by her prayerfulness, by her heart full of love, overflowing, but she never utters a word.

The initiative has to Come from the man. From the man it is perfectly okay; from the woman it is ugly. It is ungraceful from the woman, it is unwomanly, because in the deepest Core the woman is passivity, rest, relaxation. That's why the feminine body has a beauty of its own, a kind of roundness, a softness, a warmth.... Man's mind, his whole energy, is always aggressive. He wants to snatch things. He wants to penetrate into nature and know its mystery. His effort is almost like a rape.

Science is male energy: religion is female energy. In science you acquire more and more knowledge:

in religion you allow more and more wisdom to happen. These are totally different approaches. God cannot be attacked and cannot be conquered. You have to allow God to conquer you and to possess you... you have to become a womb. Knowledge has to be brought, wisdom comes. It descends like a falling leaf from the tree, slowly, silently, with no effort. And if one is open, if one's doors are not closed, if one's heart is in a waiting, then the miracle happens.

Hence wisdom is always divine. It is God's gift, not man's achievement. And meditation is the way to receive that gift.

[A chinese sannyasin is present and Osho suggests he start translations of his books into chinese.

He says his chinese is not so good.]

But then we can find somebody to improve upon it - you just start something. You have some friends who can work upon it?...

Start, mm? because something has to be done in Chinese now. Now a few books have come in Japanese and a few more are coming. China cannot be left, mm?

Prem means love, Hamido is a Sufi name for God - it means the praiseworthy. Sufis continuously praise God. They call it jikr - remembrance They are continuously bowing inside to God. That is a way of effacing yourself. That is a way of destroying the ego, the way to destroy the person. When the person is completely effaced, dropped, he becomes a presence, and that presence is love.

Love is known only when you are no more a person and you have become a presence. Love is a shadow of presence. If you are a person then in the name of love a thousand and one other things go on masquerading as love: possessiveness, jealousy, domination, politics, power. A thousand and one are the games of the mind. If you are a person - and by "person" I mean if you have the ego, the "I"; that's what person means - if you are living in a kind of separation from existence, then you are constantly in Conflict. Even with those you love there will be conflict; your very style of life is of conflict. Then people love, but the love brings only misery... gives great hope, but never fulfills, promises much but the goods are never delivered.

There is another kind of love - the real love - that never happens to a person; it happens only when you have become a presence. The way to love, the method to create love energy in you, is to negate the ego. And to negate the ego the Sufis use the continuous prayer, praising God in every possible way. They never miss a single opportunity to praise God. If they see a rose flower, the Sufi will immediately say, "God be praised!" Why? Because in this moment he has given this beautiful rose flower to him. If he sees a star in the sky, "God be praised!" If he sees a beautiful person passing by, "God be praised!" He continuously uses all occasions to praise God. Hence one of the names of God is Hamido, the praiseworthy, one who has to be praised continuously. It is a technical device to efface oneself, to forget oneself, to drown one's person into oblivion. And then one day you are not there. Something is, but you are not there. There is no feeling of "I" - a pure presence. That presence showers love.

That presence becomes a blessing to existence.

So your name means: attain to love, a love that becomes a blessing to existence. Attain to that love which is synonymous with God, the praiseworthy one. Love be praised.

Love is the only alchemy that transforms a man into something superhuman. And my work is nothing but creating a situation in which your love can start flowing. It is there, frozen; it needs a little warmth, a provocation, and then it starts flowing. It needs to be called forth, and that is the function of the Master: to call forth the intrinsic in you, the potential in you, and to help it become actual.

God is everybody's potentiality; it has to become everybody's actuality too. Unless it happens we remain in misery. And when it happens there is ecstasy, unbounded ecstasy. And once it starts happening it goes on happening; then there is no end to it. Yes, it begins but it never ends... it has a beginning but no end.