Darshan 26 October 1976

Deva means divine and batohi means the wanderer. And life is a divine wandering. There is no goal to it. One is not going somewhere - that's why it is endless. It is not a journey - it is a wandering.

A journey has a direction, and a journey has a destination in it. Wandering has no destination and no direction. A journey imposes a sort of imprisonment on you; it does not allow freedom. If you are going somewhere, you cannot be free.

If you are going nowhere, just going for going's sake, then you are tremendously free. Then all directions are available and all dimensions are available. You are not stuck. You can over flow in all directions. To me, life is a wandering, and I would like you to become a wanderer - not a wayfarer but a wanderer... a gypsy of the soul.

Then each moment is beautiful. When you are not going anywhere, there is no tension. The tension comes when you are going somewhere. The tension comes from the future. The tension comes because you have to reach somewhere. Who knows? - you may not be able to reach. Who knows?

- you may not have chosen the right direction. Who knows whether the destination exists or not?

So when you have a destination you are bound to have worries; a thousand and one sorts of worries will engulf you. They will abide in you and destroy you.

They will destroy your peace and they will destroy your love. They will destroy your being. They will suffocate you, and you will always be in trembling, wavering whether to choose this path or that, because nothing can be certain. Maybe the path that you have chosen is the wrong path. Maybe it does not lead to the goal that you would like to reach - it leads somewhere else, or maybe it leads nowhere. It may be just a circular phenomenon.

Once I happened to be invited by a VIP, a politician, a very important man. We were both waiting for the elevator to come and he went on ringing the bell but the elevator was not coming. We had to

wait for at least five minutes, but it was too much for the VIP. He fumed and fussed and he became more and more angry, firey.

He felt humiliated - 'Where is the operator7 Why hasn't he returned immediately?' Then the elevator came and the VIP was very angry. He said to the operator, 'Where have you been for so long?'

The elevator operator said, 'Sir, where can one go in an elevator?!'

The answer was almost a zen answer... I loved it! Where can one go in an elevator? You can go up and down - that's what happens in life. Ordinarily people are just going up and down. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes high, sometimes low - but where can one go? So the fear always remains. If you have a destination, the fear is there that you may be in an elevator, just going up and down and going nowhere. And your trains are nothing but elevators put horizontally. Even in your trains you are not going anywhere. If you go on and on you will come to the same place - the earth is round.

So a person who is trying to achieve something in life remains tense, remains worried, remains in anxiety and anguish. I teach you wandering, not journey. Don't think of reaching anywhere. Drop the achieving mind and start celebrating. Wherever you find yourself, that is the place for you... at least for that moment. Next moment you move. And each place is beautiful, incomparable. It is not in comparison to any other space any other moment.

Each moment in itself is tremendously beautiful. Not that the previous one was not beautiful, not that the coming one will not be beautiful... each moment is more beautiful than the other. One lives in the moment - and that is the life of a wanderer. And I mean an inward wandering. So just start floating, fixing no goal, not getting obsessed with any improvement, by any spirituality, by any liberation, moksha, nirvana - nothing of the sort.

I declare you free this very moment - now celebrate this freedom!

Deva means divine, marga means the way - the divine way. And each person has to become a way for the divine... a passage, a vehicle, an opening for the divine to descend to the earth. We are both the earth and the sky. A part of us belongs to the earth, and a part of us belongs to the sky. We are just the meeting of the opposites, the meeting of two infinities. You can call it matter and mind. You can call it man and woman. You can call it the earth and the sky... the visible and the invisible. But man is a meeting of two dimensions, and we exist only on the boundary. Many of us have completely forgotten that we have to become a channel for the sky also. We have become too obsessed with the earth. We have forgotten the sky element in our being. We are too much identified with the earth element - that's all that ignorance is.

A man becomes wise as he starts moving towards the sky, as he starts opening towards the sky.

Not that he denies the earth - never make that mistake. Many people have done that too. First they deny the sky, they deny God, they deny the soul; they deny love, prayer, meditation - everything.

They simply accept the materialistic world.

Then one day, fed up, frustrated, tired, they move to the other extreme: they start denying the world.

They say, 'This is all illusion, maya - only God is true.' That is another extreme, another excess - and excess is always untrue. The balance is what truth is.

So there is no need to deny the earth element. There is no need to deny the body. The only thing to be done is to accept the sky also... to become more available to God... to become a way for God to descend to earth. The moment you have become an opening there is tremendous rejoicing, because the earth flowers in your body and God flowers in your being and both meet - and that meeting is orgasmic.

That is the whole philosophy of Tantra - that deep inside you the man and woman can meet; deep inside you the darkness and light can meet. And in that meeting something new evolves - that which is beyond both, that which is within and yet beyond.

That's what I feel - you are too much burdened by the earth element. But don't deny it; it is perfectly okay. Just bring in more sky... bring a little more love, prayer, meditation... a little more worship, a little more of the unknown.

This is not only your problem. My feeling and my observation is that almost all women are too burdened with the earth. They lean towards the earth. They are more earth-rooted, more realistic and more materialistic. But nothing is wrong in it. There just has to be a balance. Men are leaning towards the other: more sky-oriented, more abstract, living in ideals, in ivory towers, in philosophical ideas. That too is imbalanced. Nothing is wrong in it but I would like them to be more rooted in the earth.

A perfect man should be like a tree - roots deep in the earth and branches reaching to the heaven.

And the higher a tree has to go, the deeper it has to descend into the earth. The deeper it descends into the earth, the higher it can go into the sky. So they look opposite but they are not; they are complementary.

Just start meditating and you will become by and by, slowly, slowly.... The blocks will dissolve and the opening will be there, and more and more of God will be flowing in you.

[A sannyasin said that he had spent a lot of time with an older friend whom he would be leaving behind in India. He said that when he was with his friend all his problems seem to disappear and he felt very good, but when he was alone he was invariably back in his mind and continuously thinking.] Mm mm, I understand. But remember one thing - whatsoever happens when you are alone, only that is true. Everything else is just a reflection. When you are left alone, that is your reality. When somebody else is leading you, that is not your reality.

Dreams can be very nice but they are not real. By the morning you will be awake and you will find that you are not the thing which you were thinking you were. Then there are problems to be faced.

All leaders have done that to the world. The world suffers too much because of these nice people, these so-called leaders.

People can convince you that your problems are meaningless and their argument can be very convincing. They can have a charisma; they can have a magical personality. They can impose themselves upon you so much that for that moment you are not - only they exist. Then suddenly everything is beautiful, because they have helped you to forget yourself. But it is sweet poison. By and by you will become more and more dependent. By and by you will start feeling that when you

are alone you are just horrible, and when you are with your leaders, with some friends, with some lovers, you are so beautiful. But that beauty is not you - it is a reflected glory. It is false because it was borrowed.

I would like you to encounter your problems, not to forget them. The only way is the hard way.

The only way to grow is to grow through pain. These tranquillisers won't help. They can seduce you into sleep but they cannot help you to be awake. If you listen to me, your problems are more beneficial than your so-called friends, because those problems are real. If you struggle with them, if you encounter them, sooner or later you will attain to a peace that is yours. It has to be earned; you cannot get it cheaply.

And remember, God is not for sale. People have tried all sorts of shortcuts. People want to somehow get the beautiful, the true, the good, as cheap as possible. People want everything wholesale.

I have heard about a business man's wife who was dying.

The wife lay dying and her husband was breaking up emotionally. 'Please, sweetheart, don't die.

Remember, it took me a year to buy you the right kind of a mink coat, wholesale. Please, baby, if you'll live, I'll buy you a dozen times as much jewelry, wholesale!' sobbed the husband.

'All right, dear, ' spoke the wife faintly, 'I'll try my best not to die. But if I should die, make me a promise... bury me retail.'

The mind is like a businessman - it wants, everything wholesale. It wants everything cheap, at a bargain price. And this is the cheapest way. You can come and be a satellite to somebody's personality. Somebody is magnetic, somebody is very happy - you become a satellite... you start reflecting his glory. When you are by his side, everything seems to be good. But this is not going to help you. You have to become your own source of light, you have to become your own flame. It has to be yours. The truth has to be yours. God has to be yours - and you have to earn it.

I don't feel that you are going into some bad situation. You will be alone there; face your problems.

No problem is meaningless: it is there because it has some work to do in your being. For example, if sex is there and it goes on knocking at your mind, that simply shows that you have been neglecting it so it has become a problem. Now don't neglect it - listen to the message.

People come to me, and the more I observe their problems, the more I see that those are not problems. Out of one hundred problems, ninety percent are just their body, their mind shouting, 'Do something!' because they are being neglected. It is just as if a person sits without eating anything.

How long can he sit? Sooner or later the stomach will start screaming, 'Give me some food!' You can call it a problem. You can say, 'I was sitting so silently. Now this stomach is creating trouble for me.' The stomach is not creating trouble for you! You are creating trouble for the stomach. The stomach is simply giving you a message. First it gives you it politely; then of course it has to create trouble for you, otherwise you won't listen to it.

So by and by people have starved their instincts, starved their bodies, starved their minds.

Everything seems unnourished. That's why there are problems. So rather than solving them, first listen to them, to what they want to tell you. They must be carrying a message, so first decode them.

Listen to their message. If you feel that it has to be done then don't bother about what the priests say and what the politicians say. It is your problem - it has nothing to do with them. Listen to the message and follow it.

When you have started listening to your problems, ninety percent will disappear because you will be carrying out the message. Whatsoever they wanted to say, you have listened to and you are doing accordingly. Then ten percent of problems remain. They are very beautiful problems. They are challenges for your being. Those ninety percent are just ugly; you create them unnecessarily.

In India there are many people who think that sex is a sin. Now young men come to me.... A student in the university came to me and he said, 'Bad thoughts come to me.' Now what to do? He calls it 'bad thoughts', 'evil thoughts'. I asked him, 'Tell me exactly what you mean?' He said that if he sees a beautiful woman passing, a desire arises; he calls it an evil thought.

It is just natural! There is nothing evil in it. Once you call it evil you have made a problem out of it.

It is simply natural. Your being wants a companion - a beautiful companion of course: somebody you can share your energies with, somebody you can trust, somebody who trusts you, somebody before whom you can open your whole heart, somebody from whom you have not to hide anything, from whom you need not hide anything, somebody before whom you can be absolutely nude and yet unafraid and unashamed. This is a great need - listen to it. But they call it 'an evil thought'. Now they are creating a problem.

Ninety percent of your problems will disappear if you follow the message that is being given to you from your unconscious. The unconscious is wiser than your conscious. The conscious is just a very new comer. The unconscious has lived for long; the unconscious knows better how life should be lived. Then when the ninety percent of problems which you have created, or the politicians or priests.... And maybe these are the same people in whose companionship you think you feel very good - these may be the same people. The same nice people may be the cause of your whole trouble.

A priest can be very beautiful, can be very impressive, can have a great impact on you - and may be the cause of the whole trouble. You may create problems rather than solving them. In his presence maybe you don't feel those problems because you are so overwhelmed.

Next time you come, you will have only ten percent of your problems left; they are growth problems.

So there are two types of problems - starvation problems, which are simply foolish; which exist because politicians and priests have created them.... And they have created them because without them they cannot manipulate people. Without making you feel guilty, the priests cannot manipulate you; they cannot be powerful. Once they make you guilty, you are under their power. Then you are a slave. This is the whole game: priests go on creating the problems and priests go on giving you solutions for those problems. They are the culprits and they pretend to be the physicians also.

So go and help people there - and become more and more attuned to your own being.

[The sannyasin says: I always feel guilty because I am afraid whenever I do something that it will be wrong. I try to control myself.... ] You need a little discipline - the discipline of uncontrol. You need a little more freedom for yourself.

... That will go. Once you have become my sannyasin you cannot remain in this hell for long. I have already started pulling you out of it. Just meditate and become a little more courageous.

This is nothing but a sort of cowardice. Cowardice controls people. Control is a beautiful name for cowardice; you hide cowardice behind the label of control. Never hide it. If you are a coward, you are a coward. But there is no need for control - because that can become so beautiful that one forgets what one is hiding behind it. Everybody is a coward more or less, but I have never seen anybody who is absolutely a coward, so a little possibility exists for courage in everybody.

Just take that little part of your courage and start using it. Move with it, make friends with it. Fall in love, fool around. Do things that you always wanted to do but your guilt wouldn't allow you to. Before you get rid of all these things, you have to do everything. The way to heaven goes through hell, and virtue comes only when one has passed through sin. Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Continue to meditate and whenever you can come, come back!

[A sannyasin says: I'm going back to Bombay tomorrow. I just wanted to ask you about my meditation. I've been doing the Gourishankar followed by a hot and cold bath as you told me to do. I feel to do meditation but I have this problem that my whole body starts throbbing.

If I don't meditate, the whole Bombay scene and work gets too heavy for me. And I don 't seem to be able to sleep very well.] Drop Gourishankar. Start another meditation. And many times meditations have to be changed, because the body, the mind, go on changing. So sometimes one meditation helps, sometimes another. One has to be very much aware, otherwise one can get attached to meditation too. When something becomes uneasy, there is no need to carry on with it. Never be a masochist; don't torture yourself in any name whatsoever. People have tortured themselves very much in the name of religion, and the name is so beautiful that you can go on torturing yourself.

So remember - I teach happiness, not torture! If you feel sometimes that something is becoming heavy, becoming rough going, just tell me - it has to be changed. You will have to change many times. By and by you will come to a point where no change will be needed. Then something will fit absolutely - not only with your mind, with your body, but with your soul.

Now it is a very complicated thing. Sometimes something fits with the soul, does not fit with the body. Sometimes something fits with the mind, does not fit with the soul. It is complicated because there are three layers of your being. If it were a question of one layer, there would be no problem - one thing would fit. But there are three demands and on different levels and different planes. So it may be fitting your mind - as I see, it fits with your mind, so you feel good and Bombay does not bother you. But it doesn't fit with your body so the body starts getting into trouble. Then again if the body is in trouble, the mind will be in trouble. So you choose one thing to avoid one problem; another problem arises out of your choice. So change it. Start one simple meditation.

[Osho said that he could do the meditation sitting in a chair, or in whatsoever position was comfortable; comfort should be the prime consideration, otherwise trouble is created for the body.

Lights should be dim so there is no tension for the eyes and breathing should be left completely to fall into its own natural rhythm. Our breathing is affected by many different emotions through the course of a day - sadness, anger, happiness. In this meditation it should be just natural - not particularly with an effort to be deep. Each day there will be a slight variance as one may not have slept so well or something may be happening in the body which affects the rhythm.] Within three, four minutes you will feel that the body has relaxed; the breathing has come into a rhythm. Then with each outgoing breath, simply say, 'Osho' inside; not very loudly - just a whisper, but inside so that you can hear it. When the breath comes in, just wait. When the breath goes out, you call, and when the breath comes out, allow me to come in. Don't do anything - simply wait; so your work is only when the breath goes out.

When the breath goes out, go into the universe. The outgoing breath is almost like dropping a bucket into a well. And when the breath comes in, it is like the bucket being pulled out of the well. This is only for twenty minutes. So four, five minutes to get into it, and then twenty minutes to remain in it.

So in all twenty-five minutes at the ... You can have music, but something classical. Try without it also. In Bombay there is so much traffic noise, but try both ways. Try without music. If you feel good, good. You can try with music also, but the music has to be forgotten. You are not to consciously listen to it, otherwise this meditation won't work. Let it be just a background. It is there, it will be relaxing, but you are not to listen to it. So put on some music that you have listened to many times so you know what it is; there is no curiosity.

Never put on new music, but something that you have listened to thousands of times. You are almost fed up with it, bored with it; you already know what it is. Then it becomes just a background - and that's a good background. Just like incense, music is a good background. But the whole point is that you are not to listen to it.

You can open your eyes after twenty minutes and look at the clock, but have no alarm and don't tell anybody to knock after twenty minutes. That will be very disturbing because you will be in such a deep state of sleep and awakening both. You will be so relaxed that anything sharp can go through you like a knife and can be very disturbing.

[The sannyasin asks: And incense? Use the incense like music - as a background?] Yes, just as a background. It will become a background. Fragrance always becomes a background.

Nobody attentively smells; it is a very unconscious phenomenon. Maybe for the first time when you enter a room, you smell, but after two, three minutes it becomes a background; one settles with it.

The nose is not so nosey, and the mind does not function much from the nose. In fact because the mind cannot function much from the nose, the nose has become almost dull, because the mind doesn't need it; the mind can go on without it very well. So people don't have noses. And don't be deceived by appearances - the nose exists there physically, but the smell capacity is completely lost.

So smell, fragrance, music - everything in the background. Just close your eyes and go into it.

... You can do it anytime. You can do it during the day, in the night. It's no problem.