Darshan 31 October 1976

This will be your name... and to explain this a few things have to be understood. There has been a perennial debate down the centuries about man's being - whether man comes into the world with an essence or just comes without any essence and accumulates essence through actions, through lifestyles, through experience... whether man comes like a seed or comes empty. The seed has the whole tree existing in it already - it may not be visible but in essence the whole tree exists in the seed. The growth of the tree is not something new. It was already there - it is simply unfolding. The seed unfolds its essence and becomes existential. So essence precedes existence - that has been one school of thinkers.

There is another school - and very prominent in the modern world: the school of the existence, existentialists. They say that man comes as an existence, with no essence; existence precedes essence. Man is not born like a seed. He comes hollow, empty. You have to create your own essence. Man comes without a soul, and the soul has to be created by doing. Your action will give you your soul - not that you already have it I am giving you a name: Swami Deva Mahasatva. Deva means divine and mahasatva means the great essence. All the religions of the world belong to the first school - that man is born like a seed.

And that seems to be scientific too. The existentialist's attitude has a flair to it looks more intriguing, more interesting, but is not true. Life is an unfolding. If you don't obstruct its way, the seed will culminate into a flowering, but the flowers always existed in the seed.

Now there are even scientific proofs about it. You may have heard about kirlian photography in Soviet Russia. Now very sensitive films exist which can take a photograph of a seed - but not only the seed: the sprout which is not yet in existence is also photographed. They can photograph a bud, and not only the bud but the possible flower which is going to happen after a few days or a few hours is also photographed. But the sensitive plate can take it even before that. When it becomes visible to

the eyes - the aura around the flower - the energy around the flower can be photographed. Before the actual petals open there is an opening of the energy. The energy petals open first - they make the way - and then the actual petals follow it.

There is a possibility that some day you will be able to photograph a small child and you can see how he will be when he is a young boy, how he will be when he is old... because life is an unfoldment.

Mahasatva means the great essence that we are carrying within ourselves - divine, great essence.

Deva means divine and mahasatva means the great essence. It is a responsibility, a great trust God has trusted you with a treasure that you have to unfold. The only sin in life is if you don't unfold your destiny. If you die like a seed, how will you stand before God? How will you answer Him? You will be totally ashamed that the opportunity was given to you but you could not fulfill it You got distracted...

you got entangled too much in side tracks and you lost your real destiny.

In the East we say, 'Unless you unfold, you will not be allowed to enter into the other world You will be thrown back again and again into this world.' It is almost as when a student goes to the school and fails: he is to go again into the same class, pass through the same course, the same training.

If he fails again he has to go to the same dass again. Many people are stuck that way. For many lives they have been men and they have not crossed the class. It has to be transcended. That's the responsibility of being a man.

You cannot condemn a dog, you cannot make a dog feel ashamed. You cannot say, 'You are not fulfilling your destiny,' because consciousness is not yet there, so responsibility is not possible. Man is responsible because he is conscious. He cannot be allowed to be frivolous. He cannot be allowed to continuously distract and entertain himself in futile pathways.

I give you this name so that it becomes a constant pinching arrow in your heart and goes on giving you pain unless you really unfold. So this name is your destiny, your path, your self-remembrance.

[The new sannyasin says: I started as a behavioural therapist... I got fed up with the behaviourism...

so I just did what I thought was right... Relaxation exercises, Psychodrama.] That's better - continue. And when you come next time, go through all the therapies here. Then try to develop something of your own. You have the potential.

And this is my understanding - that any technique developed by anybody else cannot make you a real therapist. You can borrow it, but it is almost as if somebody is copying a painting of Picasso.

You can copy it - you can copy it perfectly well. You can be such a perfectionist that even the original may look a little faulty compared to the carbon copy, but then too the carbon copy is a carbon copy and there is no life in it. Truth has always to be discovered - you cannot borrow it.

That's why it happens that when somebody invents, discovers a technique, in the hands of that man the technique has a magic. For example, Gestalt therapy: it was a magical thing in the hands of Fritz Perls... a really magical thing. The magic comes from the discovery, because the man and his technique are not two things. He has grown up with the method. The method is almost like blood and bones. It is part of him; the method is not separate. The originator has grown, and the method has grown out of so many life situations, observations - pain and suffering and pleasure. It has

grown; it has seasoned through experiences. It is not a hot-house plant. It has really grown in the rains, in the hot sun, in the winter, in the cold, in the snow, it has grown. It has encountered life, and out of that total encounter, it has a conclusion. The same is true about Psychodrama: to Moreno it was an insight. The same is true about Psychoanalysis: to Freud, it was his own experience. It was something authentic that was rooted in him. It is true about everything.

Now a problem arises. When a method has been successful - Gestalt has succeeded and it has been helping many people - many other people will start imitating it, they will start borrowing. It will not be in their being. It will not be connected to their roots. Their own core will remain aloof. Then the magic is lost. This is something very significant to be understood. People are surprised at what has happened and why it used to work.

For example, Mesmerism worked tremendously in the hands of Mesmer. It was his life work. And once Mesmer was gone, Mesmerism was gone. Many people tried - it became very ordinary. It had no miraculous power in it. It lost its spirit... just a dead corpse. Then people start condemning it because it didn't work any more. It happened like that with Freud's Psychoanalysis. By and by it has become antique, by and by it has become a museum piece. People talk about it, people read about it - now it is academic. But the charm, the thrill, the sense of discovery is no more there - cannot be there.

Always remember it. Each therapist, if he is really a therapist, has to develop his own technique, his own methodology, his own philosophy, his own view. Learn from everybody - nothing is wrong in learning - but never depend on that learning alone. Otherwise you will always go on missing something. It has to be your life work, and it has to have your total energy in it, flowing. That is possible only when it is your own growth.

For example, it is almost like this: a woman is barren but she can have a child, she can adopt one.

She can pour all her love into it but still the child is not hen. At the most she can become a very good nurse but she will never become a mother, because the mother is born only when the child is born. Those two things are two aspects of the same coin, two sides of the same coin. When a child is born, it is not only the child that is born; the mother is also born. On one side the child, on another side, the ordinary woman is no more an ordinary woman - she has become a creative force.

She is now a mother. She was a woman, but passing through those nine months - the discomfort, the inconvenience, the pain, the dreams, the struggle, the future, the insecurity, the anguish, and the constant apprehension of whether this child is going to be worthwhile, whether this child will be really worth having, and then the pain of birth, and then the birth.... This whole process is involved; then a mother is born.

Before you can feel a deep connection with the child, an inner connection with the child, a physical connection is needed. It is a must. You can adopt a child and you can show all the love that you are able, but something will be missing. The same happens with techniques. When a technique is born and you father it and you mother it, it is your own child; it is your own continuity. It is your own expression... it is your own poem that has come out of your being, and there is fulfillment People are not helped by the techniques as such, in fact. People are more helped by the therapist.

When the therapist is fulfilled and infinitely confident about himself, his confidence becomes catching. His own thrill and sensation catches the patient too. Just seeing the therapist so happy

and his eyes glowing with discovery, his hand having a touch of confidence, and his knowing where he is moving and what he is doing, the patient is at rest; he can trust. And out of that trust he is helped. It is not therapy that heals - it is the therapist, the personal contact of the therapist that heals. But that is possible only when you have your own child. Mm? otherwise you yourself are wavering.

When you come to a patient you think about how to help him: whether gestalt will be helpful, whether psychodrama will be helpful, whether jungian or freudian or adlerian techniques will be helpful. You are wavering - you are not certain. You are not certain about yourself. Your uncertainty will become a barrier. You are not growing, you are not streaming, and this patient is at the most a duty: you have to do it But when you have discovered something it is almost a love affair. It is worship, it is prayer. You will feel grateful to the patient that he had come to you. So that's what I suggest.

Continue whatsoever you are doing, learn from everywhere, then when you come next time go through all the groups here. Then meditate and start working as if you don't know anything. Learn everything and then forget it; don't try to carry it. Learn everything and then forget it. Then reach the patient, empty, meditative, loving, and let things happen on their own accord. Within a few years you will be able to develop something of your own. That will be a fulfillment to you and a great blessing to your patents. Mm? Good, Mahasatva.

Anand means bliss, and surya means the sun, the source of light And you have to make it a point when the sun is rising early in the morning to just watch it... very early when it is just on the horizon, just for two, three minutes - and that is going to help you tremendously. But never at any other time because then it becomes too hot - just the early rising sun. It has no heat in it; rather it has a very cooling effect on the whole system.

So make it a point to get up early - and in India the morning is the best time. Each country has its own different time. India is the best in the morning, just before sunrise. That time is the most peaceful and the most alive. So just see - just look silently. No need to stare - you can blink your eyes. Just look and see. No need to think about it, no need to verbalise. Don't say, 'It is beautiful.'

Don't say anything at all. Just be there, present, open to the sun, and much will start happening through it. You will feel that something is opening inside you. The sun will become a provocation.

As the sun provokes the buds to open and the birds to sing, it can open the heart also, because we are not different from the trees and we are not different from the birds - we belong to the same earth.

Maybe on a little higher altitude, but we are the same. If the sun can bring song to the birds, why not to man? If the sun can bring life to the trees and the buds start opening and sharing their fragrance with the winds, why not man?

This was very early recognised in India, and surya namaskar - salutations to the sun - became a ritual in India. People go to the river, they take their bath, and wait for the sun to rise on the horizon, and they say hello. The sun is our life source. If the sun dies, all life will disappear from the earth within ten minutes. Within ten minutes, because the light takes ten minutes to reach to the earth.

If the sun dies, it will take only ten minutes for the news to reach to the earth that the sun is dead.

Suddenly all life will immediately disappear. All song, all love, all life will simply stop. The sun is our life... it is our very vitality.

As I see within you there is a tremendous possibility through the sun. So make it a point to get up early while you are here these two months. Find a place by the side of the river somewhere, and just sit there and wall for the sun to come on the horizon. Just go on looking for two, three minutes; at the most, five minutes. If you enjoy it you can be there longer. And join the music group, then the camp, then these two groups, Sahaj and Tao. Good!

[A sannyasin says: For the last five weeks I have been in this relationship with.... I even can't say our 'relationship' because it was nothing static. Every moment was new. We could unlock on many levels yet. So it's a whole new thing for me.] Very good. There are many levels. The body is not all, and sexuality is just the beginning of a relationship. But many people end there, and many people never come to know that there are deeper meetings, communications, communions. Many people never know what it is when two hearts meet. People don't know even what it is when two minds meet. And when two vitalities meet and two persons meet, there is a point where two selves simply dissolve into each other and nobody knows who is who. The man becomes the woman, the woman becomes the man. Then there is something of the unknown. Love almost becomes prayer.

But many people end with the body. It is very unfortunate. It is almost as if somebody is carrying a flute - and just carrying it. He has no idea what it is meant for. He never sings through it. He does not know even that it is meant for a song, does not know that it can create beautiful music... does not know that this ordinary hollow bamboo can become the passage of a tremendously beautiful melody. He is not aware at all. He goes on carrying it.

There is an old sufi fable. In a very ancient family there was some organ, some musical organ, but people had completely forgotten how to play it. Generations came and people even forgot that it was a musical organ. It was gathering dust. It was a very big organ and it was taking up much space.

One day the family decided to throw this nonsense. What was it for? Nobody could answer. It was a nuisance because somebody - the cat - would jump on it and there would be noise. Sometimes the rats would run over it and there would be noise - sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes children would start playing with it and there would be noise. They said, 'This is just a nuisance.

Why should we keep it?' They took it out; they threw it on the road. They had just reached home when a beggar started playing upon the organ.

Time stopped. They simply turned. The whole traffic stopped, people came rushing from their houses; they forgot everything. For one hour the beggar was playing on it. It was so beautiful, so enchanting - they were just hypnotised. And when the music ended the family demanded their organ back.

The beggar said, 'It is not yours, because a musical instrument belongs to one who can play with it.

There is no other ownership. It may have remained in your house for many centuries but it doesn't belong to you. You are not worthy of it. I am the owner!' And of course the whole crowd agreed with the beggar - that he was the owner - because what does one mean by ownership? A musical instrument belongs to one who can play with it.

And that's how it is: life belongs to those who can go deeper and deeper and deeper into it. Many people are simply carrying musical instruments like burdens. Their body is a burden, their mind is a

burden. About the heart they know only the word; they have never come across it. Beyond the heart they simply think is death and nothing else.

Love can open many doors. If love is there it always opens many doors. So when one is in love one should be as open as possible, as unafraid as possible, so that love, the arrow of love, can penetrate one very deeply, and can touch layers which have never been touched before. Very good.