Darshan 3 November 1976

Deva means divine and arpita means offered - offered to the divine, an offering to God. And that's how life has to be. If it is not an offering one remains miserable. If it is not an offering one can never feel any meaning. Meaning comes only when you are joined together with something bigger than yourself; then suddenly there is meaning. When you are alone you are meaningless. So there is some meaning in love, there is some meaning in prayer, because they relate you, they take you out of your loneliness; they become bridges. An offering to God is the greatest bridge there is. Then you join with the whole, and with that very joining there is transformation. Then you are no more the old self. In fact you are no more the self at all; that privacy disappears. You are no more enclosed - you are simply open, and there is great trust.

The modern man is missing meaning because the modern man has forgotten how to offer himself to something bigger than himself. Many substitutes have been found. Those substitutes are very dangerous. Somebody offers himself to a political party; becomes a communist, or becomes a nazi, a fascist, or something else - that is an effort to find something bigger than himself. But a political party is a political party. It has nothing to do with the eternal; it is very momentary. Then people offer themselves to nations: somebody is offered to India, somebody to the fatherland - Germany - somebody to some motherland, and somebody is offered to some church - christian, mohammedan; but these are just poor substitutes. If one is going to offer, let God be the only altar. Nothing else will be helpful. Let the ultimate be the altar and become just a flower on that altar.

Deva adheera means a tremendous longing for God - a great desire, a very intense desire that one can shake one's whole life for a burning desire for God. It is there - you are not yet aware. It is just there coiled up. Any moment it can uncoil, and then you will see your whole life in an altogether different light The whole past will become meaningless. All that you have alone is not of much worth. Once this desire bursts forth you will have a different meaning and a different direction and a different destiny. Suddenly everything will start fitting together.

As I can see up to now you have not been together. Things have been falling apart. Somehow you go on holding them, but they are not together; the unity is missing. You are not yet an individual - a crowd: one desire going this way and another desire going that way, something pulling down, something pulling up. You are being pulled and pushed in many directions.

I give you this name so that you start being conscious of a deeper layer of your desire, a deeper layer of your being. And once this desire takes possession of you.... And it is almost like a possession, it is almost like a madness. That's why people go on repressing it. To have any dialogue with God one has to be mad. To be mad means that one has to risk one's whole being, one's whole mind. All that one has, one has to put at stake. It is a gambling... one never knows what is going to happen.

Nothing is certain and nothing is predictable, and yet one gathers courage and stakes everything for the unknown.

Just start meditating here, do a few group, and any moment it will come up, surface, and then you will see your life in a totally different context and everything will fall together. Once a great desire arises, all desires simply function as fuel for it. Then they become tributaries - just as a big river comes from the Himalayas and all small rivers just go down and meet with the big river and dissolve themselves.

All small desires are just like small rivers, small streams: they don't have enough energy to reach the ocean by themselves. Hence no desire ever gives you fulfillment because fulfillment is at the last moment. That is when a desire dissolves into God; that is when a river disappears into the ocean.

We are hankering for that ocean of bliss with small desires: somebody for money, somebody for power, somebody for prestige, this and that. But these are tiny desires; they don't have enough energy. They go only so far and then they disappear in the desert They don't have enough power and enough water to reach to the ocean. They need some big river so they can join together with the river.

This desire is going to be your Ganges, your big river. And all small desires have to be sacrificed to it; let them be tributaries.

Do you have something to say? Don't be shy - whatsoever it is!

[The new sannyasin asks about her relationship with her boyfriend: I feel energy there but I don't know which direction it's going - I just don't know. I'm a bit frightened by it.] Mm mm. Let it take its own course; don't try to control it. Just go with it. Whatsoever direction it takes you, explore that direction. Don't inhibit, because once the mind comes in, it corrupts everything.

Sex is pure, love is pure. When the mind comes in it corrupts it. So simply go with it. Accept the invitation and follow it, trust it. It is your energy, so why be afraid? And if you are afraid of sexual energy it will be very difficult not to be afraid of divine energy, because sexual energy is just a fragment of the divine energy. It is a small quantity of the same energy.

The divine is tremendous and the sexual is not tremendous, but one has to move with it - that will teach you the first lesson. It is just as somebody goes to learn swimming: first he learns in shallow water. Once he has gathered confidence and once he has started enjoying swimming, he starts exploring deeper waters. Then he can go anywhere. Sex energy is just like being on the bank in shallow water. You learn how to love, you learn how to pray. If one is stuck there something has

gone wrong. If for his whole life somebody starts swimming and continues just in the shallow water, it is stupid. Nothing is wrong when you are loving, but when you have learned then you go and you explore the unknown.

Sex energy is just a given quantity of divine energy in which you can learn how to swim. When you have learned, then go farther. Move into love. Love is a bigger space and prayer is the biggest space, but the energy is the same. The depth differs but the water is the same. And learn from the very beginning to relax with it The problem is arising because you would like to control it, you would like to guide it. You would like to move the way you want to move, in the direction you want it to move. You want that the mind should remain the manipulator, the dictator.

The mind does not know anything. All that the mind knows is borrowed. And the mind is a very late-comer. Sexual energy has existed for millions of years. It exists in the animals, it exists in the insects, it exists in the birds, it exists in the trees. It has existed in millions of forms, and then it has come to you - to man, to woman. It has such a great experience behind it that it is wiser than the mind.

The mind is just man-made and a very late arrival. It is too corrupted and conditioned by the politicians and the priests. The mind starts playing the game of being the dictator and it wants everything to be according to it. That's what creates misery and neurosis.

Here with me you have to learn the ways of the energy, the way of the body, and you have to unlearn the way of the mind. I am with the body, with energy, with everything - except the mind, because the mind is not in a right state. There comes a state of mind when I am for it. That is thoughtless - when the mind is simple, pure energy itself... just an awareness, just a diffused light, just a witnessing.

Then it is good. But these conditionings of controlling, inhibiting, repressing - these are dangerous.

Because of them many people are in mad-houses, and those who are outside are just outside; otherwise there is not much difference between the inmates and the outsiders.

Simply go with it. Be spontaneous, be natural, mm? Rather than being a modern woman, be Eve - as if you have come into the world for the first time and you don't know what is what, so you have to explore. Begin from the very beginning. So let your man be Adam and you be Eve. Mm? Good!

[A sannyasin asks: Last time you were talking about aloneness, and I was just wondering about what happens when the sex urge comes. What to do?] No, don't make a problem out of it. Aloneness is something which you can carry anywhere and everywhere. Even in a sexual act you can remain alone and you can remain far away - millions of miles away.

[The sannyasin replies: That feels wrong somehow.] No. You just try it. For you it will be tremendously helpful. Don't judge it from the very beginning. Let the body be totally involved. I' m not saying to make the body rigid; let the body be totally involved.

Let the mind be involved, because the sexual urge only reaches up to the mind, not beyond it. It has a body part and a mind part. The body part needs the involvement of the body, certainly. If the body is not involved you will miss the whole point of it. The body has to be involved. If the mind part is not involved the sexual act will be very very dry. It will be like prostitution.

If the mind part is not involved.... That's what the prostitute goes on doing - she keeps the mind away. Just the body is available like a mechanical thing, and she simply keeps herself away from the body. She does not bother what you are doing to the body; she is separate. If the mind part is not involved there will be sex but there will be no love. So let the body be involved, let the mind be involved, but there is still something left - and that is your awareness. It is not the mind - not at all.

It is not the body.

Let that awareness be there - sharp, alert. That has nothing to do with sex and sex has nothing to do with it. Sex does not reach up to that point. Awareness has no sexuality in it; it is neither of man nor of woman. It is simply beyond the gender. In fact it is beyond desire - it simply is . It needs no gratification and it needs no fulfillment, because it is fulfilled. It has no greed; it has no future; it has no time. It is simply there, timeless.

So when I am saying to be away, I mean to be aware. I don't mean don't go into the act whole- heartedly. Go whole-heartedly! Even when you are whole-hearted the awareness is beyond it. Your whole-heartedness simply means the body and the mind. In fact they are not two; it is better to say bodymind rather than saying body and mind. They are one. Let it be involved - let it be totally involved. In fact if the bodymind is totally involved there will be a context In this involvement you can see your aloneness more purified because the contrast will be there. Two opposite polarities will be there. That is the whole message of Tantra, that is the whole meaning of Tantra.

Tantra is not repressive; it does not say to repress sex. It does not preach celibacy or anything like that. It is the sanest approach to life yet evolved. It says to move into sex, to move into anything you want to - there is no problem in it - but just remain alert, remain watchful. And that too has not to become a tense state... very very relaxed.

Just go on seeing what is happening - what the body is doing, what the mind is doing. Not that you have to verbalise it. You are not to evaluate it, you are not to judge it. You are not even to label what it is. Simply go on seeing whatsoever is. You remain with it and yet you remain far away. This experience can grow slowly, slowly. Just think - one day you were a child, then the body changed; you became a young man. But have you changed? Has that awareness inside you changed? It is the same. You may be young, you may be old. You may be ill, you may be healthy, sometimes poor, sometimes rich, sometimes famous, well-known, sometimes thrown into oblivion - nobody bothers about you, sometimes a somebody and sometimes a nobody. But watch - one thing remains constantly the same: it is your awareness. In that awareness you never grow. It is not that when you were a child the awareness was small and when you became older the awareness became a little bigger or became more grown up - no. The body has grown up, the mind has grown up, but the awareness is just the same. It never grows... it never accumulates anything.

When you become old, the mind becomes even more burdened with experience. The body will get tired but the awareness will still remain fresh and the same. Even when you are dying, if you have learned how to be aware, only the body will die, only the mind will disappear, but the awareness will still be there. You will see your own mind and body disappearing like smoke.

Everything changes... everything is in flux. Only one thing remains, and that one thing is you. The Upanishads say, 'That art thou.'

In life everything is changing each moment; nothing remains the same. Every day life goes on slipping out of your hands just like the flicking numbers of a gasoline pump. Days after days, nights, days, months, years, and if you trust the eastern sage, he says that lives also have just been running out of your hands. But one thing has remained always the same - that's you. And when I say you remain alert, I don't mean the mind, I don't mean the body. I simply mean you: this unchanging, this eternal... this is what we call atma - the real self So always remain alone there - and that aloneness has to be tasted more and more. Through that aloneness you will become able by and by to forget about sex. I' m not saying forget about it; it happens on its own. So I'm not creating any problem for you. By and by you will see the futility of it, the whole ridiculousness of it, and you will get out of it. Not that you will have to do anything for it. Suddenly one day you will find that it doesn't interest you. And when it doesn't interest you, it doesn't happen like a sadness - it happens like a freedom. You feel as if you are out of the prison for the first time.

[The sannyasin says, about the box Osho had previously given him: And a strange thing happened to it. I was meditating once, and at the end of the meditation, I suddenly had an urge to get the box and open it, and it was empty (laughter). There was nothing in it!] Mm! That's how it has to be. That's what my whole effort is here - that one day you open yourself and you find that you are empty. That's perfectly good. It has become a great satori for you! Good.

But it is not empty. Look again! It is not empty. The word 'empty' is not the right word. It gives the idea as if there is nothing. But nothing too is, and in fact nothing is more existential than anything else.

The whole cosmos has come out of nothing, and the whole cosmos disappears one day into nothingness. Nothingness seems to be the source of all. So you look again, mm? Good, [A visitor says he is not sure about sannyas: I read your books at home, and was very delighted.

I saw that it had something for me. And then I came here. And now I'm enjoying very much your lectures every morning, and I'm enjoying the meditation, but I don't think that I want to change my life the way that you suggest, because I'm content with my life as it is.] Mm. There is no need then... there is no need. If you are really content with your life, there is no need. But think again about whether you are really contented, because sometimes with just the fear of change you start creating an illusion of contentment. Just the fear of going into the unknown and you think, 'I am better with the known, so what is the point?' It may be just an escape from the unknown. If you are really contented, there is no need at all. But just think over it: are you really contented? Is it not some type of escape, a rationalisation? You may be afraid of the unknown, of the unknown way of life that sannyas is.

And nobody knows what sannyas is - not even l! It is just pushing you into the unknown, into an insecure way of life. It is a quantum leap. It is a jump into the darkness of the night. But it makes you tremendously free. I don't know where your freedom will lead you because I don't know what you are going to do with that freedom - nobody can say anything about it. If something can be said about freedom, it is not freedom. Nothing can be said about it. We can hope for the best, but nothing can be said about it.

Sannyas is just a gesture that you would like to move in some new way, in new styles, in new spaces, in new places within you. You don't know where to go, so here is a man who says, 'I have been to some tremendously spacious places - come with me! ' It is a trust. And when there is trust, doubt always arises. When there is no question of trust, there is no question of doubt. Doubt arises only when you have to trust. So doubt is just reasonable. Nothing is wrong in it... natural.

And I know you are going to become a sannyasin. You cannot remain without becoming a sannyasin.

Whether you doubt or not, it is irrelevant. I can see a person who is going to become a sannyasin.

So think about it, meditate about it, but don't make it a problem. If you don't become a sannyasin, nothing is wrong, mm? You are accepted as you are. Meditate, do a few groups here, and listen to me, and just be with me. Sannyas is going to happen, so it will happen.

If you want it to happen right now, it can happen - that will be helpful in a way. It will not create any trouble for you then. Then there will be no doubt. Mm? once finished, finished (Michael laughs). If you want to continue doubting, you can continue.

... The more you doubt, the sooner trust will arise. Be finished with it - it is better to finish it. And I will find a name and wait for you (laughter). Good!

[A couple, who are representatives from EST say they have enjoyed Osho's lectures. They ask Osho if he has a message for Werner Erhardt, the founder of EST.] Just tell him that I love him!

... And EST is doing good work. In fact it is the only movement in the West which is on the right lines. Much more has to be done but the direction is absolutely correct. Much is still missing, but that is natural.

There are physical barriers, there are mental barriers. There are many therapies in the West which concentrate on the physical barriers: Wilhelm Reich, Rolfing, Bio-energetics and others. It is good work to break the physical barrier but it is not enough. You can break it by deep massage, but if the mind remains the same, the mind will again create the same armature, because it was the mind that created it in the first place. The body follows the mind, it takes its instructions from the mind. The mind is the computer that goes on feeding instructions.

Unless the mind is changed, unless it is completely washed away and renewed, unless there is a psychological breakthrough, the physical work can only help so far. EST work goes deeper because it directly hammers on the psychological barrier. But you can break the barrier for a few moments and there will be a great relaxation and great blessing. One will feel simply weightless, mm? It will be a sort of mini satori. But again the mind will close unless you become established beyond the mind.

These glimpses are good - they give you a view of the Himalayan peak, but the peak is very far away. It is beautiful even to see it when clouds disperse and some day the morning is dear and the sun is rising, and you can see from thousands of miles away Everest standing in its fantastic glory.

In that moment there is a meeting. But again the distance will again be there. And if you go on doing this breaking on the mind, by and by those glimpses will also lose charm. You will become

accustomed to them; they will become ordinary life experiences. Those glimpses are good, but then you have to go beyond them in search of the peak.

EST is doing good work in helping the psychological barrier to dissolve for a few moments, but then something deeper and higher is needed. This is good to give a glimpse to a person - his whole life will never be again the same. But now a problem will arise: a deep urge to know more, to go deeper, to reach to such a state where there is no problem of falling back, to come to a point of no return - and that will create anxiety. That anxiety is also creative. Then people will go on searching for something deeper and higher.

Tell Werner that something more is needed, and urgently needed, before EST becomes established too much. And that's what is happening - it is becoming really established too much. And once it becomes established too much and it has its own vested interest, then it won't bother. It won't bother to go beyond it; it won't take the risk. That has happened to all the religions.

Once something starts working and once something sells, it becomes difficult to bring some new, some unknown direction to the work, because it may disturb the whole thing. When some product is selling you lose interest in innovations. Right now it is still vulnerable, right now the crust has not settled yet.

The man is very intelligent, and I hope that it will not become a dead thing soon... that it will remain alive. He is still searching - that's a good sign.

... Just tell him from me that the work is still psychological. It has not yet reached any point where you can call it spiritual.

... The spiritual is something beyond the psychological. Psychological work can help as a stepping stone but it is not the goal. The goal is beyond the mind... the goal is the no-mind.

[The visitor says that EST helped him to watch himself, to watch his mind.] Whatsoever you are saying is still part of the mind.

... you are watching, and this watcher is part of the mind. The mind is very cunning, very subtle. It can watch - a part of the mind can watch the other parts of the mind working.

And that is the greatest complexity about mind. Many times one can be deceived by it because it almost seems to be the watcher. But in the East we have been working for many centuries. The mind is such a great deceiver that it goes on deceiving you to the very last This is the last deception that the mind can give you: 'Now this is no-mind. You are watching it; now you have become a watcher.' It is almost as if in a dream you dream that you are awake. You can dream in a dream that you are awake - there is no problem in it. And when you awake you recognise that that was just a dream that you were thinking you were awake.

So just tell him this much.... I trust the man's intelligence, and I trust his openness. Only once I became a little... I was surprised when I found that he is interested and impressed by Muktananda; then I was a little surprised. But then there is only one explanation possible. It happens many times

that an intelligent person can become interested in a stupid person because the polar opposite has an attraction. Otherwise - I know Muktananda. I have not seen Werner, but whatsoever I have heard about him and whatsoever I have read about him is tremendously valuable. But knowing Muktananda.... When I came to know that Werner is interested in Muktananda, that was almost a shock to me because Muktananda has nothing.

But it happens sometimes that the polar opposite attracts. It happens many times that very intelligent people can become interested in stupid people.

[The visitor says: It's shocking to me! He married us.] He may have, mm? Stupid people can perform a marriage - that's nothing. Just tell Werner this much - whatsoever I am saying to you. Just tell him this much. Much are the possibilities with his work, and help his work.

And tell him, EST originally does not come from latin; it comes from sanskrit. It comes from a sanskrit root, asti. From sanskrit it has become 'est' in latin.

Asti means it is; is-ness. The english word 'existence' also comes from asti. And the hindi word 'astitva' that means existence - it also comes from asti. Asti is the root of all the words that belong to this category - existence, est. And it is really meaningful. a very significant word. But I' m not aware that he's aware that it comes from sanskrit.

... You just tell him.

But something more is urgently needed. If it is not supplied soon. the pattern will become fixed.

And the pattern has its own ways of getting fixed and solid. It is very difficult - when something succeeds. it is very difficult to prevent it from not getting solidified: it is very difficult.

When something fails there is no problem. When true religion fails, there is no problem. But if anything starts succeeding, immediately problems arise.

But something beyond is needed. And it will be better if he looks to and searches with the zen masters than with indian swamis. He will be on the right track.

[The visitor says: He went to Japan about a year ago and he spent time with a zen master there.] That's good. He should look more in that direction, because indian swamis - and particularly swamis who go on travelling America - are just rotten. So Werner should look more into Zen, and should start searching for something that can give a higher altitude, a second training to EST graduates.

[The visitor says: Tomorrow we're leaving here and we're going to visit with Muktananda... He married us in America, and we're going to visit with him.] You go. And when you need a divorce, come to me!

... Because I am more interested in divorce than in marriage - because I am more interested in freedom than in imprisoning people.

Marriage is a murder of love, but indian swamis are very interested. Immediately they see one man and woman together they are ready to.... Because they cannot tolerate that without marrying each other you are making love to each other, or being together. It is difficult for them. They are very sex-obsessed, very antagonistic to life and love. So whenever you feel that you would like to be free, I can divorce you.

When love becomes duty, it becomes ugly. If you have to hug your wife because she is your wife, all beauty is gone. You have reduced something divine to something very ugly, earthly. It is a crime.

Yes, marriage is a crime. And in a better world marriage will disappear - and with marriage many other things: many neuroses, many psychological problems. And with marriage will disappear the family. Go and ask the psychotherapist - all those who are suffering are suffering because of a certain pattern of the family. It has to go.

But nothing to worry about If he has married you, don't take it too seriously. Remain unmarried.

Don't say it to anybody - no need - (laughter) but remain unmarried. Mm? Good, and come back again for a longer time!