Darshan 5 November 1976

Deva means divine, natya means drama - a divine drama. And that's what life is. It should not be taken seriously. The moment you take it seriously, you miss. It is a drama. Taken as a drama it is tremendously beautiful. One has nothing to lose in it and nothing to gain; it is simply fun.

And once you start looking at life as fun, as humour, as joy, as play, all worries disappear on their own accord; all problems by and by become irrelevant. Because whenever there is a wound of seriousness surrounding that wound, problems, anxieties, worries collect. They feed on the wound of seriousness. Whenever that wound is healed, when one has forgotten all seriousness in life, one lives in a totally different way. Then life is sheer joy.

With seriousness one gets entangled in knots. The pure flow of life is lost. Any moment that you become serious, suddenly you are out of tune with God. Laughing, you are with God, and God is with you. Serious, you are a thousand miles away from God. One thing is certain - God is not serious; otherwise, so many flowers, so many stars, and so much joy in the world would not be possible. God is not like some serious headmaster in an old type of school. He is very joyful... there is so much laughter. Only man has forgotten that.

And priests have created such stupid ideologies that they make man more and more serious. They talk more about sin than about joy. They talk about hell, they talk about fear; they talk of going wrong.

They create so many problems that one is bound to become serious. Each step is dangerous with the priests. They don't allow fun, they don't allow laughter, because if you can laugh you will start laughing at the priest too - that's the fear. He can exploit you only when you are serious.

When life is a very serious thing you are available to all sorts of exploitation. Let fun loose in the world and there will be no politician and no priest to exploit you because who will bother about them?

In the East this has been one of the greatest insights into life - that life is a leela, a drama, a play.

So from this moment, start looking at life as a game. Whatsoever it brings, it is beautiful. Even sometimes pain, if taken nonseriously, is beautiful. And if you take even pleasure seriously, it is no more beautiful. Seriousness is as if your soul becomes a dosed fist it cannot hold anything. It is so closed and there is so much tension. It is not a healthy hand. When the fist is there the hand is very tense and very unhealthy. An open hand is wholesome, healthy, alive, flowing.

So when one is serious all the petals close - one becomes like a fist. Good if you are going to fight - then the fist is needed. Good if you are angry - then the fist is needed. Good if you are going to murder somebody - then the fist is needed. But when you murder somebody, even before you have thought about it, you have started murdering yourself. When you think of poisoning somebody, you have already poisoned your life stream. Your anger will go on the other later - first it poisons you.

So be like an open hand, with no tension.

If pain comes, that is part of it. If pleasure comes, that too is good. And always remember that it is a drama, and that everything comes and goes. Nothing remains - only the watcher... only you remain. The nights come and the days come, and sadness and happiness and unhappiness, and sometimes high and sometimes low, but all these things come and go. Nothing abides.

[Osho recounted the story of the emperor who asked his wisemen to find him a maxim that he could refer to at ail times. They pondered and brooded for days and nights on end until finally they presented him with a ring, on which was inscribed the words 'This too will pass'.

See 'Get Out Of Your Own Way,' April 12th where Osho tells the story in detail.] So let this message be inscribed on your heart This too will pass. Then nothing is serious; everything is passing. Only the watcher remains. And I can see the possibility, that's why I am giving you this name - you can do it very easily! It will come very naturally to you.

Anand means bliss, and manjusha means a treasure chest - a treasure chest of bliss, a treasure of bliss. And it has a certain message for you. Ordinarily we are always seeking, thinking that something is going to happen from the outside. We are waiting for something to come and enter us and fulfill us. That's where man is wrong. It is not like that - that something is going to come from the outside, in. Just the reverse is the reality: something is waiting inside you, imprisoned inside you, and wants to be released, wants to get out.

This is the meaning of your name - that the treasure is within. Not that it has to come from the outside, not that you have to invite it - it is already there. You have to learn how to share it. You have to learn how to bring it into your life so it does not remain hidden in the core but comes to the surface too. It is just like a flower it opens and the fragrance is released. It does not come from somewhere else. It was always there hiding inside it. Once it opens, it is released.

In Robert Browning's very famous poem there is a sentence with these words, 'the imprisoned splendour'....

"Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whatever you may believe.

There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fullness; and around, Wail upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, dear perception - which is truth.

A baffling and perverting carnal mesh

Binds it, and makes ali error; and to know

Rather consists in opening out a way.

Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,

Than in effecting entry for a light

Supposed to be without."

Robert Browning

Everybody is carrying his own splendour imprisoned inside himself. So barriers have to be removed - not that something has to enter in you. Barriers have to be removed so that something that is inside already, flows out - is no more frozen, starts melting... becomes love, becomes compassion, becomes prayer.

Ordinarily whenever we find that somebody is very happy, we think that something has happened to him. It is not really so. It is not that something has happened to him and that's why he is happy.

He is happy because he has come to his own treasure - which was always there - and now he has become capable of, and courageous enough, to share it with others. He has opened and flowered.

In the old churches in India they put the weather vane on the church building. Sometimes it points to the north; that does not mean that it forces the wind to flow towards north. It simply indicates that the wind is flowing towards north. It is not the cause of it; it is simply an indicator. Exactly the same is the case when a person is happy. It is simply an indicator that now he has hit upon his own heart, that now he is himself. Happiness is a function of being oneself. Now he is no more a beggar.

Whenever you see somebody with grace, with beauty, with silence, remember - it is not that he has found something; he has simply recovered something, discovered something in himself.

These are the two types of people: one, who goes on rushing into the outside world. Somewhere they think there will be the space which is going to satisfy them. They run in vain and they accumulate more and more misery. And there is the second type - the wise - who never rushes outwards; he rushes in. He looks inwards and finds the treasure there. And everybody is carrying that treasure.

[To a sannyasin, leaving] Keep this (a box) with you and whenever you need me, just put it in your hand. Just make a cup of your hand.

This posture of the hands being like a cup, like a receptacle, is very meaningful. It makes you receptive, it helps you to be receptive. It is one of the old, ancient postures - all Buddhas have tried it. Whenever you are open, or you want to be open, this posture will help. So when you need me just sit in this posture with the box in your hand. With dosed eyes just wait for me - not doing anything, just waiting.

You can call me just two or three times, loudly, 'Osho, Osho, Osho...' Then sit silently and wait.

Be a receptacle, a receiving end. Just as you wait on the phone: you have rung, you wait on the phone. Exactly in that mood simply wait, and within two, three minutes you will see a totally different energy surrounding you, filling your inside... falling into you like rain falls on the earth and goes on penetrating deeper and deeper, and the earth soaks it. But do it only when you need. Don't make it a habit and don't make it a routine, otherwise it does not work that well. Just when you are really in need, helpless, and you don't find any way out in a certain situation - only for those rare critical moments, use it.

Postures are very significant. If people don't make a fetish out of them, they are very significant.

They help to set a trend in your body energy. For example with this posture it is very difficult to be angry. With a fist and with teeth clenched, it is very easy to be angry. When the whole body is relaxed it is very difficult to be aggressive, violent, and it is very easy to be prayerful. So I can see exactly that this is the right posture and the right energy. Whenever you need, dose the room, sit silently, and wait for me, and I will be just as present to you as I am here. And come back in March, mm? Good!

[A sannyasin says: We just wanted to know how to be more open for the joy and for the pain of relationship.] A few things.... One: start being honest, true. Start dropping deception, masks, faces. They have become very very habitual, so unless one deliberately drops them, they are never dropped.

And much pain will come. For example, you are going with her (the woman with him) and you see a beautiful woman and you say to her that you are pulled by this woman and her beauty, a great desire to possess her has arisen in you - not that you are going to possess her, but the desire has arisen. Ordinarily you feel it is better not to say such things to your woman. Even if she catches you red-handed - and she will catch you many times, because your eyes will show.... When you look at another woman who is beautiful and attractive and suddenly a desire arises in you.... And it is unconscious, you cannot do anything right now about it; if it arises, it arises. To do anything is possible only when it has arisen, not before it. But it has arisen, so it has arisen. You can repress it but you cannot do anything else.

Even if the woman catches you, you would like to pretend that no, it was not that - you were looking at something else. Don't be untrue. Then you will be vulnerable to pain. And start by being vulnerable to pain - because everybody wants to be open for pleasure and nobody wants to be open for pain.

And the arithmetic is: if you are open to pain, only then can you be open to pleasure. If you are not open to pain you cannot be open to pleasure. That's why there are so many people in the world,

each hankering for pleasure, and everybody is in pain because they have taken a wrong step from the very beginning.

And let her also be true, allow her truth. Don't force her to repress; allow freedom. By and by you will learn the bitter-sweet taste of it; it is bitter and sweet both. And if you can become available to pain, nobody can prevent you from becoming available to pleasure. You have earned it. By going into pain one earns and learns how to be in pleasure.

So just start opening by and by. And there is no need to do it all of a sudden and too much, mm?

because that can destroy a relationship.

Go in homeopathic doses - slowly. Just show a little part of your real face - not the whole face at a time. By and by let the mask slip, let the mask be loose. And she will also feel very happy by and by, because when you start becoming open, you help her also to become open. It works in a reciprocal way: she becomes open, you become more courageous.

And when this opening brings pain you will see a new quality to pain - a quality that is very refreshing. It is painful and yet cleansing, painful yet worthwhile. It brings something... some integration, some clarity, makes you more aware. Pain always makes people aware. When you consciously go into it and there was every possibility that you could have avoided it.... The woman was not with you and you came home and you told her that a beautiful woman passed on the road and suddenly a great desire arose in you - and you didn't know from where.... Now there was no need - she was not with you; you could have easily avoided it. But it is not good to avoid. When you have given your heart to a woman you have to share everything that arises in your heart. There should not be anything private. Everything should be shared. Pain and pleasure - both should be shared.

This authenticity will bring an intimacy which is not the ordinary intimacy of married couples. They are not intimate - they simply pretend to be intimate. Their intimacy has motives in it. Maybe to pretend to be intimate is good for the children. To pretend to be intimate is good for their own financial affairs, future securities, respectability in the society, but intimacy is not there. It is more a formal thing. It happens always....

You may be fighting with your woman and a friend knocks on the door - suddenly you start smiling.

The mind comes in and everything is going so beautifully, and just a moment before you were ready to kill each other! What happened? This is just a social face. You are not only deceiving the friend - you are deceiving yourself too.

So I am telling you to move into pain. It is arduous, dangerous. One never knows what will happen but one thing is certain - that if you can move into pain, pain will cleanse you of many impurities, of many gross elements in you... will make you more subtle, will make you more aware. And through pain you will become available to pleasure also. When one is ready to suffer pain there is no point in repressing pleasure.

We repress pleasure because we are afraid that if we allow pleasure to have total possession the pain will also come with it. It is its other part - the other aspect of the coin; it will come. So people don't go into pleasure totally. They go very very guardedly. Even while making love people don't

abandon themselves; they remain in control. A subtle control, a remote control, they continue. They keep the button in their hand somewhere. If something goes too far and they are crossing the boundary, they turn it off. But they never go to the very end of it.

The fear is that if you go too much into pleasure you may be entering the forbidden territory of pain - it is there.

So start with pain. And if you can be open in pain.... And if you want some time to cry, cry! Where else will you cry if you cannot cry before your woman? Forget all nonsense that has been taught - that a man never cries. If a man never cries, he is not a man. Either he is inhuman or he is superhuman, but one thing certain: he is not man. Cry sometimes. Share your sorrow, your sadness. Weep like a child. And the same I am saying to your partner - she has to do the same.

And by and by you will see that a great intimacy is arising which has nothing to do with society. And in that intimacy much happiness will happen. You will explode into happiness.

But begin with pain, and always remember that everything has to begin in pain. Meditate together and open your hearts as they are. Sometimes wrong, sometimes rotten, sometimes not worth showing to anybody - but at least to your beloved, you should show. In this way you will also help her to show everything. And when all the cards are open - you are not even hiding a trump card - intimacy arises on its own accord. What is intimacy?

Intimacy is, 'Before you I will be absolutely nude. I will not hide anything.' That's all intimacy is. It is, 'When you are in the room, I will be as if I am alone.' Your presence will not make me repress something. Your presence will not make me change and show something else which is not there. I will be as natural as I am in the bathroom when I am alone! Then there is intimacy.

It is a risk! One never knows what will come out of it. But one thing can be aid, whatsoever comes will be beautiful. If separation comes out of it, it will be beautiful, better, more beautiful than the so-called marriage. If marriage comes out of it, it will be tremendously beautiful.

Whatsoever comes out of intimacy is good, because intimacy is good. Try ... it will be hard....

[A sannyas couple returning from the West said they had trouble with their families and had to marry in order to settle it.] Mm! So nothing to be worried. Marriage is just a joke - nothing to be worried about. Don't take it seriously, mm? Once you start taking marriage seriously, marriage is on the rocks. Take it as just a joke - because nobody can be married. How can one be married? One can be in love - that's natural - but marriage? Nature knows no marriage. It is social and it is an institution, and it is good not to live in an institution. It is one of the ugliest institutions.

So, good that you have done it for the family so that they are happy, but don't you take it seriously otherwise you will become unhappy. Then your parents will be very happy if you become unhappy.

That's what they are trying to do. Love is not accepted because love is very dangerous. People are very worried if two persons are in love and not married; they are worried very much. It should not be a concern at all, but they are worried very much. They cannot believe and they cannot trust.

They cannot allow that you should be happy and without any responsibility; that is the problem.

Deep down the problem is that two persons are happy and without any responsibility. That cannot be allowed. So they have to get married and they have to become responsible and heavy and burdened - then it's okay. Then nobody bothers whether you are happy or not; nobody ever asks.

Once you are married the society is at ease. They have forced you into a prison; now it is up to you to make what you make out of it.

Never take it seriously, because it gets into the mind. The mind is made by the same society, so it gets into the mind. One starts leaning on the other more. One starts taking the other more for granted. One starts behaving more and more like a wife and like a husband - not as two human beings, not as two strangers.

When two strangers are there, it is beautiful... something transpires. When there is a husband and a wife, two mummies, two dead things are there. Nothing transpires between a husband and a wife except conflict. So beware! Keep your happiness, and keep your freedom. And it has been just to satisfy your parents, so good. But you should not take it in any way into your mind.

[A sannyasin said he found the vipassana group helped him to see himself. He then said: I have real trouble with is my sexuality. In the West you go out, be aggressive. Here I find I'm afraid to be aggressive, but sitting with my sexuality is very uncomfortable. I don't know how to balance that.] Mm mm. Accept that too, very naturally. There is no need to be aggressive, but one can take initiative without being aggressive. One can be very soft in approach. But accept it, don't repress it. Then it will go. It is going to go one day, but if you repress it it may continue for a long time.

So no need to repress it. When things ripen, they disappear, so never be in a hurry. You can find some friendship, some woman, some love affair, but even in your love affair remain cool and collected, remain calm; don't become feverish. You will enjoy it more and you will gain more out of your sexuality, because when you become aggressive much of your sex energy is being wasted in aggression. It is the same energy.

When you chase a woman it is the same energy that you are chasing with. So it happens many times that if you chase too long, by the time you reach the woman you are finished. You are no more really interested by the time you get her, because it is the same energy! The very chasing is sexual.

So be soft but take initiative. Move very slowly, move very meditatively. When you are going to make an approach to a woman, remember Vipassana: go very slowly, breathe very softly. And you will find a better woman, always, because you find the same type as you are. Wherever you are, you will find the same type of woman willing to go with you.

And women are very very intuitive; they live by hunches. And in fact they don't go with you - they go with your energy. So the higher the energy, the better woman you will find. The lower the energy, the worse woman you will find. And there are many people who go on seeking: somebody seeks a perfect husband and somebody tries to seek a perfect wife; it is not possible. You be perfect, and then suddenly one day the perfect woman is there, or the perfect man is there, because it is your being that attracts. But I am not saying that you simply close your eyes and sit under a bodhi tree.

Make approaches; right now there is no need to sit under a bodhi tree. One day you can sit under a bodhi tree. Right now if you sit, you will be sitting on a repression and that energy will accumulate and will distract you.

So sex is natural, healthy. It disappears one day; then too it is healthy and natural. But one thing add to it: don't be aggressive. Be very soft in your approach. Be delicate, that's all. Mm?

[A sannyasin asks: : Two things I'd like to ask. One of them came at the end of the last Soma group.

I found I went very easily and very deeply into the death experience. I just didn't want to come back.

When I did come back, I felt a lot of frustration And then afterwards I had hepatitis. There were times I felt I just really wanted to be dead It was really strong.] Mm. It happens if you go into death meditation very deeply for the first time. The charm is so much and the pull is so great and the silence and the peace that comes is such that one doesn't want to come back. . But one has to come back. And you are not ready yet to go deeper than you want.

One can go only to a certain extent. When your capacity grows more you will be able to go deeper.

And death is an endless abyss so one can go on and on. But you have tasted something of it; that very taste can create trouble. When you come back you feel frustrated because it was so beautiful and you were going so deep - now you are back again.

And the desire to die may have created your illness. If you start desiring death you will not be able to go again into that same depth because desire will disturb.

These are the problems in meditation: when you go deep, a desire arises to go to the same depth again or even deeper. But now the desire is a new element. It was not there when you went for the first time. You were not aware at all of where you were going. You were simply going into the unknown with no desire... at the most an enquiry, exploring, not knowing where you are going and what is going to happen - good or bad. But then the experience was so beautiful that it has created a desire in you. That desire is wrong because it can be very dangerous to health and it is not helpful to meditation. If you go into that death experience again you will not be able to go to the same depth because this desire will constantly be there.

Death can be deep only when there is no desire. To be absolutely desireless is to be in nirvana, to be in total death.

But now this desire has to be understood. Otherwise you will create two types of trouble. The trouble will be that you will not be able to enter deeply into meditation. Another trouble will be that your body will lose aliveness, resistance, because when one starts thinking of dying the body starts cooperating with that death desire. The body is such a great servant - it simply follows you.

If you really think you want to die, immediately the body can stop working, because what is the point?

The body is alive because you want to be alive. It is your energy that the body lives by; it has no other energy. If you are withdrawing yourself and retiring and you think that there is no need.... This happens to retired people: they all die before their natural death. A person becomes retired. He may have been a president of a great corporation or a mayor or a prime minister, governor of this and that, or anybody, but he was somebody in the world - maybe just a foreman, but fifty labourers were working under him. Now he is retired... suddenly life loses meaning. Nobody pays any attention to him. He has no power over anybody. A desire arises because what is the point? Why go on? Better to die and be finished with it all.

Psychologists ay that life becomes shorter by at least ten years when a person is retired. If the person was going to live to ninety years, he will live eighty years. And sometimes it has happened

that if a great desire arises to die, you can simply stop breathing. Not that you will stop; the breathing will stop on its own. And my feeling is that that deep experience created the trouble.

The stomach is the first organ that is affected. If you want to die, the stomach feels, 'It's okay. There is no need. Why bother?' So this is bad for your health. And I am not worried about the body. Even if it is bad for health, and good for the inner journey, I will be ready - let it be so. But it is not good for the inner journey either. So you drop that desire. You will be able to go deeper, but forget about it.

And death is not against life - don't take it that way. You are misinterpreting the whole thing. Death is depth of life... it is a dimension of life. So when you want to die, don't think in terms of being anti-life or that you don't want to live, otherwise who will die? If you don't live, who is going to die?

If life disappears, who is going to go deep in death? It is life that goes deep. Death is just depth to life. Life is just the surface of death, and death is just the depth of life. They are together just like the ocean - on the surface waves and deep down no waves at all, but both are together.

So my suggestion is that you become more alive and more healthy. Be more vital so that next time you go into depth you can dive deeper, otherwise you will not be able. And desire will not help - only energy will help. So create more energy. If you really want to taste what death is, you are longing for a very very deep phenomenon; much energy will be needed. So eat well, breathe well, exercise well, be more vital and alive, and next time you will be able to go deeper. But the experience has been very good.

You followed what I said? Good.

[The sannyasin then asks: Every time I get to the meditation... I feel I want to do music and writing...

start composing.] Allow it... allow it. That's part! Mm? your creativity comes up - that's part of meditation. Meditation makes people creative. If it does not make you creative, it is not meditation; it must be something else. You are being conned and swindled. Meditation is bound to create such creative energy. What will you do when you go into meditation? - because meditation is going into being, but being is not enough. If being were enough there would have been no world. How and why did God create the world? He was not happy with His being alone. Being was there, but He created.

This whole creation is God's being expressing itself. Creativity is expression. Meditation takes you to your being, but then what will you do? It is tremendously beautiful - that space is beautiful - but that very space needs to be shared. So somebody will start dancing, somebody will start composing music, somebody will do poetry, somebody will do painting. And if a man like me comes who cannot do anything, he will go on talking (laughter). But something has to be done. So allow it, mm? Good!